architect and furniture designer, born 1880, died 1962
In 1906 he moved from Frankfurt to Celle and set up his own business. It was a time of rapid industrialization and economic expansion in the small town in the Lüneburger Heide region of northern Germany. Local biscuit factory owner and urban developer Harry Trüller became a mentor for young Otto Haesler, supporting his efforts to shape the emerging townscape. Haesler designed a large number of modern buildings until forced to flee by the Nazis in 1934. His clean-lined architecture, which developed out of the critique of Jugendstil, was to feature brief reactionary forays into the home-preservation and neo-classical styles. Haesler’s holistic approach was clearly visible as early as 1911 in the Berggartenstrasse housing estate project. Here, he left nothing to chance, even designing the interior decoration and stipulating garden layouts. Pursuing this total design concept in the 1920s, Haesler concentrated on building good but inexpensive housing for ordinary people. His overriding aim was “light, air and sun for all”. He became a pioneer of linear “Zeilenbau” developments and supplied models for a rational housing style purged of all superfluous decoration. This even included a thorough re f o rm of the kitchen, as seen in his Celle “ Versuchshaus” (pilot house) or in Villa Steinberg.