Friedrich von Schmidt

After studying at the technical high school in Stuttgart under Breymann and Mauch, he became, in 1845, one of the guild workers employed in building Cologne Cathedral, on which he worked for fifteen years.

He also built a school, the Akademisches Gymnasium, with a Gothic facade and the memorial building erected on the site of the amphitheatre that had been destroyed by fire.

In building the parish church in Funfhaus he even ventured to set a facade with two towers in front of an octagonal central structure with a high cupola and a corona of chapels.

He modified the tendency to height in the German Gothic by horizontal members and introduced many modifications into the old standard of the style in the hope of attaining a more agreeable general effect.

He was teacher and model to many younger architects, including Friedrich Grünanger, Frigyes Schulek, Imre Steindl, and Karl Troll.