Helmut Hentrich

After graduating from high school, Hentrich initially gave in to his father's urging and began studying law at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg in Breisgau in 1922, but switched to the architecture faculty of the Technische Hochschule in Vienna (now Vienna University of Technology) in 1924 and a year later to the Technische Hochschule Berlin (now Technische Universität Berlin) to study under Hans Poelzig, Heinrich Tessenow and Hermann Jansen.

In 1938, he was represented at the Second German Architecture Exhibition of the National Socialists in the Munich Haus der Kunst with the Reichsautobahn-Rasthof Rhynern.

[1] From 1938 onwards, Hentrich was a member of the working staff of Generalbauinspektor [de] (GBI) for the Reich capital Berlin (among others façade design of the Reich Insurance Office) and was a member of the "Arbeitsstab Wiederaufbauplanung" ("Reconstruction Staff Speer") created on 11 October 1943 for the cities destroyed in the war (among other things.

[2][3] In the final phase of World War II, Hentrich was included by Hitler in the Gottbegnadeten list of the most important architects, which saved him from wartime service.

In the post-war period, Hentrich hit the headlines when the Düsseldorfer Architektenstreit [de], founded by Bernhard Pfau, accused the head of the city planning office, Friedrich Tamms, of favouring formerly high-ranking friends from the staff of the general building inspector - who, in addition to Julius Schulte-Frohlinde, Konstanty Gutschow and Rudolf Wolters, also included Hentrich.

HPP subsequently won numerous competitions and developed into one of the largest architectural firms of the post-war period, specialising in the field of administrative buildings.

In 13 cities in West Germany and South Africa, their large office built a total of more than 40 high-rise buildings.

Two years later, Hentrich and Petschnigg transferred the management of the office to their two partners Hans Joachim Stutz and Rüdiger Thoma.