Otto Piper

Otto Piper (1841–1921) was a German architectural historian who, with August von Cohausen (1812–1896), is regarded as one of the two founders of scientific research into castles.

He attended the grammar school in Neubrandenburg from 1850 to 1862 and passed his Abitur in 1862, coming top of his class.

Soon after the end of the Franco-Prussian War, Piper went to Strasbourg in Alsace where he became the editor of the Niederrheinischen Kurier ("Lower Rhine Courier").

His great rival was Bodo Ebhardt, the other well known German castle researcher at the turn of the century.

Piper accused Ebhardt, for example, of opportunism, when he rebuilt the Kaiser's Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg in Alsace in 1902 and, contrary to his own scientific findings, made several unhistoric changes in order to satisfy the taste of his imperial client.