The Faculty of Civil Engineering at the TH Lübeck mourns Dieter-J. flour horn.
Dieter-J. As an architect and urban planner, Mehlhorn was a defining personality in Schleswig-Holstein and beyond for decades. He worked as a teacher and publicist, as a historian of architecture and town planning. In many ways he was committed to high-quality urban development, the architectural heritage and the improvement of planning culture.
Born in Leipzig in 1942, after studying in Braunschweig, Darmstadt and Madrid, Mehlhorn turned to the themes of his life, urban design and the history of urban development, early on. He received his doctorate from the University of Hanover with Cord Meckseper and Friedrich Spengelin Function and importance of visual relationships to structural dominants in the image of the German city (1979).
Prior to his appointment as a professor, Mehlhorn worked in several offices and municipalities on urban renewal, urban design and participatory processes and then remained active in planning as an office partner and consultant. Through his involvement in the regional group of the Association for Urban, Regional and State Planning (SRL), for which he was spokesman for many years, he set the tone for quality planning and building in Schleswig-Holstein.
In addition to his numerous activities, Mehlhorn devoted his life to writing. He is the author of several textbooks and has worked as an architecture publicist in specialist journals such as The old City/forum citythe planner, to the German Architects Journal and the building world. Above all, his reviews will be remembered here, with which he not only enlivened the discourse, but also, as an attentive reader and commentator, also appreciated the work of his colleagues. With his books on the history of architecture in Schleswig-Holstein, Mehlhorn laid the groundwork (to be mentioned here are: Settlements in Schleswig-Holstein in the 1920s (1992), Monasteries and monasteries in Schleswig-Holstein (2007) as well Architecture in Schleswig-Holstein. From the Middle Ages to the present (2016)). With his architectural guides about Kiel (1997, 2010, 2021) and Schleswig Holstein (2020) he communicated historical and contemporary building culture to a broad audience. And with that Urban history of Germany (2012) and the book Urban development between conflagration and monument protection (2012) published publications on the history of urban development that can be considered standard works.
As a teacher, Mehlhorn shaped a whole generation of urban planners and architects in the country. From 1984 to 2007 he worked as a professor for urban development and urban planning in the civil engineering department at the Kiel University of Applied Sciences in Eckernförde. He was director of the Institute for Urban Development and Transport and held the position of Prorector from 1990 to 1993. He supported the work of the Schleswig-Holstein Chamber of Architects and Engineers by participating in various committees and thus acted as an important mediator between universities and the chamber.
And last but not least, Mehlhorn played a key role in the establishment and expansion of an independent urban development and urban planning course in Schleswig-Holstein. Together with his fellow professors Bernhard Stubbenvoll and Achim Laleik, he developed the first independent master’s degree in urban and local planning during the phase of concentrating teaching for construction in Lübeck, which began in 2007. After his retirement in the same year, Mehlhorn supported the TH Lübeck as a lecturer in the history of urban development and was involved in the “Historical City” distance learning course at the University of Lübeck. With the establishment of a bachelor’s degree in urban planning in addition to the master’s program at the TH Lübeck in 2021 and the development of a dedicated focus on the history and culture of urban development as “Lübeck Studies on Urban Development” in the master’s area of the Department of Civil Engineering, Mehlhorn’s impulses were also taken up and anchored.