Ahrends, Bruno
geb. 1878 Berlin – 1948 Kapstadt gest.
Bruno Ahrends was born in Berlin as Bruno Arons, the son of a Jewish banking family. After studying architecture in Munich and Berlin, he was active for a few years in Magdeburg and Hanover before he opened his own office in Berlin. During this period he converted to Christianity and changed his biblical surname to Ahrends.
His first work was his own residence in Miquelstraße, a brick building reminiscent of North German country houses. Even afterward, his residences and housing estates in Lichtenberg, Wilmersdorf and Zehlendorf were characterized by a use of forms that was at once both traditional and very modern. Despite Ahrend’s conversion to the Christian faith, the National Socialists considered him a so-called Volljude [technically, a person with three Jewish grandparents]. He immigrated in 1936 to Italy, then in 1939 to England where, unemployed, he lived in impoverished conditions. In 1948 he moved to South Africa where his sons lived, and where he died that same year.
