Heinrich Strack

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Johann Heinrich Strack (6 July 1805 – 13 June 1880) was a German architect from the Schinkel school. One of his best-known works is the Berlin Victory Column. He came from an artistic family: his father, Anton Wilhelm Strack, was a painter, and his mother's brother, Johann Heinrich Tischbein, was a famous painter as well.

From 1824 to 1838 he studied at the Bauakademie and the Prussian Academy of Arts. He passed several professional exams, including surveyor (1825), construction manager (1827) and Master Builder (1838), which let him work as an inspector. He helped Karl Friedrich Schinkel by furnishing the Crown Prince’s apartment at the Berliner Schloss and assisted Friedrich August Stüler in renovating the Ordenspalais, forming a lasting friendship with Stüler.

Strack's first independent job was as construction manager for renovating the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais (1829–1830). He worked as a freelance manager and architect from 1832 to 1837. He began teaching at the Prussian Academy in 1839 and became a professor there in 1841. The next year he became a building inspector for the royal court, serving the young Prince Wilhelm. In 1850 he joined the Technical Building Deputation and, in 1854, took over as a professor at the Bauakademie from Stüler. He also taught drawing to Wilhelm’s son Friedrich and joined him on a trip to Italy.

In 1862, during excavations in Athens, Strack and colleagues discovered the Theater of Dionysus near the Acropolis. Three years later he was made a foreign member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and began writing about architecture. He retired in 1876, and Emperor Wilhelm I named him Architect to the Emperor. His tomb in Dorotheenstadt Cemetery was designed by his students Reinhold Persius and Julius Emmerich.