School buildings

"Completely identical windows of the well-known unattractive ratio, the same shape and same size all round, whether it’s for the school hall or flat, for the kitchen, corridor, privy or attic .... And they [...] are divided beautifully with compasses on the drawing board, not according to the interior’s logical need. [...] this incompetence of thoughtless construction." In 1906, Franz Zell railed against the conventional type of rural school in the 19th century in his article "Schulhaus auf dem Lande" (Schoolhouse in the Countryside) in the Süddeutsche Bauzeitung.

Together with his colleague Franz Xaver Huf (1878-1973), Zell had just completed a village schoolhouse in Failnbach, Lower Bavaria. The two architects also built a school building in Illerzell, Vöhringen in 1913/14.

In 1908 Zell realised his idea of a "schoolhouse in the countryside" in Stein near Aschau in Chiemgau for Theodor Freiherr von Cramer-Klett. In the same year, Zell receives the contract to build a new wood carving school in Oberammergau.

Michaela Thomas