Robert Schmidt 1869–1934

Schmidt was an early advocate of steering the region’s uncoordinated spatial development in an orderly direction and securing green spaces for the working population. He received ideas for this during his many years of work in the municipal administration of the city of Essen. It familiarized him with developments abroad, especially in the USA and England, which were presented at the three urban planning exhibitions in Berlin, Düsseldorf and London in 1910. His practical, yet always visionary work in the Ruhr region made Schmidt a highly respected authority abroad as well. It was not until two generations later that the first German faculty for spatial planning was founded at the University of Dortmund in 1968. With this, his concern finally found academic recognition.