Uploaded November 2024 | Updated September 2026, 8 hours ago
Hans Strauch, "Rebuilding a Family Name and Place in Berlin"
24 October 2019, 19:00 EST
Lesley University
Washburn Auditorium
Sponsors: Mosse Lectures, Mosse Foundation, Lesley University
Introduction by Janet Steinmayer, President, Lesley University
2019 Strauch-Mosse Visiting Artist Lecture: @-lesley/community-engagement/strauch-mosse-visiting-artist-lectures
The Strauch-Mosse Visiting Artist Lecture Series, funded by Lesley University Chair of the Board Hans Strauch and the Mosse Foundation, brings world-renowned artists to campus.
More than a third of Lesley’s undergraduate and graduate students are engaged in the arts, whether through the university’s art and design, creative writing, community arts, or expressive therapies programs. This visiting artist lecture series serves as a catalyst for artistic and cultural inquiry. It reinforces arts integration across our schools. And best of all—it’s free and open to the public.
Prominent Berlin publishers, philanthropists, and art collectors, the Mosse family became the targets of Nazi anti-Semitism when their flagship newspaper was critical of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists. The family was forced to leave Germany in 1933, leaving behind their grand residence The Mosse Palais and extensive art collection which were confiscated by the Nazis. The Mosse Palais was destroyed by Allied bombings.
In 1998, architect Hans Strauch, a member of the Mosse Family, designed the reincarnation of the former residence, reclaiming the family's place in the center of Berlin and rekindling a family legacy of art and philanthropy. Strauch is Chair of Lesley University Board of Trustees and has endowed the Strauch-Mosse Visiting Artist Lecture Series.
Excerpt from Lesley University story on Hans Strauch's lecture:
"Boston architect resurrects family history in Berlin"
Lesley Trustees Chair Hans Strauch shares remarkable journey and legacy
The Mosse family was all but erased by the time Hans Strauch, a Mosse descendent and founder of Boston’s HDS Architecture, first visited Berlin, Germany.
Both of his parents fled Germany in the wake of Nazi rule and shared little of their experiences with their children, once they resettled in America and rebuilt a new life. “We had no idea the extent of our family history in Berlin,” Strauch, chair of our Board of Trustees, said in a lecture held at Lesley’s Washburn Auditorium.
Part of the Strauch-Mosse Visiting Artist Lecture Series, the Oct. 24 event marked the first time its founder had a chance to speak about the origins of his own family and his work rebuilding the Mosse legacy in Germany.
Exodus and return
Before World War II, patriarch Rudolph Mosse had built a sizable publishing empire. Known for philanthropy, an extensive art collection and the majestic Mosse Palais in Berlin’s Leipziger Platz. But, after the Mosses’ flagship paper, the Berliner Tageblatt, published anti-Hitler sentiments, the Nazis targeted them.
“The Mosse family became a symbol of the hated Jewish press,” said Strauch, who first visited Germany with his brother Roger in 1982.
After the Mosse family fled Germany in 1933, the Nazis auctioned more than 1,000 pieces of the Mosse art collection, and Allied forces attacks destroyed the palais, which was adjacent to Hitler’s Berlin HQ. During the Cold War, the Berlin Wall cut across the Leipziger Platz.
The eventual destruction of the Berlin Wall, however, signaled a new era for the Mosse descendants, whose property was restored in the early 1990s. When developers began making plans to rebuild the iconic buildings along the octagonally shaped Leipziger Platz, Strauch was a natural choice to design the new Mosse Palais, and he did so taking cues from his family history and the city itself.
On walks through East Berlin he saw buildings sprayed with machine gun fire.
“It was as if I was on a stage set,” he recalled.
In the rebuilding process, Strauch admired the city’s efforts to keep its history visible even while moving forward, “giving clues always connecting to the past.”
In designing the Palais, he did the same.
“I felt facing the history of the property would be necessary to inform the design,” explained Strauch, who referenced elements of the original building in his design. He also wanted to make sure the structure represented the present and future of both his family and the redeveloping city, with the design drawing the eye from the ground upward to a crown just above the words Mosse Palais.
Hans Strauch, "Rebuilding a Family Name and Place in Berlin"
24 October 2019, 19:00 EST
Lesley University
Washburn Auditorium
Sponsors: Mosse Lectures, Mosse Foundation, Lesley University
Introduction by Janet Steinmayer, President, Lesley University
2019 Strauch-Mosse Visiting Artist Lecture: @-lesley/community-engagement/strauch-mosse-visiting-artist-lectures
The Strauch-Mosse Visiting Artist Lecture Series, funded by Lesley University Chair of the Board Hans Strauch and the Mosse Foundation, brings world-renowned artists to campus.
More than a third of Lesley’s undergraduate and graduate students are engaged in the arts, whether through the university’s art and design, creative writing, community arts, or expressive therapies programs. This visiting artist lecture series serves as a catalyst for artistic and cultural inquiry. It reinforces arts integration across our schools. And best of all—it’s free and open to the public.
Prominent Berlin publishers, philanthropists, and art collectors, the Mosse family became the targets of Nazi anti-Semitism when their flagship newspaper was critical of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists. The family was forced to leave Germany in 1933, leaving behind their grand residence The Mosse Palais and extensive art collection which were confiscated by the Nazis. The Mosse Palais was destroyed by Allied bombings.
In 1998, architect Hans Strauch, a member of the Mosse Family, designed the reincarnation of the former residence, reclaiming the family's place in the center of Berlin and rekindling a family legacy of art and philanthropy. Strauch is Chair of Lesley University Board of Trustees and has endowed the Strauch-Mosse Visiting Artist Lecture Series.
Excerpt from Lesley University story on Hans Strauch's lecture:
"Boston architect resurrects family history in Berlin"
Lesley Trustees Chair Hans Strauch shares remarkable journey and legacy
The Mosse family was all but erased by the time Hans Strauch, a Mosse descendent and founder of Boston’s HDS Architecture, first visited Berlin, Germany.
Both of his parents fled Germany in the wake of Nazi rule and shared little of their experiences with their children, once they resettled in America and rebuilt a new life. “We had no idea the extent of our family history in Berlin,” Strauch, chair of our Board of Trustees, said in a lecture held at Lesley’s Washburn Auditorium.
Part of the Strauch-Mosse Visiting Artist Lecture Series, the Oct. 24 event marked the first time its founder had a chance to speak about the origins of his own family and his work rebuilding the Mosse legacy in Germany.
Exodus and return
Before World War II, patriarch Rudolph Mosse had built a sizable publishing empire. Known for philanthropy, an extensive art collection and the majestic Mosse Palais in Berlin’s Leipziger Platz. But, after the Mosses’ flagship paper, the Berliner Tageblatt, published anti-Hitler sentiments, the Nazis targeted them.
“The Mosse family became a symbol of the hated Jewish press,” said Strauch, who first visited Germany with his brother Roger in 1982.
After the Mosse family fled Germany in 1933, the Nazis auctioned more than 1,000 pieces of the Mosse art collection, and Allied forces attacks destroyed the palais, which was adjacent to Hitler’s Berlin HQ. During the Cold War, the Berlin Wall cut across the Leipziger Platz.
The eventual destruction of the Berlin Wall, however, signaled a new era for the Mosse descendants, whose property was restored in the early 1990s. When developers began making plans to rebuild the iconic buildings along the octagonally shaped Leipziger Platz, Strauch was a natural choice to design the new Mosse Palais, and he did so taking cues from his family history and the city itself.
On walks through East Berlin he saw buildings sprayed with machine gun fire.
“It was as if I was on a stage set,” he recalled.
In the rebuilding process, Strauch admired the city’s efforts to keep its history visible even while moving forward, “giving clues always connecting to the past.”
In designing the Palais, he did the same.
“I felt facing the history of the property would be necessary to inform the design,” explained Strauch, who referenced elements of the original building in his design. He also wanted to make sure the structure represented the present and future of both his family and the redeveloping city, with the design drawing the eye from the ground upward to a crown just above the words Mosse Palais.
