Lotte Beese

1903–1988

Lotte Beese (German, 1903–1988) studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1926 to 1928, working with Wassily Kandinsky, Hannes Meyer, Gunta Stölzl and Paul Klee, and simultaneously experimenting with portrait photography. She was one of the first women to join the Bauhaus department of architecture in 1927 and the first to study with Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer. She continued to work with Meyer after leaving Bauhaus, working at his office in Berlin and later following him to Moscow, where she also worked for Mart Stam, whom she married in 1935. After moving to Stam's hometown Amsterdam, she had her own architectural practice until 1938. She later taught at the Academy of Architecture at the Amsterdam University of the Arts. From 1946 onwards she worked in urban development in Rotterdam, helping with the reconstruction of the city after World War II.