(b Breslau [now Wroclaw, Poland], 4 Feb 1868; d Zehdenick, 21 May 1965). German cabinetmaker and designer. He came from a Mainz family of cabinetmakers who moved to Breslau in 1866. During his apprenticeship in Hamburg, Cologne, Mainz and Berlin he learnt to work in various historical decorative styles. After a period in America (1889–94) working as an independent architect, painter and craftsman, he founded the firm Kimbel & Friederichsen in Berlin in 1897, managing it until its bankruptcy in 1931. He became the leading interior designer among influential aristocratic and upper-middle-class patrons with conservative taste in Berlin soon after 1900. For this reason Jugendstil elements are subordinate in his work, although he was able to adapt his historically orientated designs to the demands of his clients. His most important interior designs were for the Zeughaus (1904–17; interiors destr. 1945) and the Kronprinzenpalais (1906; interiors destr. 1945), Unter den Linden, Berlin, in Renaissance, Empire, Louis XVI and Baroque Revival styles, Schloss Paulinum (1906) at Hirschberg, Silesia (now Jelenia Gora, Poland), in the Gothic and Empire Revival styles, the luxury hotel Adlon (1906–19; destr. 1945), Unter den Linden, Berlin, in the ‘Adam’ and ‘modern’ styles, and the Hotel Eden (1912) in the Kurfürsten-Damm, Berlin, in the ‘modern’ style. He also furnished a number of passenger liners (1922–9) for the Hapag-Lloyd line. For his emphasis on crafts and his concern to treat an entire space in a unified style, Kimbel was indebted to the Arts and Crafts movement.

• Kimbel, Wilhelm
  • Germany, §VI, 4: Furniture, 1770–1895