Background
Hoffmann was born in Geisenheim.
Hoffmann was born in Geisenheim.
In 1830 he was a building assessor in the Nassau Civil Service. As a young architect, his first design for the Neo-Gothic expansion of the Rheingauer Dom in his birthplace of Geisenheim (1834-1838), followed by involvement in the design of the Stadtschloss in Wiesbaden (1837-1841) - he was sent to Pompeii for six months by his architect Georg Moller, where he drew Roman paintings later used as the basis for the Stadtschloss"s interior. These projects gained the attention of William, Duke of Nassau, who promoted him to court architect of Nassau in 1850.
These were followed by the Michelsberg synagogue (1863-1869), the Waterloo Monument on the Luisenplatz (1865) and the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Heilanstalt (1868-1871, now connected to the Stadtschloss).
Hoffmann died, aged 82, in San Remo.