Hammer-Orgelbau

Hammer-Orgelbau is a German organ-building firm, founded in practice by Philipp Furtwängler, a clockmaker from Elze in the Hanover region. Self-taught as an organ builder, Furtwängler completed his first instrument in 1838. The firm later passed through several generations and changes of name, and eventually took the surname Hammer with the arrival of Adolf Hammer in 1883, the year the business moved to Hanover.

Furtwängler initially worked with slider chests and mechanical tracker action, following J. G. Töpfer's standard scale. Around 1875 the firm built its first Kegellade wind chests, and from 1893 and 1901 onwards it adopted tubular-pneumatic and electro-pneumatic action. In 1907 the first chest with pneumatic exhaust action appeared. Its first organ conceived according to the principles of the Orgelbewegung movement was that of the Marienkirche in Göttingen (1925–1926), and in 1931 it delivered an instrument to Hamburg-Langenhorn with slider chests and mechanical action, a rarity for that generation.

Emil Hammer, Adolf's nephew, led the firm from 1921 and became its sole owner from 1937. After the war the business had to be rebuilt, and it moved premises several times in the surroundings of Hanover. His grandson Christian Eickhoff, who trained with Emil Hammer and at other European workshops, took over the management in 1961.

The largest instrument the firm built was that of the Stadthalle in Hanover, completed in 1914 with four manuals and 124 stops. Among its more recent works are those in Bückeburg (1966), Berlin-Dahlem (1970), Stadthagen (1974) and the church of the St Nicholas monastery in Gdańsk (1977). Many of its technical features are today common in modern Hammer organs.