Adam and Eve House
The Adam and Eve House , Hathumarstrasse 7, is one of the oldest and most richly decorated half-timbered houses in Paderborn . It is also considered to be the oldest surviving town house in Paderstadt and housed the Paderborn " Museum of City History " from 1977 to March 2015 .
Emergence
The three-storey half-timbered gable house, which was built around 1560, is characterized above all by its rich carvings on the friezes of the gable front. The most impressive of the three carved friezes with ornamental and figurative decorations is the lower one, which also gave the house its name. In the classic reading direction, he tells the story of Adam and Eve's fall into sin , which ended with their expulsion from paradise, from left to right . This carving is exemplary of the architecture of the Weser Renaissance and the history of the Reformation at the time of its creation .
In addition to many other cities in Westphalia , the Reformation also reached Paderborn in the first third of the 16th century. However, despite the new belief in house building and facade design, people continued to orientate themselves largely to the forms from the time before the religious split. The following relatively short Protestant phase of Paderborn meant, as in many other Protestant cities, bans on many representations from the pre-Reformation period such as B. Representations of saints. The people of this time (like the builders of the house) used permitted biblical figures such as Adam and Eve as a compromise in the exterior design of their buildings. The Adam and Eve House thus represents the smooth transition from the old, Catholic , faith to the new evangelical creed during the 16th century. It is also exemplary of the compromises that the people of the Renaissance, some of whom adhered to old ideas, made , in Mannerism and in the early baroque period had to go into everyday life. This way of thinking and living is also evident in many other secular and sacred buildings of the 16th century.
Another story
In the centuries following its construction, the Adam and Eve House changed hands several times. When the last private owner could no longer raise the costs necessary for the maintenance of the building, the city of Paderborn started sales negotiations with him in 1971 in order to protect the house from further deterioration. Before the sales negotiations could be completed, a fire broke out in the house and destroyed the roof structure and the rear of the building. However, the facade, which is valuable in terms of art history, was spared the flames.
The purchase contract signed in 1972 included the restoration of the building. In coordination with the State Monuments Office in Münster, it was agreed that the house should be restored in its original form in the 16th century. The repeated additions and modifications that had been made to the building since the 17th century were thus reversed. This required extensive construction work, during which specialists removed the former shop window fixtures and restored the structural shape of the house using timber framework beams. Small-framed windows and an entrance door made of oak based on old models complete the restoration work.
The restored original state now shows the floor plan of a three-aisled building, a four-column house with narrow naves. The most important measure for the external appearance of the house was to expose the friezes of the gable front, which had been painted over several times. The restoration of the facade with its rich decorative elements was carried out by a Paderborn company. The corresponding work on repair and restoration was completed in early 1976. In 1977, to coincide with the city's 1200th anniversary, the “Museum of City History” opened on the first two floors of the building. In 2015 the museum was closed due to conservation deficiencies, the holdings were integrated into the Paderborn City Museum . In 2017, the Adam-und-Eva-Haus / Weinkrüger on Hathumarstrasse was converted for gastronomic purposes.
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Coordinates: 51 ° 43 ′ 15.6 " N , 8 ° 45 ′ 19.1" E