Adolf Wollenberg

Villa Nathan Samuel / Leo Czapski

Adolf Wollenberg (born May 2, 1874 in Breslau ; † around 1950/1951 in London ) was a German architect and art collector. In the first third of the 20th century he designed villas as well as residential and commercial buildings in Berlin, he also planned conversions and advised his clients on interior design. His art collection included paintings by Dutch and Italian baroque artists . As a Jew, he saw no future in Germany at an early stage and went into exile in Paris in 1933 and later to London.

life and work

Youth and education

Adolf Wollenberg was born in 1874 in Breslau as the son of Ludwig Wollenberg and his wife Sofie, née Eliassohn. His older sister Bertha died in 1900 at the age of 27. The younger brother Martin was born in 1876. The family belonged to the Jewish upper middle class and lived at Agnesstrasse No. 1 in the Breslauer Südvorstadt, not far from the New Synagogue on the Anger. A native of Posen grandfather Adolph Wollenberg was a wealthy merchant, the father Ludwig Wollenberg lived as Parikulier from the proceeds of its assets.

Wollenberg finished his school years in 1893 with the Abitur at the Maria Magdalenen High School in Breslau . He then studied architecture at the Royal Technical University of Charlottenburg . During his studies, for example, he designed a mausoleum and a villa in the style of historicism . In 1899 he passed the exam as a government building supervisor and then began his practical study phase. During this time he worked for the architects Alfred Messel - whose assistant he became -, Ernst von Ihne as well as Heinrich Joseph Kayser and Karl von Großheim . In 1902 he finished his studies as a government architect . He initially took up a position in the civil service, but was suspended again in the same year to work as a freelance architect.

Architect in Berlin

Villa Harteneck

In 1903 he opened his own studio for architecture at Potsdamer Platz No. 3 in Berlin. In his early days as a freelance architect, Wollenberg took part in various architecture competitions. In 1903, for example, he submitted a design for the New Town House in Bremen. For the building planned as an extension to the old Bremen town hall from the Renaissance , he designed a facade with a restrained design. In 1904 a design for the New Synagogue in Dessau followed . Here Wollenberg resorted to the rich neo-baroque decor . Both designs were never implemented. Later he no longer tried to carry out major public projects. Nothing is known about Wollenberg's activities in the following years up to 1907. He may have worked for other architecture firms during this time.

After Wollenberg's father died in 1906, he and his mother moved into the house at Bendlerstrasse 36 (today Stauffenbergstrasse ) in Berlin-Tiergarten . In 1908 he moved his office to the nearby house at Sigismundstrasse No. 6. He was a member of various clubs and associations such as the Golf Club Berlin , the Automobile Club of Germany and the noble civil society Resource of 1794 , a ("union point for men of the educated classes, especially of the higher merchant class "). In this environment, Wollenberg established social connections with bankers, industrialists and other business people who were to be among his future clients. The country house built in 1908/1909 for the sculptor Hugo Kaufmann in Berlin-Westend (then Charlottenburg ) was one of Wollenberg's first buildings . In this building, as in the subsequent designs for villas in the Berlin suburbs, Wollenberg oriented himself towards the English country house architecture and the associated reduced formal language, as propagated by Hermann Muthesius in 1904 in his book Das Englische Haus . In the period that followed, Hugo Kaufmann repeatedly supplied figurative architectural decorations for the buildings designed by Wollenberg. In addition, Wollenberg worked with the sculptor Walther Schmarje on other projects . Around the same time, a residential and commercial building was built on Behrenstrasse in the center of Berlin for the banker Wilhelm Schneider . The trade press ( Architektonische Rundschau , Berliner Architekturwelt , Neudeutsche Bauzeitung ) reported in detail about this building project and published exterior and interior views. 1909–1911 the New Kurhaus Dr. Julius Weiler in Berlin-Westend as a sanatorium for the upper classes. The representative building was based on French country houses of the 18th century and had rich architectural decorations with columns and sculptures. Inside, the impression of a hospital was to be avoided, to which the sumptuous furnishings with a wide marble staircase, semicircular winter garden , billiard and library room, dining room as well as music and ladies' salon contributed. The patients either lived in single rooms, some of which already had built-in bathrooms, or stayed in closed apartments with a bedroom, bathroom and a separate salon.

In addition to his work as an architect, Wollenberg worked in the real estate business. Together with the businessman Arthur Heimann, he acquired the buildings in Rankestrasse No. 1 and Kurfürstendamm 237 in Charlottenburg, and together with his brother Martin Wollenberg he bought the property at Sigismundstrasse 1 in Tiergarten. In 1913/1914 Heimann and Wollenberg acquired the buildings at Kurfürstendamm 186 and 187 after they had previously sold the other two properties. In addition, Wollenberg founded the real estate company Neue Berliner Bau- und Boden-Aktiengesellschaft in 1911 , of which he was the main shareholder. Wollenberg had the house in Sigismundstrasse No. 1 demolished and in 1909/1910 built a residential and commercial building for himself on the same spot. His architecture studio moved into the ground floor , above which there were two apartments each extending over two floors. The facade, clad with iron clinkers, was kept deliberately simple and only adorned with a few terracotta reliefs.

The period up to the First World War was part of Wollenberg's particularly active creative phase. For example, he designed a villa based on the classicism style for the banker Nathan Samuel on the property at Bismarckallee No. 22 / Delbrückstraße No. 9 in Berlin-Grunewald . When Samuel died during the construction work, the house was taken over by Leo Czapski, owner of the furniture company Flatow & Priemer , and the construction work was completed as planned. This was followed by the villa for the merchant Carl Harteneck at No. 7 Douglasstrasse , also in Berlin-Grunewald. In addition to the new building, the order also included the interior fittings and the design of the gardens. After the construction work was completed, Wollenberg was also entrusted with the construction of a burial chapel for the Harteneck family on the Stahnsdorf south-west cemetery . Wollenberg designed another villa building for the banker Erich Goldschmidt at Koenigsallee No. 64 in Berlin-Grunewald. Wollenberg also planned the interior of this country house. At the same time, Wollenberg worked on several projects for commercial buildings. For example, he built a new building for the Rudolph Lepke art auction house for the Wolffenberg brothers at Potsdamer Strasse 122a / 122b in Berlin-Tiergarten. On this project, he worked with his colleague Wilhelm Bröker , who took over the technical management, while Wollenberg took care of the artistic design. The building, grouped around two large inner courtyards, was to house administration and exhibition rooms as well as a large hall for the auctions. Another joint project by several architects was the construction of the merchant's house on Halleschen Ufer in Berlin-Kreuzberg . At this prestigious commercial building, Wollenberg took on the design of the facade and provided plans for the interior design. After he had already built the house for Leo Czapski, Wollenberg received the order from him and his son Felix Czapski to build a new office building for their furniture company Flatow & Priemer . The building erected on Viktoriastraße 29 in Berlin-Tiergarten housed several large halls that were intended for the sale of furniture and other furnishings.

On May 21, 1914, Wollenberg married the American Bertha Marcuse. The daughter Ellen was born in 1915 and the daughter Marion in 1917. It is not known whether Wollenberg actively participated in the First World War. In 1919 his mother, who last lived with him, died. In 1920 he divorced his wife.

After the war, Wollenberg initially limited itself - in line with the difficult economic situation - to renovations, extensions and extensions. He received several orders for interior redesign and took care of complete room decorations. For this purpose, he selected wallpaper and panels, procured furniture, carpets and paintings. He often bought antiques for his clients and repeatedly traveled to France, where he had contacts with various art dealers. Since he sometimes stayed in Paris for a long time , he moved into a second home at 5 rue Francisque-Sarcey in the 16th arrondissement , where he and his daughter Ellen were also registered with the police. However, there is no evidence of professional practice as an architect in France.

One of his first projects after the war in Berlin in 1919/1920 was the renovation of the von der Heydt villa in Berlin-Tiergarten. The former villa of the von der Heydt banking family was previously owned by the Allgemeine Deutsche Sportverein e. V. , which, however, did not represent any sporting interests, but behind which an exclusive club for games of chance of various kinds was hidden. In addition to major interventions in the division of the rooms, Wollenberg added an extension and a terrace to the villa. It is possible that Wollenberg got to know the lawyer Max Alsberg in the club rooms , whose villa in Berlin-Grunewald he was also renovating. Wollenberg traveled to Paris with Alsberg to purchase Renaissance and Louis-seize furniture . Further renovations were carried out for the banker Paul Kremper in Berlin-Westend and for the Glogowski family's country house near Stargard , one of the few construction projects in Wollenberg outside of Berlin.

Wollenberg only received orders for the first new buildings after the end of the inflation in 1923. Oskar Weil, owner of the Kahn, Weil & Cie. , commissioned Wollenberg with the construction of a country house at Heerstrasse No. 20 (today Heerstrasse No. 90) in Berlin-Westend. Even before the building was completed, Margarete Huck, wife of doctor Dr. Schramm, the building. The house is located in a large garden laid out by the garden architect Otto Valentin on a small hill. In the facade, Wollenberg did without historicizing elements and chose red brick as the building material and travertine for the base , the corner blocks and the cornice . On the garden side there is a pillared loggia . Even before the construction work on Landhaus Weil / Schramm was completed, Wollenberg began work on the Landhaus for Richard Semmel . The client was a Berlin textile manufacturer who had intended the park-like property at Cecilienallee 19-21 (today Pacelliallee 19-21) in Berlin-Dahlem for his country estate. Wollenberg designed a stately main building with a brightly plastered facade and sandstone corner blocks , with a porch with a balcony facing the street. The property also included a gardener's house with a double garage and private petrol station and a permanent greenhouse . In the park on the back, behind the terrace, there was a green area with a water basin and tennis courts. In 1926/1927, Wollenberg's last projects in Berlin included the renovation of the Gustav Cords textile department store on Kurfürstendamm No. 225/226 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. The project scope included the ground floor and the first floor of the house, while the upper floors remained untouched by the renovation. There was a clearly visible break in the design of the facade in particular. While the upper floors remained in the style of historicism of the 1890s, Wollenberg based the store, which extends over two floors, on the department store architecture of Erich Mendelsohn . Horizontal ribbon windows dominated the facade, the smooth wall surfaces of which were clad with Italian travertine without ornamentation. Inside, an elegantly curved spiral staircase made of fire-gilded wrought iron connected the ground floor with the first floor. Around the spacious staircase there were 16 glass and bronze showcases in a semicircle, from the floor to the ceiling. In addition to the usual shopping counters and shelves, there was a stage on the upper floor on which the mannequins could show off model clothes.

After 1927, there is no evidence of Wollenberg's construction activity in Berlin. By the beginning of the global economic crisis in 1929, at the latest , there was general stagnation in the construction industry, and there was probably hardly any more orders for Wollenberg either. He recognized the impending political changes in Germany early on, and even before the NSDAP became the strongest force in the Reichstag elections, he had his furniture and parts of his art collection auctioned in Berlin in 1932. The foreword to the auction catalog was written by the art historian Max J. Friedländer . After the first laws against Jews were passed, including the Reich Chamber of Culture Act , which meant that Wollenberg practically prohibited an occupation, he sold his house on Berlin's Sigismundstrasse on October 25, 1933 and went into exile in France.

Exile in Paris and London

Wollenberg initially stayed in Paris for a year with a temporary residence permit. In France, too, there were no commissions for him as an architect due to the global economic crisis. In 1934 his lengthy attempt to get a permit to stay in the United Kingdom began. At first he only came in as a tourist and soon commuted between Paris and London, where he and his daughter Ellen moved into an apartment at 105 Hallam Street. However, he was unable to obtain a permanent right of residence before the Second World War.

Despite little knowledge of the English language, he tried to convince the British authorities that he was economically independent and therefore not a burden on the social system. In addition, he tried to establish himself as a businessman in London. Together with Frederick Hauser, a Czech chemist, Wollenberg planned to build prefabricated apartment buildings in the UK. These should not only be cheaper than conventional buildings, but also have better soundproof walls and ceilings. Hauser had already applied for a patent for this process and Wollenberg wanted to supervise the manufacture and installation of the building elements and instruct British architects on site. This project was in complete contrast to the exclusive buildings that Wollenberg had planned to date. A project initially planned for the Peczenik brothers at Wimbledon did not come to fruition. To this end, he and Hauser founded The British Fram Construction Co. Ltd. in Camden Town . founded as a production facility for the prefabricated parts. The company relocated to Whitechurch near Cardiff in Wales in 1935 . This process was later used to build a residential building at 77 Hallam Street, although the extent of Wollenberg's collaboration is unclear.

Another construction project in London was the construction of the new apartment building at 30 Avenue Road in St. John's Wood in the City of Westminster . This building is reminiscent of Wollenberg's designs for country houses in Berlin, although his facade design was based on the English building tradition. The clinker brick facade with brightly framed, rectangular windows has a column porch and a high attic gable roof with a round arched window core. For this building, too, it is not certain whether the design came from Wollenberg alone or whether he designed it together with a partner.

In 1938 Wollenberg moved into an apartment at 23 Hertford Street. In the same year his daughter Marion married the British Wilfried Meynell. Wollenberg had applied for British citizenship on July 17, 1939 , but this was not granted due to the Second World War that began a few weeks later. Through the intercession of friends, Wollenberg avoided internment as a hostile foreigner, as was the case with other Germans living in the UK. His economic situation deteriorated considerably during the war, as his financial reserves were exhausted and he had no access to his paintings, which he had given to various art dealers in Europe on commission . Wollenberg now relied on friends' support and moved into a one-room apartment at 77 South Audley Street at the end of 1943. In 1946, his daughter Ellen emigrated to San Francisco . Wollenberg received British citizenship in 1947 and became a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1948 . For Wollenberg this meant the long-awaited recognition as an architect in the United Kingdom, but had no further impact as he no longer planned any building projects. He died in London around the turn of the year 1950/1951.

Designs and constructions

Country house Erich Goldschmidt

Landhaus Oskar Weil / Dr. Schramm

Country house Richard Semmel

• 1898: Mausoleum (draft, not realized)
• 1898/1899: villa (draft, not realized)
• 1902: People's library (draft, not realized)
• 1903: Town house in Bremen (competition design, not realized)
• 1905: Synagogue in Dessau (competition design, not realized)
• 1908/1909: Wilhelm Schneider residential and commercial building, Behrenstrasse 7, Berlin-Mitte (new building, destroyed)
• 1908/1909: Landhaus Professor Hugo Kaufmann, Rusternallee  33, Berlin-Westend (new building)
• 1909: Martin Altgelt apartment and office building, Berliner Straße (today Otto-Suhr-Allee), Charlottenburg (design, built after extensive revision by Altgelt)
• 1909–1911: Kurhaus Dr. Julius Weiler, Ulmenallee 35, Berlin-Westend (extension)
• 1909/1910: Adolf Wollenberg residential and office building, Sigismundstrasse 1, Berlin-Tiergarten (new building, destroyed)
• 1910/1911: Villa Nathan Samuel / Leo Czapski, Bismarckallee 22 / Delbrückstraße 9, Berlin-Grunewald (new building and interior design)
• 1910/1911: Rudolph Lepke art auction house, Potsdamer Straße 122a / 122b (since 1938: Potsdamer Straße 47), Berlin-Tiergarten (new building, destroyed)
• 1911/1912: Villa Harteneck, Douglasstraße 7, Berlin-Grunewald (new building with interior fittings and design of the garden)
• 1910/1911: Merchant's house on Halleschen Ufer, Hallesches Ufer 12/13 (later: No. 30), Berlin-Kreuzberg (interior and facade design, destroyed)
• 1912: Harteneck tomb, Stahnsdorf south-west cemetery (construction and design)
• 1912/1913: Landhaus Erich Goldschmidt, Koenigsallee 64, Berlin-Grunewald (new building with interior fittings)
• 1912/1913: Atelierhaus Flatow & Priemer, Viktoriastraße 29, Berlin-Tiergarten (new building, destroyed)
• 1913: Arthur Lipman-Wolf house, Regentenstrasse 23 (today: Hitzigallee ), Berlin-Tiergarten (design of an extension, realization unclear)
• 1914–1916: Willy house and wine restaurant, Kurfürstendamm 11, Charlottenburg (interior renovation, facade redesign)
• 1919/1920: Villa von der Heydt, Von der Heydt-Straße 15 (today: No. 18), Berlin-Tiergarten (conversion of the interior, extension with terrace)
• 1923–1925: Landhaus Oskar Weil / Dr. Schramm, An der Heerstraße 20 (today: Heerstraße 90), Berlin-Westend (new building)
• 1924: Landhaus Paul Kemper (draft, not realized)
• 1925/1926: Landhaus Richard Semmel, Cecilienallee 19–21 (today: Pacelliallee  19–21), Berlin-Dahlem (new building)
• after 1925: Landhaus Max Alsberg, Jagowstraße 22 (today: Richard-Strauss-Straße 22), Berlin-Grunewald (renovation and furnishing of the interior)
• 1926/1927: Textile house Gustav Cords, Kurfürstendamm  225/226, Berlin-Charlottenburg (reconstruction of the interior and redesign of the facade of the ground floor and the first floor)
• unknown: Landhaus Glogowski, near Stargard, Pomerania (interior furnishings)
• after 1936: Landhaus Avenue Road 30, St. John's Wood, London (new construction)
• after 1936: House 77 Hallam Street, Westminster , London (new building, involvement in construction unclear)

Art collection

The exact size of Adolf Wollenberg's art collection is not known. The Berlin auction catalog from 1932 gives information about part of his collection, but Wollenberg later sold other, possibly important works to art dealers in Amsterdam, Paris and Switzerland. The 1932 auction, for which the art historian Max J. Friedländer wrote the preface, included antiques, handicrafts and paintings. There was old Chinese porcelain and Meissen porcelain , silverwork from the Baroque era , crystal chandeliers and old clocks. There was also French, Italian and Spanish furniture from the 15th to 17th centuries, a French tapestry , bronze statuettes from Italy, a Roman marble bust from the 1st century, a South Chinese Buddha head from the 12th century or an oak figure of Saint Gereon from the 15th century.

The Italian paintings offered at auction included an angel's head by Francesco Botticini , the cityscapes of the Old Church in Venice by Giovanni Antonio Canal , St. Mark's Square in Venice by Jacopo Marieschi, and a study for a frieze for a church in Venice by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo . The latter has been in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen since 1971 . The focus of the auction was on Dutch old master paintings. These included religious motifs such as Maria with the child by Adriaen Isenbrant as well as a series of portraits such as Portrait of a Young Gentleman by Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen , Male Portrait by Frans van Mieris the Elder , Portrait of a Noble Gentleman with Allonge Wig by Pieter van der Werff and Portrait of a Gentleman and Portrait of a Lady by Nicolaes Maes . There were also several genre scenes such as On the fish market by Quiringh van Brekelenkam , Domestic scene by Jan Miense Molenaer , Drinking scene by Adriaen van Ostade , In the tavern by Hendrik Martensz. Sorgh and The Puffers by David Teniers the Younger There were also some landscape paintings in the collection. These included the castle on the canal by Jan van Goyen , a landscape by Jacob van Ruysdael , a small landscape by David Teniers the Younger and Delft after the powder explosion on October 11, 1654 by Egbert van der Poel .

• 

  Jan van Goyen:
  Castle on the Canal , 1642

• 

  Quiringh Gerritsz. van Brekelenkam:
  Fishmonger and customer , around 1665

• 

  Adriaen van Ostade:
  Drinking Scene , around 1650–1655

literature

• Dana Menzel: The architect Adolf Wollenberg . Wasmuth, Tübingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8030-2101-4 .
• Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctionshaus (ed.): Paintings by old masters, sculpture, arts and crafts from the property of the government builder Adolf Wollenberg, Berlin. (Catalog for auction on March 17, 1932) Berlin 1932.
• Walther Kiaulehn : Berlin. Fate of a cosmopolitan city. CH Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-41634-9 .

Web links

Commons : Adolf Wollenberg  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Designs by Adolf Wollenberg in the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jacob Jacobson: The naturalization directory of the Jewish community in Posen . 1938, p. 493 .
2. ^ Walther Kiaulehn: Berlin. Fate of a cosmopolitan city. P. 113.
3. ↑ LDL Berlin: Kurhaus Westend for those suffering from nerves
4. ↑ LDL Berlin: Landhaus Bismarckallee 22
5. ↑ LDL Berlin: Villa Harteneck
6. ↑ LDL Berlin: Landhaus Koenigsallee 64
7. ↑ LDL Berlin: Residential building Heerstraße 90
8. ↑ LDL Berlin: House Semmel
9. ↑ LDL Berlin: Landhaus Victorius
10. ↑ See catalog for auction at the Rudolph Lepke auction house
11. ^ Dana Menzel: The architect Adolf Wollenberg. P. 64.
12. ↑ Information on the Tiepolo frieze on www.smk.dk