Adolph of Vagedes
Adolph Anton von Vagedes (born May 25, 1777 in Münster , † January 27, 1842 in Düsseldorf ) was a German architect and urban planner of classicism who also appeared as a poet . Vagedes was best known for his town planning and public buildings in Düsseldorf.
After completing his studies, he worked as an architect in Münster and from 1809 in Düsseldorf. In 1812 he was appointed Grand Ducal Bergisch Building Director and in 1818 the Prussian Government Building Councilor, in which function he was transferred to Köslin in 1830 .
As a poet he used the pseudonyms Philipp Nebeke and Maria, among others . His older brother was the master builder Clemens August von Vagedes (1760–1795) from Schaumburg-Lippe .
The architectural creativity of Adolph von Vagedes not only included the city maps of Düsseldorf and Krefeld . His work can also be felt in many other Rhenish cities such as Aachen , Wuppertal and Rees . He designed z. B. the Ratinger Tor in Düsseldorf, was the inspiration for the Königsallee and the "Düsseldorfer Linden" and the initiator of the four "Krefeld Walls".
Clear features of his plans can still be seen in Krefeld today, not least because of the continued work of his assistant and student Heinrich Johann Freyse from Essen, according to which Vagede's own son-in-law Friedrich Wilhelm Heyden acted in the spirit of Vagedes' line of thought.
Adolph von Vagedes was an extremely versatile person. In addition to his work as an urban planner and architect, he also worked as a theater director, set designer, poet, musician, mathematician and painter.
The time in which Vagedes lived was marked by enormous changes. Born in the late Rococo era , he experienced the emergence of the 1848 ideas in the Rhineland in the most progressive minds of the country. Eight years before his birth, James Watt constructed the first usable steam engine , when he died, the paddle steamers on the Rhine and the railways that ran regularly between Düsseldorf and Wuppertal had become almost normal.
Life
Origin and education
Adolph Anton von Vagedes was born on May 25, 1777 in Münster as the seventh child of the former electoral Cologne trustee and former government registrar for the government and the Münster “court councilor” Johann Theodor Heinrich von Vagedes and his wife Constanze von Graff. He was baptized, also on May 25, 1777, in the Überwasserkirche in Münster. The father's superior, Minister Franz von Fürstenberg and the Comitessa Anna Maria von Plettenberg-Galen at Nordkirchen Castle were appointed godparents . In the later life of Adolph von Vagedes these sponsorships were to play a not insignificant role.
Like his older brothers Clemens August and Franz Arnold Bernd, Adolf von Vagedes probably attended the Paulinum grammar school . The subsequent study of law at the University of Münster , into which he let himself be pushed in line with family tradition, he broke off, like his brother, Clemens August von Vagedes, to study architecture.
Adolf von Vagedes, like his brother, was probably instructed by the Münster chief building director Wilhelm Ferdinand Lipper , but the stronger impressions came from the brother's example. Only a draft sketch for a high altar of the cathedral in Münster and the interior fittings on the first floor of the house at Neubrückstrasse No. 2, which was destroyed in World War II, by Adolph's father-in-law, the ball entrepreneur and wine merchant Johann Wilhelm Gabler, leave or let trains of the Lipper ' early classicist forms that still have a strong “baroque” effect. Little can be seen here of Vagedes' formal idiom.
Impressions and lessons from outside are likely to have had an enormous influence on the young Adolph von Vagedes even before the turn of the century. It was probably through the exchange of ideas with his older brother Clemens August that he became aware of the architectural exhibits of Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff , architect of Prince Leopold Friedrich Franz von Anhalt-Dessau . The works he did in Westphalia in the first ten years of the 19th century suggest that he was familiar with the facilities Erdmannsdorff had built in Wörlitz (Saxony-Anhalt). The deep impression that Erdmannsdorff's buildings, including the Wörlitz Park Temple , had left on him, was often shown later in his own designs.
Shortly after meeting Erdmannsdorff's architectural convictions, Vagedes became a student of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand (1760–1834) at the École polytechnique in Paris. It was there that he met Clemens Wenzeslaus Coudray , who later became Goethe's chief construction director in Weimar , with whom he corresponded for a long time. Even Johann Peter Cremer (1785-1863), and later worked in Dusseldorf with the Vagedes, belonged at that time to Durand students.
Concern about the fate of his relatives and his hometown Munster prompted Vagedes to return to his homeland soon. After the last prince-bishop died in 1801, Münster was occupied by the Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher in 1802 and officially changed hands in 1803 after the ruling of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss .
It can be assumed that Adolph Anton von Vagedes had been back in Münster since 1802, where he married Clara Franziska Gabler, who was twelve years his junior on May 4, 1803. Just two months later, his father died at the age of 74. At that time, only two of his seven siblings and his mother were still alive.
Works (selection)
- 1805–1806 New construction of Korff Castle . A classical mansion , built on the model of Wörlitz Castle near Dessau .
- 1805–1812 Conversion of the former Cölestinerinnenkloster to Palais Spinrath , Ratinger Straße in Düsseldorf.
- 1811–1815 Ratinger Tor , the last city gate of Düsseldorf built in the style of a Greek temple with Doric columns. It is also considered a model for Schinkel's Neue Wache and for the Munich Propylaea .
- 1814 Obelisk in honor of the Siebengebirge volunteer land storm at the Drachenfels castle ruins .
- 1815 Helmet roof on the spire of St. Lambertus Church in Düsseldorf.
- 1817–1819 planning for the expansion of the city of Krefeld . Vagedes devised an ambitious plan based on a Greek cross , but Berlin forced him to stick to the existing street grid. He expanded it dramatically and surrounded it with a large rectangle of four streets, the ramparts. The demolition of the old city fortifications and the wide boulevards in their place , the four walls (north, east, south and west wall) were then carried out around 1840 by previously unknown builders.
- 1818 Planning of a new nave for the Gräfrath monastery in Solingen .
- 1818–1820 New building after the demolition of the Solingen-Wald Evangelical Church . After the central nave collapsed, Vagedes was forbidden to continue building. Completion in 1823 under Friedrich Felderhoff.
- 1819 Planning to enlarge and beautify Mülheim .
- 1820 Planning for the repair of the ducal mausoleum of St. Andrew's Church in Düsseldorf.
- 1826 Eller Castle including the keep of the medieval moated castle (attribution).
- 1828 Redesign of the outer bailey and the east facade of Varlar Castle .
- 1828–1832 New construction of the Catholic parish church St. Laurentius in Wuppertal - Elberfeld .
- 1830 Base of the equestrian statue of Elector Johann Wilhelm (1658–1716), called " Jan Wellem ", on the market square in front of the town hall in the old town of Düsseldorf.
- 1831–1832 Conversion of the former foundry from Grupello to a theater (Grupellotheater) on the market square in Düsseldorf.
His work as a builder
Muenster
After completing his training, Adolph von Vagedes initially worked as a draftsman and art appraiser in 1803 and 1804. The first jobs he took on in Münster were work with friends and relatives.
For his brother-in-law Dr. Theodor Lutterbeck, who initially worked as a doctor and later as a private lecturer, built the house at Katthagen No. 15, which was a three-story, four-core plastered building with no-nonsense, ornamental pilaster strips that surround the two upper floors and a square plastered ground floor in line with the traditions of Münster that time. In the two central axes of the building, which was destroyed in World War II, there was a latticed balcony with a cranked cornice panel, which rested on corbels. Acroteries decorated the front corners and center of the advanced eaves.
The house Prinzipalmarkt No. 19, which was also destroyed in the last world war and which is also attributed to the young Vagedes, had pilaster strips used to frame the window fields. What is unusual for Vagedes is the high roof with mansard windows , which he probably designed to blend in with the surroundings.
It can be assumed that the construction of Korff-Harkotten Castle near Füchtorf, which suddenly put him in the forefront of the Münster master builders, was between the construction of the two buildings mentioned and that of the two pharmacies that were offered to them during the creative period of Vagedes in Münster followed, lies. However, it would also be possible that the “Lion's Pharmacy”, which stood on the Prinzipalmarkt No. 16 property until it was demolished in 1902, preceded the building of the palace as a preliminary experiment. This building was not based on traditions, but was consistently classicist.
The interior of the “Sonnenapotheke” at Spiekerhof and the so-called “Falgersche Gartenhaus” on Wilhelmstrasse 11 are also among the buildings created by Adolph von Vagedes in Münster.
Korff-Harkotten Castle near Füchtorf
Even before the Seven Years' War, the eastern part of the original castle was demolished due to alleged disrepair and replaced by a comfortable rococo building in 1768, which Johann Leonard Mauritz Gröninger built on the back of the former castle complex.
In 1805 the west wing was also torn down and Adolf von Vagedes was commissioned to build a second new castle next to the already existing Ketteler Castle Harkotten. Friedrich von Korff on Harkotten was probably the client. It can be assumed, however, that the suggestion and mediation of the order can be attributed to Clemens August von Ketteler, whose wife Anna Maria von Ketteler, widowed Plettenberg, was none other than the Comitessa de Aldenberg-Galen at Nordkirchen Castle, who was the godmother of Had attended the baptism of Adolph Anton von Vagedes in May 1777.
The young master builder, who was taking a considerable risk by accepting this first real task, did not even try to classify the second building significantly. He built today's Harkotten Castle with the front facing west on the layout of the old fortified castle with the rear facing the narrow side of the second building.
By covering the back of the building with groups of trees, he succeeded in separating the new from the old system and at the same time created the possibility of creating an independent building with a forecourt. The castle itself is in the neoclassical style based on the model of Wörlitz Castle in Saxony-Anhalt. Three risalits divide the west facade of the simple building. A portico with four Doric columns, on which a balcony crowned by a triangular flat gable rests, is located in front of the central projectile. The builder's coat of arms can be seen in the triangle of the gable. The side projections are framed by narrow pilaster strips, each of which ends with a low balustrade at roof height. Emphasized simplicity, simple symmetry, harmonious structure and economical decor are characteristic of the Korff'sche Schloss Harkotten.
Brünninghausen
While Vagedes was still busy with the construction of Korff-Harkotten, he took over from 1806 at the instigation of Georg Arnold Jacobi , son of the Goethe friend Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi , who lived in Pempelfort near Düsseldorf , a consultancy with regard to the planning of the new Düsseldorf. Presumably the suggestion to engage Vagedes came from his godfather Fürstenberg, with whom Jacobi had connections.
It is not known how often Adolph von Vagedes traveled from Münster to Düsseldorf before he finally moved. However, from the friendship that developed between him and the young Peter von Cornelius during this time , which led to a collaboration between Vagedes and Cornelius in 1806 on the refurbishment of the Quirinus Minster (Neuss), it can be concluded that these stays were quite long have to. This is proven by letters to Vagedes addressed to a hotel address, which Cornelius had written after moving to Frankfurt am Main.
Before Vagedes moved permanently to Düsseldorf, he was fascinated by another assignment, which basically served as preparation for the Düsseldorf garden design. He was responsible for the rounding off and the park structures of Brünninghausen Castle near Dortmund-Hörde.
The moated castle from around 1600, which at that time belonged to Baron Gisbert von Romberg , had been rebuilt again and again and was finally embossed in a classical style. It is difficult to determine what part Vagedes played in this overprinting and addition in detail, but his own design drawings for window frames and corbels show that he must have been involved in the expansion of the castle. Vagedes continued the plans of August Reinking , who died in 1819, in Brünninghausen . The drafts for Brünninghausen are not just about building the palace, but also about the design of the park with a wide variety of decorative systems. Like Reinking before, Vagedes worked together with the Düsseldorf court gardener Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe .
With regard to this stage in Vagede's life, the designs are so important because they were created in connection with a park design. They show Vagedes ability to create his architectures in harmony with the horticultural landscape. This formed the basis for his collaboration with the former Bonn-Brühl court gardener from the Electorate of Cologne, Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe, in the design of Düsseldorf and for the subsequent plants for the Krefeld manufacturers.
Dusseldorf
In the summer of 1808, Vagedes decided to finally take over Jacobi's offer. At the same time, Johann Peter Cremer, his former fellow student at Durand, started his work in Düsseldorf.
The Masset house was the first building that Vagedes took over in Düsseldorf. The work on the actual private building was assigned to Vagedes by Jacobi, as the associated gateway in the form of a Gothic pointed arch was a public passage.
Before the building was torn down in 1897, it was one of the most impressive structures on the old Rhine front. Characteristic of the nine-axis building with its five-axis, barely extended middle section was the passage with its classicistic overhangs, a resting mountain lion facing the city and the river god on the Rhine side.
The extensive design work that Vagedes undertook for the grand ducal governor authorities in Düsseldorf also included plans for courthouses, ministries and other representative facilities. Unfortunately, most of his works from this time are no longer available, so that only fragmentary findings of the first urban design designed by Vagedes for Düsseldorf are available.
The interior of the Hontheim'schen Palais in Akademiestraße was preserved until the Second World War , the premises of which were intended to serve representative purposes of the ministry. The Ratinger Tor, the last to be built and the only one that still exists today, is the only significant building that bears witness to this extremely productive time in Vagedes life. A street in Düsseldorf-Pempelfort was named after him.
Construction director in the Grand Duchy of Berg
Overall, Adolph von Vagedes worked in Düsseldorf from 1806 to 1830. In 1812 he became "Construction Director of the Beautification of the City of Düsseldorf". This position made him independent of the city authorities, as it was an independent authority thanks to the provisions of his friend, Georg Arnold Jacobi. She was only responsible to the minister and the governor, who represented the interests of the underage Grand Duke Napoléon Ludwig and Napoleon.
He owed Vagede's later appointment as government building officer to Jacobi's acquaintance with Governor General Justus Gruner, who was appointed to the Generalgouvernement of Berg in 1813. This secured Jacobi's rank in the provisional government in the new administration and thus also the positions of his employees Weyhe and Vagedes. The “Ratinger Tor” and the “Benrath Bridge” over the moat in Königsallee were completed during the time of the General Government.
Government building councilor in Düsseldorf
On July 1, 1816, Vagedes was appointed as a government building officer in the newly formed administrative college of the Düsseldorf government district. The official name at that time was "Government and Agriculture Council". The new office was not limited to just changing the title, the basis of its previous work also changed.
While Jacobi was previously the only authority that gave him orders for his planning and put him in direct contact with the governor and the ministers and later with Gruner, he now had a very sovereign independence. His work was now included in an organization that required a wide range of instances in all decisive questions. Vagedes was subordinate to the Berlin Oberbaudeputation, which had to decide on major government contracts in the last instance. At the same time, however, the scope of his work had grown. It no longer only determined the course in the former Bergisch capital, but in all towns and cities of a large district.
The expansion of his field of activity, which replaced the previous main contract in Düsseldorf, was initially a new stimulus for Vagedes in every respect. In the following years the development plans for Elberfeld and Krefeld were drawn up. He personally took on the project planning for church buildings and for the reconstruction of castles, which had become overdue or damaged during the war years, for new purposes. Vagedes made plans for theaters, high schools and other facilities. He also designed a new expansion plan for the “Jägerhof” palace in Düsseldorf into a residence.
In 1822, Vagedes worked out a plan to connect Düsseldorf to the most important country roads. Furthermore, he was planning a new capital east of Königsallee. The city expansion of Düsseldorf was to be structured by a castrum of thirteen building squares, each of which had one side connected to Düsseldorf's Königsallee. The remaining three sides were to be enclosed with moats and avenues. A large square with four fountains was planned as the center of this area.
In addition, Vagedes had planned the breakthrough from Ratinger Strasse (Altestadt) to the Rhine. The east side of Krämerstrasse (not, as happened later, the west side) should be cleared to create a sizable inner space in front of the Lambertus Church. In addition, he planned the conversion of the castle ruins into a state mint and the redesign of the castle square in connection with this conversion. The old port was to be filled in to create a spacious place of value.
Vagedes planned the creation of a new Rheinuferstraße, which would be connected to the open Ratinger Straße (Altestadt) by a wide flight of steps, and the horizontal laying of today's grave site with ramps for wagons and a wide flight of stairs from Alleestraße . A grammar school and an “Odeum” were to replace the previously planned state buildings on Alleestraße. He had also envisaged the expansion of Kasernenstrasse, breakthroughs in the old town and the creation of the Orangery Square by arching the Düssel am Spee'schen Graben .
This plan has never been implemented. What was approved in the Cabinet Order of June 4, 1831, was only a meager holdover compared to what Vagedes' draft plan of 1822 had foreseen.
The Krefeld city map
On March 19, 1817, the district authority sent the "Map of the City of Crefeld" drawn up by the Geometer Goldammer to Düsseldorf with the request to the government to request the responsible government building advisor Adolph von Vagedes to develop concepts for an expansion plan on the basis of this map . The senders found their request so simple that they expected the plan back within a month. However, they had to wait until November 5, 1817, before the first draft arrived at the District Administrator in Krefeld.
In his creation, Vagedes picks up on and completes the basis of classicist character created by the Leydel family of architects in the 18th century. The already existing long-drawn-out floor plan really offered him the rounding of the not yet completed rectangle to the castrum.
However, a number of local conditions were in the way of realizing this rectangle. The park that surrounded the von der Leyen City Palace stood in the way of the completion of the castrum shape. The design of the north-south streets affected manufacturer establishments in some places. A problem that wasn't that easy to solve. But Vagedes faced the confrontation with these opposing views.
The plan he presented increased the size of the city threefold, an incredible idea for the year of need and famine of 1817. Friedrich Heinrich von Conrad von der Leyen and others warned again and again that this planned area would only be expanded after centuries. But Vagedes was mainly concerned with the future urban organism of the city in his development plan.
When he was planning the Düsseldorfer Alleestrasse, he already had an idea of how a renewed city should shift its weight and that urban development should initiate this shift in weight. For this reason, he was not satisfied with the annexing requests of the authorities that had asked the government for the plan.
Vagedes' plan for Krefeld initially provided for the major country roads to be drawn to the city's most important junction, or at least to enable a connection to the surrounding transport network from the city. The design, which was based on the Dutch principle with its linear street layout, was initially based on a Greek cross, but Berlin forced Vagedes to adhere to the existing street grid.
He expanded this enormously and lined it with a large rectangle consisting of four streets, the ramparts, the only deviation of which was the sloping indentation that began at the Dionysus Church. An already existing bulge required an angled transition here. Vagedes had incorporated this deviation into the design of his castrum as well as the route of the already established Lindenstrasse in the southwest and Neusser Strasse in the south.
The city plan was thus characterized by a rectangular block structure, the symmetrically arranged squares of which lie within a rectangle that is delimited by the ramparts. This straight, closed structure, which is still unique in Germany, is reminiscent of the imperial city of Beijing. However, there is no evidence that Vagedes followed this model.
Vagedes' planning also concerned the property of the renowned silk weaver family von der Leyen, who saw this not only as an interference with their own prestige, but also as a material impairment, as their property was cut in the course of better urban design. The “dead end” quarter of the northern part of the city developed by this family was an inexpedient obstacle, which Vagedes wanted to correct uninhibitedly by means of road openings. The close proximity of Lutherische Kirchstrasse and the Weststrasse planned by Vagedes was not an ideal solution, but here he had to take into account the city palace built by Martin Leydel and the location of Lutherische Kirchstrasse as well as its private buildings. However, when he wanted to cut into the porches in front of the Leye City Palace, the Remisen, in order to shape the bulky structure, initial resistance to the project arose.
Further resistance was of a befitting nature. The “old families” feared that foreign immigrants would break into this neighborhood inhabited by prominent people. Apparently the Krefeld “families” grouped into two camps. While the old families took a stand against the plan, the circles around Gottschalk Floh, who were pushed into the background after the end of Napoleonic rule, maintained contact with Vagedes. Vagedes only came into direct contact with Julius Conrad von der Leyen as a master builder during the renovation of “Haus Meer”. Later on, Vagedes was consulted as an architect, mainly by ascended entrepreneurial families.
The clever attitude of the then District Administrator of Krefeld, Georg Phillipp Ludwig Karl Cappe, who reacted with sarcasm and irony to the resistance of the opponents of the Vagedes plan, was probably decisive for the success of the project. Cappe had recognized the need for a thoroughgoing overall organizational solution for the city as clearly as Vagedes had.
The next two years were about fighting the planning through. Despite intensive attempts to change, limit and modify it - a counter-proposal was up until the very end, in which the floor plan was in a shortened form, cross-shaped with side bends to the east and west - approval was granted in 1819.
The cabinet order of May 27, 1819, which granted the approval, makes it clear that the alternative solution has been considered until the very end. The heart of the city plan, the retention of the Friedrichsplatzanlage, was fought to the end. It remains the only time that Vagedes can enforce one of his overall urban planning designs in his office as government building officer.
In contrast to the usual procedure, the text of the cabinet order was not officially published. It was only passed on to Krefeld in the form of a government copy. In the same letter there was a note that "restrictions" would require a new planning procedure. This official letter of the cabinet order from Düsseldorf to Krefeld served to finally protect Vagedes' solution. The circles that had opposed the implementation of the plan were deliberately withheld from the passage that referred to the alternative cruciform solution, but did not recommend it.
Ostwall, Krefeld
On May 11, 1819, a specific construction plan for Krefeld was drawn up. The future east wall was first recorded after this in 1826. Vagedes planned to lay out the east wall as a splendid boulevard inviting to stroll and look at it and to decorate it with flower beds, trees and monuments.
The demolition of the old city fortifications and the construction of the boulevards in their place (north, east, south and west wall) was carried out by previously unknown builders. Between 1838 and 1840 the four walls were planted by the master horticulturist Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe and his younger son Wilhelm August. Later, his older son Joseph Clemens Weyhe, who was a friend of Vagedes, also took part in the design of the ramparts.
At first, the east wall was planted with four rows of Dutch linden trees, which were soon joined by red and white chestnuts, plane trees, American oaks and various types of maple. The city gardener Haack decorated the areas between the trees in the 1850s with flower beds on which plants such as giant hemp, giant corn, canna and black perilla grew. Fountains and monuments, which adorned the cityscape at street crossings as eye-catching focal points, were also bordered with flower beds.
The expansion of the east wall was slow. Countless drafts, cabinet orders, reports, negotiations, complaints and building applications delayed the work. The guarantee found the area too dangerous for construction because the walls were outside the city. The first and for a long time the only road on the Ostwall was the already existing "Alte Linner Straße". At first, the eastern side of the boulevard was hardly built on. Even in the 1830s there were hardly any construction sites in the numerous surrounding fields.
A plan from 1861 shows the extension of the east wall in a southerly direction towards the central station built in 1849. This lies outside of the rectangle planned by Vagedes, since he of course could not count on the introduction of the railway and its necessity. The opening of the station made the Ostwall an attractive area and, as a result, a popular residential area. Even today some patrician houses remind us that mainly wealthy families lived in the quiet, shady avenue.
Late Krefeld years
After Vagedes had to accept enormous deletions in the implementation of his great Düsseldorf plan, he gradually broke away from his official position, which he had been striving for since 1816 in order to be able to continue his planning. After 1830 his official duties were gradually replaced by the Minister Kaspar Friedrich von Schuckmann, who had tried in vain to move him to another administrative district and to have him replaced by the building inspector Umpfenbach from Koblenz.
The king himself had stopped this attempt and ordered Vagedes to remain in Düsseldorf for the time being, but at the same time offered him a position as a private lecturer in architecture in Bonn. Vagedes, however, wanted nothing more than to build and did not accept the teaching assignment.
Long before that, he had received private contracts from Krefeld, the oldest of which were probably Gottschalk Floh and Peter von Lövenich. In the estate of the Floh family, which came into the possession of the Krefeld-Linner Museum in 1947, there are hand-signed designs for three garden houses and just as many grave monuments by Adolph von Vagedes. The estate also contains other signed drafts, which, however, cannot always be clearly classified in today's Krefeld development.
The earliest date on these drafts made by Vagedes himself is July 10, 1818 and thus falls at the time of the dispute over the changes to his Krefeld city plan. Some of these planning sketches presumably relate to a Vagedes design of the "Haus Neuhofen" near Bockum, which was owned by Gottschalk Flohs. Other sheets concern the construction of a Flea family crypt and still others contain suggestions for the garden houses. What is significant for these designs is that the formal ideas presented on them are appropriately reflected in the designs of other Krefeld factory owners. It can be clearly seen that the designer of the Uerdinger Herberzhäuser and the Sollbrüggen house is also the maker of these sheets.
The renovation of the former knight's seat in Sollbrüggen with its park facilities near Uerdingerstraße that stretch as far as the street took place around 1832. This redesign was in some respects determined by the old structure of the estate. An iron gridded balcony, the access doors of which were laid out under a three-arched top decorated with classicistic ornamental motifs, gave the building a nobility, the effect of which is based on the harmonious dimensions of the floors and window sizes.
At about the same time, Vagedes was working on the Uerdinger Herberz houses. Basically, the designs for this three-house building commissioned by the Uerdingen merchant Balthasar Napoleon Herberz for himself and his younger brothers must still come from Vagedes himself. However, he probably gradually left the continuation after 1833 to his colleagues Christian and Friedrich Wilhelm Heyden, who were also his sons-in-law, as well as the later Krefeld city architect Freyse.
Late Classicist elements in the details suggest that modifications to the building were made as a result of this transition. The overall character of Vagedes was retained, however, especially in the design of the stairwells and festive rooms. The simple exterior front gives no idea of the care and generosity with which the interior expansion was carried out, which dragged on over the years.
Originally, Vagedes was also assigned the planning of "Greiffenhorst Castle" in Krefeld Linn, which was built from 1838 to 1843, as the creative octagonal hunting lodge with the protruding double-storey front wings seemed to be a development of Vagedes' garden house character in a large form. In the meantime, however, it is assumed that these designs probably originate from the Düsseldorf agricultural inspector Otto von Gloeden.
Literary, musical and theater activity in Münster
Adolph von Vagedes was not only a highly gifted builder, he was also a versatile educated person who was gifted in many musical fields. He worked as a poet, painter and graphic artist, as well as composer and theater director. Under a variety of pseudonyms he wrote e.g. B. in the poetic almanac "Mimigardia" published by Friedrich Rassmann between 1810 and 1812, at least one third of which came from Vagedes. For example, he wrote under the pseudonyms "Philipp Nebecke" and "Maria ***". Five of the song compositions contained in the sheet music were also by him. He designed the covers and drew the title coppers.
One of the most surprising episodes in Vagede's life is his theatrical activity, which fell in 1808. That year he organized theater performances of Schiller's “Wallenstein's Camp” and “Bride of Messina” as well as Johann August Apel's “Kalliroe” in Münster, which were performed by the troupe of the theater principal Moritz and provided with drama music specially created by Vagedes. He composed an equestrian song for the “Wallenstein” and designed “characteristic music for wind instruments” for the performance of the “Bride of Messina”. According to reports on the “Kalliroe” production, it was a “tragedy entirely in its ancient form, with a musically treated choir”. The theater decorations for his own productions also came from Vagedes.
The Vagedes family had already had close contact with the Münster theater. When Lipper built the Münster'sche Komödienhaus, Vagede's older brother Clemens August worked in its office. In the early days of the “Stadtmünster'schen Schaubühne”, Hofrat Friedrich Christian von Vagedes, together with Wilhelm Ferdinand Lipper, had a kind of supervisory authority over the theater. Vagedes' father-in-law Johann Wilhelm Gabler was the manager of the theater and Vagedes himself lived in the house at Neubrückstrasse No. 2, which was right next to the theater and was connected to it on the first floor, since his marriage in 1803.
A note in the “Cotta'schen Morgenblatt” indicates that Vagedes was working on an iambic drama entitled “Christoph Bernhard von Galen”, which is said to have resembled Schiller's “Wallenstein” in its way. Until the 1820s, prologues to theatrical performances that have survived to this day prove Vagede's interest in the theater. As the last of his Münster staging plans, an oratorio-like, well-composed performance of the melodrama “Ariadne-Libera” by Herder was announced in the “Cotta'schen Morgenblatt”, but this never happened because he could no longer postpone his move to Düsseldorf. All his life Vagedes dreamed of building a theater according to his own ideas, but this dream was to remain unattainable for him.
The years 1808 and 1809 are important for Vagedes musical production. In 1809 Carl Jacob Böhme's publishing house in Merseburg published two music books “Lieder am Clavier”, “set to music by Adolph von Vagedes”, the first of which is dedicated to Countess Josephine von und zu Plettenberg-Mietingen and the second to Demoiselle Francisca Rüschhoff .
Each of these booklets contains seven song settings with voice and piano accompaniment. Twelve of the compositions are settings of poems by Schiller and Goethe. The other two give poems by the Münster pharmacist Franz August Kahler, who was also the client for the design of the “Sonnenapotheke”, and the musician of Johann Friedrich Cordes from Glandorf, who died in 1807.
The used eight poems by Goethe (Remembrance, An den Frieden, Geistesgruß, Jäger's Evening Song, Farewell, The Flowers, An die distant, Der Fischer) and Schiller's four poems (An Emma, An den Frühling, Sehnsucht, Word of Faith) recognize a musical tendency towards Weimar. The fourteen songs are composed in the way Goethe preferred them, in the tentative style, short, sensitive stanzas, most of them with little replay, "emphasis" instead of "setting".
Goethe's “Abschied”, with 58 bars and, unusual for Vagedes, divided into different sections by stanzas, Schiller's “Sehnsucht”, by far the longest composition, in which the individual parts are tied to a musical whole by an almost ostinate bass, and Goethe's “An den Frieden “Are composed through, while the other songs are limited to 10 to 14 bars.
Three of the songs use minor keys while the others are in major. The majority of the songs are also in even time signatures (2/4 and 4/4). Only four songs in the second volume are notated in 6/8 time. Occasionally, the discrepancies between the verse songs in terms of the word-tone ratio of the same music to changing texts (e.g. "To the Distant" or "In Spring") are very dominant in Vagedes. Occasionally baroque flourishes in the form of small sixteenth-note figurative groups, which one could almost still call madrigalisms, stand out.
Vagedes mostly used cadenza chords as the harmonic backbone of his compositions. In almost all songs standing intervals prevail, while romantic key shifts rarely occur, which makes the harmony tough and remains more or less static. The bass part of the piano part is predominantly based on octave chords, which are sometimes used quasi-ostinat. The baroque formula of the chromatically descending fourth (“Der Abschied”) or a tritone interval that strongly dominates the bass can also be found here and there.
By alternating rhythmic figures in the lower and upper parts of the piano, Vagedes tried to escape the monotony of very similar basic bars. However, his attempts at musical structure are often unsuccessful. The summary of the various musical parts in these songs is almost never possible due to their brevity.
The song creations of Adolph von Vagedes are on the one hand extremely interesting as contemporary documents of the German song in Goethe's time and on the other hand revealing as human testimony to the manifold talents and the overall artistic personality of Vagedes.
literature
- Walter Kordt : Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe . Ratingen 1961, OCLC 10193330 .
- Maria Elisabeth Brockhoff: The song compositions by Adolph von Vagedes. In: Westphalia. 4/1966, pp. 371-373.
- Wolfgang Zimmermann: Adolph von Vagedes and his church buildings . Cologne 1964, OCLC 21129532 .
Web links
- Reinhard Lutum, Rosemarie Vogelsang: The ramparts in Krefeld. In: The home. 77/2006, pp. 62-66. (PDF; 239 kB)
- Adolph Anton von Vagedes in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
- Ratinger Tor in the monument list of the state capital Düsseldorf at the Institute for Monument Protection and Preservation
- Former Coelestine convent in the monument list of the state capital Düsseldorf at the Institute for Monument Protection and Preservation
Individual evidence
- ^ Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 15.
- ↑ a b Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 16.
- ^ Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 17.
- ^ Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 19.
- ↑ a b c Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 22.
- ^ Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 37.
- ↑ a b Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 38.
- ^ Carsten Seick: Studies on landscaped gardens and parks in Westphalia-Lippe with special consideration of the facilities of private clients. Dissertation from the Westphalian Wilhelms University of Münster in 1996
- ^ Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 41.
- ^ Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 69.
- ↑ a b Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 67.
- ↑ a b Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 60.
- ↑ a b Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 63.
- ^ R. Lutum, R. Vogelsang: The ramparts in Krefeld. ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 239 kB)
- ↑ a b Adolph von Vagedes. in the Münster Wiki
- ↑ a b c Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 62.
- ↑ a b c d Ostwall
- ^ Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 98.
- ^ Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 99.
- ^ Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, pp. 99/100
- ↑ a b Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 101.
- ^ Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 100.
- ↑ Greiffenhorst House. on: krefeld.de
- ^ Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 31.
- ↑ a b Walter Kordt: Adolph von Vagedes. A Rhenish-Westphalian master builder from the time of Goethe. Henn, Ratingen 1961, p. 34.
- ^ A b Maria Elisabeth Brockhoff: The song compositions by Adolph von Vagedes. P. 372.
- ^ A b Maria Elisabeth Brockhoff: The song compositions by Adolph von Vagedes. P. 373.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vagedes, Adolph von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Vagedes, Adolf Anton von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German architect, urban planner and poet |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 25, 1777 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Muenster |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 27, 1842 |
| Place of death | Dusseldorf |