Old Art Hall (Düsseldorf)

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Old art gallery, 1896
cross-section
Staircase before 1904, on the right the mural Art in the Renaissance by Carl Gehrts
Main facade seen from the Hofgarten, around 1900

The Alte Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf was one of the first museums in Germany whose collections and exhibitions were mainly dedicated to contemporary art.

A site at the eastern end of Mühlenstrasse, on today's Grabbeplatz , in front of Alleestrasse, today's Heinrich-Heine-Allee , was chosen as the location for the art gallery . At that time Friedrichsplatz was located here. This square was originally called Mühlenplatz and then until the beginning of the 19th century Paradeplatz, because the Düsseldorf garrison held their parades here at the time.

history

The city organized a competition in 1874 and again a second in 1877. Finally, she commissioned the architects Ernst Giese and Paul Weidner , who had already built the then city ​​theater (now the opera house ) diagonally across the street. The building was built from 1878 to 1881 and inaugurated on July 3, 1881 with a historical costume parade by the Malkasten artists' association . The outwardly pompous building attracted harsh reviews because of the too large and unsuitable staircase and the too small exhibition rooms, which led to the demand for the construction of a new art gallery at the end of the 1880s. From 1883 to 1920 the painter Hermann Carl Hempel was director or managing director of the art gallery. The major exhibitions of contemporary art that took place in the Kunsthalle included the exhibitions of the Sonderbund in 1909 and 1911. Hempel's successor was Carl Murdfield .

The “ Rhenish Secession ” had its annual exhibition in 1930 in the Städtische Kunsthalle on Hindenburgwall 11a (today Heinrich-Heine-Allee).

The building was badly damaged during the Second World War , but the city of Düsseldorf held a number of exhibitions after the end of the war. In the post-war period, a competition was announced for the reconstruction of the historic site. However, the proposals submitted were rejected in 1960 in favor of a preliminary draft by the municipal building department; It was decided to demolish the ruins and to rebuild the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf on a plot of land on the south side of today's Grabbeplatz .

Building description

The art gallery was a rectangular, two-storey structure, with the front narrow front forming the main side facing today's Heinrich-Heine-Allee . The front facade was dominated by a large triumphal portal, the shape of which was reminiscent of a triumphal arch . This was colossal in design and took up half the width of the front. Its pillars carried four caryatid figures by Wilhelm Albermann in the upper part , who embodied music and painting or sculpture and architecture. The 4 meter high figures supported an architrave on which a large triangular gable rested. On the gable stood a “ Genius of Art” by Karl Hilgers , the tympanum was decorated with the alliance coat of arms of the painters and the city of Düsseldorf. The arched bezel was adorned with the mosaic "The Triumph of Truth" designed by Fritz Roeber and executed by the Antonio Salviati company (according to another source: "Truth as the basis of all art").

The triumphal portal belonged to the late classicistic round arch style , which at that time was one of the “most modern tendencies” in Paris and found its way into Germany via Dresden with Gottfried Semper . The triumphal portal with the pairs of caryatids and the arched roof shape followed the example of the extension of the Louvre in Paris - Pavillon Sully (Palais de l'Horloge).

The central stairwell received six large-format pictures by Carl Gehrts and 16 lunettes decorated by him . The theme was “The fate of art through the ages”, with the two main paintings on the walls on the long side, Art in Antiquity and Art in the Renaissance , the “classic pillars of the academic building of ideas”.

By 1906, the museum received a number of additions, especially spacious skylight halls . After the First World War , exhibitions of the Young Rhineland , the Blue Rider and the Bridge took place.

photos

  • Old art gallery with Bismarck monument , around 1900

  • The classical caryatid figures, 1880/81 of Wilhelm Albermann , were preserved.

  • The model for the Düsseldorf figures were the figures in the Sully Pavilion (de l'Horloge), Louvre.

  • Ground floor plan

  • Floor plan first floor

  • Spolie of the portal of the Alte Kunsthalle, signature Leo Müsch

  • Bogenfeld side entrance with Düsseldorf coat of arms

  • Keilstein heads over the windows on the side front

  • Pillar of the portal of the Alte Kunsthalle in the Malkastenpark

literature

  • Georg Friedrich Koch: Museum and exhibition buildings . In: Eduard Trier, Willy Weyres (Ed.): Art of the 19th century in the Rhineland . tape 2 : Architecture : II Profane buildings and urban planning . Schwann, Düsseldorf 1980, ISBN 3-590-30252-6 , pp. 212 f .
  • Alexandra König: Kunsthalle. In: Roland Kanz, Jürgen Wiener (eds.): Architectural guide Düsseldorf. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 2001, No. 20 on p. 15.
  • Kathrin DuBois: The old art gallery. In: Places of the Düsseldorf School of Painting - Traces of the Artists in Düsseldorf. (= Rheinische Kunststätten , issue 528). Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Landscape Protection, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-86526-069-7 , pp. 14-17.

Web links

Commons : Kunsthalle Düsseldorf  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Theodor Levin : Directory of the pictures by older masters exhibited in the Kunsthalle zu Düsseldorf. A. Bagel, Düsseldorf 1886.
  2. ↑ H. Gerber In: Historical walk through the old city of Düsseldorf. Part I, Verlag C. Kraus, 1889, p. 84.
  3. ^ Peter Hüttenberger: The development to the big city up to the turn of the century. In: Hugo Weidenhaupt (Ed.): Düsseldorf. History from the origins to the 20th century. Volume 2, Schwann im Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 1988, ISBN 3-491-34222-8 , p. 583 f.
  4. ^ Annual exhibition Rhenish Secession May / June 1930
  5. ^ Illustration of the Christmas sales exhibition catalog, Städtische Kunsthalle, Hindenburgwall 11a
  6. ↑ The inscription on the base names the Düsseldorf sculptor Leo Müsch (1846–1911). According to more recent research, however, the pairs of sculptures, carved from sandstone from 1879 to 1881, were made by the sculptor Wilhelm Albermann (cf. Rolf Pupar: Kunststadt Düsseldorf. Objects and monuments in the cityscape. Grupello Verlag, Düsseldorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-89978-044-4 , P. 33).
  7. ^ Caryatids (Four Arts) , on emuseum.duesseldorf.de, accessed on July 29, 2017
  8. ^ Bettina Baumgärtel: National, regional and transnational. The monumental painting of the Düsseldorf School of Painting - Apollinariskirche and Heltorf Castle. In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Hrsg.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918 . Volume 1 (catalog), Michael Imhof Verlag, Peterberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , p. 115 f.
  9. ↑ a b Georg Friedrich Koch: Museum and exhibition buildings. In: Eduard Trier, Willy Weyres (Ed.): Art of the 19th century in the Rhineland. Volume 2: Architecture: II, Profane Buildings and Urban Planning. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1980, ISBN 3-590-30252-6 , p. 212f.
  10. ^ Friedrich Schaarschmidt: On the history of Düsseldorf art. Düsseldorf 1902, p. 331 ff., Rambow.de (PDF)

Remarks

  1. ↑ Especially in the first years after the opening in 1881, exhibitions that did not concern contemporary art were held, for example the exhibition "Pictures of Old Masters" from September 5 to October 7, 1886, the works of the Flemish and Dutch School from 17. Century included by private collectors in the Lower Rhine and Westphalia.

Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 39.5 ″  N , 6 ° 46 ′ 35.2 ″  E