Baumhof workers' colony

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Baumhof workers' colony

The Baumhof workers 'colony (also known as Dreilinden or Lindenhof ) was an early workers' settlement in the southern part of the city of Essen , which was built for its workers in 1871 by the Krupp company (from 1903 Friedrich Krupp AG ). In 1890 the number of apartments was more than doubled through a second construction phase.

prehistory

At the beginning of the sixties of the 19th century, Alfred Krupp felt compelled to create living space himself for his steadily increasing number of workers in his rapidly expanding cast steel factory , mainly on the site of today's Krupp belt . A worsening housing shortage in Essen resulted from the immigration of workers for the Krupp industry, but also the emerging mining in the region. Thereupon Alfred Krupp set up an in-house construction office under the direction of the government master builder Gustav Kraemer .

Krupp's residential construction began with the construction of two so-called master houses in 1861/1862 and the workers' colony Alt-Westend in 1863. After the end of the founding period in 1874, after the construction of the colonies Nordhof , Schederhof , Baumhof and finally Kronenberg , the project had to end financial reasons. It was not until 1891 that new activities in Krupp housing construction began under Friedrich Alfred Krupp on a new scale with the Alfredshof and Altenhof settlements .

The Baumhof colony

The Baumhof workers 'colony was the first Krupp workers' colony that was not built directly on the company's own premises or adjacent, but in the southern part of Essen east of Kettwiger Chaussee, which is now called Rüttenscheider Straße on this section. At that time it was a little built-up, rural area.

As with the other Krupp residential colonies at the time, there was also a consumer establishment in the Baumhof, i.e. a shop for everyday items. With the exception of the fire station that existed from the start and an industrial school for school-age children that opened after 1890, there were no other community facilities.

First construction phase in 1871

In the first phase of construction in 1871, 72 apartments were built on the 2.43 hectare site of the colony within six months. Branching off from Kettwiger Chaussee, Baumhof street was parallel between Baumstrasse and Hohenzollernstrasse. Here were three two-story eight-family houses, framed by entrance buildings. Four rows of houses joined it at right angles. The special thing about the inner buildings was that four apartments were distributed over the four corners of the house floor plan. This meant that apart from the non-heatable bedrooms on the upper floor, all rooms, i.e. living room, toilet and kitchen, were on the ground floor, with a staircase leading up from the kitchen. Outside, each residential unit - for the first time in Krupp's residential construction - had a kitchen garden, small animal stalls and an attached pantry.

Expansion in 1890

It was not until 1890 that the Baumhof colony in the east was expanded in a similar style by 82 apartments to a total of 154 apartments. The expansion of the settlement took place, like the origin almost twenty years earlier, under the direction of the government master builder Gustav Kraemer, who had been the head of the Krupp construction office since 1863. This second construction phase of the Baumhof colony was Kraemer's last work, it was followed by Robert Schmohl , who continued Krupp's residential construction with new goals, because Friedrich Alfred Krupp had different ideas than his father Alfred.

In total there were 92 3-room, 50 4-room and 12 5-room apartments in the colony. The 3-room apartments had 54.5 m² of living space. All houses had a vaulted basement and shared attics under a roof that was tiled. The outer walls were solidly bricked and grouted, the inner walls were built from stone framework.

Current condition

Nothing visible remains of the original workers' colony. The Baumhof as a cul-de-sac, parallel between Hohenzollernstrasse and Baumstrasse, no longer exists. Today there are modern office buildings for various companies on the site of the former colony. Today's Essen district of Rüttenscheid is close to the city center and, in contrast to the time when the Baumhof colony was founded, is now very densely populated.

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Coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 33 ″  N , 7 ° 0 ′ 30.6 ″  E