Baumann older

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Baumann older, factory from 1874
Former factory building with a filled-in canal on the Limmat in Zurich-Höngg, 2017

Baumann older & Co. was founded in Horgen in the canton of Zurich in Switzerland in 1828 . The company produced silk fabrics and was one of the largest textile factories in Switzerland at the end of the 19th century. Production was discontinued in 1934 and the company was liquidated in 1942.

history

"Höhn & Baumann"

Johann Jakob Baumann (1803–1865), son of the master turner Hans Jakob Baumann and Anna Barbara Höhn, founded a silk fabric factory in 1828 under the name Höhn & Baumann and rented the “Seegarten” shop in Horgen. A stay in Leipzig , where mainly business with Eastern Europe ( Russia etc.) was carried out, had led him to make this decision. His father and uncle Hans Kaspar Höhn support him financially.

The company opened with 120 handlooms to produce silk fabrics of the same quality as in Lyon . The silk fabrics were marketed in the store in Zurich and in the company's own sales warehouse in Leipzig. Johann Jakob Baumann married Elise Diezinger in 1831 and moved with his family to Leipzig to take over the management of the sales warehouse himself. In addition to Leipzig, sales were made in Frankfurt am Main , Augsburg , Hamburg and Nuremberg . In 1833 relations were established in the United States . The business in Horgen was run by uncle Hans Kaspar Höhn and the partners brother Kaspar Baumann and cousins ​​Hans Jakob Höhn and C. Streuli. The partner A. Goedecke helped the founder in Leipzig.

In 1839 Kaspar Baumann and C. Streuli left the company and founded Baumann & Streuli . Founder Baumann returned from Leipzig and bought the "Seegarten".

The good development of the business in Zurich led to the decision in 1850 to relocate the headquarters from Horgen to Zurich. Founder Baumann bought the land in Schanzengraben near Paradeplatz and had the residential and factory building "Tiefengrund" and stables built on it. The company was renamed Baumann older & Goedecke . The "Seegarten" in Horgen was sold.

"Baumann older & Co."

The sons of Johann Jakob Baumann Diezinger, Conrad (1839-1905) and Rudolf occurred in 1861 a along with the son-August Schoen in the company, which in older Baumann & Co . was renamed.

In 1867, the conversion to mechanical weaving with two mechanical looms in a back building on Gerechtigkeitsgasse began. From 1870 ten own mechanical looms were operated in the former Danner mill in Sihlhölzli and increased to 38 looms over time.

Adolf Arther from Rorbas bought the “Hardgut” on both sides of the Limmat , including the state hydropower concession. There, from 1872 to 1874, the factory buildings of the mechanical silk weaving mill Höngg with hydraulic structures were built by JJ Naef-Brupbacher (1824–1906). The factory was located on the right bank of the Limmat, where the water from the Limmat was fed into the turbine house via a canal to power the looms with their water power. Operations began with 50 mechanical and 56 Lyon handlooms. The handlooms had previously been operated in the premises rented by the company in Letten, where the Zurich silk weaving school moved in in 1881 . In 1877 the looms had grown to 108 mechanical and 132 Lyon handlooms.

"Baumann older & Co. AG"

Baumann older Sulz, 1915

In 1886 the mechanical silk weaving mill in Höngg was converted into a stock corporation. The business flourished and in 1888 a sales house was founded in London and a silk weaving mill was set up in Sulz in Upper Alsace, Germany.

In 1895 a new building was added to the factory building. At that time, the company was one of the largest textile factories in Switzerland, with around 650 looms and more than 1000 workers. In 1899 the company was Baumann & Co. earlier in the formerly Baumann older & Co. Aktiengesellschaft converted.

Because of the tightening of customs regulations by France, a silk weaving mill was set up in Saint-Pierre-de-Bœuf in 1904 . After the First World War , Alsace became French. Since the weaving mill in Soultz could no longer work for the German market, the Weberei Waldsee GmbH was founded in Bad Waldsee (Germany) in 1921 . The newly established French branch Tissage mécanique Baumann ainé & Cie. in Lyon was responsible for the two weaving mills in Saint-Pierre-de-Boeuf and Soultz.

The community of Höngg, at that time still a suburb of the city of Zurich, owned three factories in 1925, one of which was a large one, the mechanical silk weaving mill Baumann older , which had 728 employees at the time.

The "Tiefengrund" office was sold in 1928 because the Chamber of Commerce and the Canton of Zurich ("Tiefengrund" AG) built the city of Zurich's new (second) stock exchange from 1928 to 1930 there near Paradeplatz . In 1930 the company was able to move back into the old location in the new stock exchange building.

Shortly before the incorporation of Höngg in 1934, the company had to stop producing silk fabrics because of the global economic crisis . With the decline of the Baumann Older silk weaving mill, 1,500 workers lost their jobs. Because the city promised help in the event of an incorporation, the people of Höngg supported the incorporation with an initiative from 1934.

The silk weaving was continued as a holding and real estate company and was liquidated in 1942. The city of Zurich bought the factory building in 1942 and leased it to commercial enterprises. The building, known today as the “Fabrik Am Wasser”, was placed under monument protection in 1990. At Christmas 1992, an unresolved major fire destroyed considerable parts of the facility. The design plan for the factory site, which emerged from a public competition in 1996, led to political controversy and a compromise in the local council. In place of the earlier shed halls, a new schoolhouse and a residential complex were built.

Today (2017) the former Höngg factory building houses the school on the water , commercial premises and studios. There is a restaurant in the former hydroelectric power station.

literature

Web links

Commons : Seidenweberei Baumann older  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Statistical documents of the City of Zurich on the suburbs interested in incorporation from 1925
  2. ^ From the history of the development of the stock corporation vorm. Baumann older & Co., Zurich. In: Communications about the textile industry: Swiss specialist publication for the entire textile industry, Volume 35, 1928, Issue 12
  3. Höngg District Report 2011

Coordinates: 47 ° 23 '45 "  N , 8 ° 30' 19.9"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred eighty thousand five hundred forty-five  /  249,992