Beckenhof (Zurich)

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Beckenhof Zurich

The Beckenhof is a former patrician country estate in Zurich-Unterstrass .

history

The history of the Beckenhof can be traced back to the 12th century. The current building stock dates from the 17th and 18th centuries: the feudal house was built around 1650 and the small manor house in 1706. In 1740, Junker Hartmann Grebel and his wife Anna Elisabeth Bodmer built the large manor house as a stately home with baroque gardens that stretched as far as today's Wasserwerkstrasse on the banks of the Limmat .

The ensemble is an important regional example of the transition from early rococo to finished rococo . The interior decoration is influenced by the later works of Effner and Cuvilliés . The Grebel couple led a glamorous life here for around two decades, until the Junker gambled away his entire fortune in one night. The property was sold to the Hess family. Their son David Hess , famous poet and Zurich chronicler, made the Beckenhof a center of intellectual life in the first half of the 19th century.

In the course of the city ​​expansion , Stampfenbachstrasse was built across the garden around 1865 and the lower part was parceled out . The remaining park near the house was redesigned into a romantic landscape garden in keeping with the spirit of the times. Only the south parterre remained unchanged.

In 1924 the city of Zurich acquired the area in order to save it from a planned overbuilding. The Zurich painter Varlin rented a studio for a short time after his return from France and also captured the country estate in an oil painting Mon atelier au Beckenhof . From 1937 to 2012 the Beckenhof housed the Pestalozzianum . The buildings were repaired in 2014–2015. Today they are used as office space and are not open to the public; the renovated garden is open to the public. The Beckenhof can be reached by public transport with tram lines 11 and 14 at the Beckenhof stop of the same name .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Max Lüthi: Bourgeois interior decoration of the late baroque and rococo in German Switzerland. P. 47.
  2. ^ Beckenhof Civil Engineering and Waste Management Department of the City of Zurich
  3. ↑ Varlin: Mon atelier au Beckenhof on artnet .

literature

  • Hermann Balsiger: The Beckenhof. A Zurich architectural monument. Heimatschutz-Verlag, Basel 1924.
  • Max Lüthi: Bourgeois interior decoration of the late baroque and rococo in German-speaking Switzerland. Dissertation at the ETH Zurich. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1927. Digitized

Web links

Commons : Beckenhof  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 47 ° 23 '5.8 "  N , 8 ° 32' 27.6"  E ; CH1903:  683239  /  248820