Budde House

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Budde House

The Budde-Haus is a socio-cultural center in the north of Leipzig , in the Gohlis district . The house was built in 1890/91 as a residence for the Bleichert family of manufacturers and has been used as a cultural center since 1956. It has been a listed building since 1973 and is an important example of historicizing architecture at the turn of the century in Germany. Since 1993 it has been one of the ten socio-cultural centers in Leipzig.

history

Families Bleichert and Mende

In 1860 there was a gas works and a small villa for the management of the gas works on the extensive site between today's Lützowstrasse and Benedixstrasse. In 1880, the owner of the cable car factory Adolf Bleichert (born 1845 in Dessau, grew up in Leipzig-Gohlis) bought the property with buildings across from the company's own premises. The small Villa Bleichert was then converted into a home for the family. In 1890 the old villa was demolished, from 1890 to 1891 the "Villa Hilda" was built, which bore the name of Adolf Bleichert's wife Hildegard.

The Bleichert family had eight children, two of whom died early. In 1899 Adolf Bleichert fell ill with tuberculosis. He died in a hospital in Switzerland in 1901 and was buried in the Leipzig-Gohlis cemetery. His tomb can still be seen today. The Bleichert factories were continued by the sons Max and Paul Bleichert. In 1918 the family was raised to the hereditary nobility "von Bleichert". The family moved out of the house in early 1920.

In 1927 Karl Mende, a wholesaler for industrial glass, based at the Eutritzscher open-air loading station, bought the property and used it as a residence for his family. For this reason, various modifications were made. Among other things, the ceiling of the upper floor was closed with glass blocks.

During the bombing in 1945 the right wing and the glass dome of the house were destroyed. The Mende family lived there until 1952, including the billeting of refugees. The arrest of Karl Mendes on the pretext of creating a monopoly (restriction of the private sector) meant the end of rule on the property. Karl Mende was later able to escape from the prison in Zwickau to West Berlin with forged papers.

Heinrich Budde Clubhouse

The property became property of the people with the legal entity council of the city of Leipzig. The villa was used between 1953 and 1954 as a boarding school for students of the engineering school for construction, then between 1954 and 1955 as a home for 80 "difficult to educate girls". In 1956 the property was transferred to the Bleichertwerke's successor, VEB Verlade- und Transportanlagen Leipzig, for cultural use. On August 11, 1956, it was inaugurated as the "Heinrich Budde Clubhouse". The coming decades meant a lively cultural life in the house, including a library, dance events and circle work.

Budde House

In January 1993 the "Heinrich Budde Clubhouse" was closed. It had to be given back to the grandson Karl Mendes because of legitimate restitution claims. Thanks to the “Save the Budde House” campaign by the Gohlis Civic Association, the City of Leipzig bought the property for 2.4 million DM. The entire site was given to the newly founded Förderverein Heinrich-Budde-Haus e. V. handed over.

On May 22, 1993 the reopening took place as the socio-cultural center Heinrich-Budde-Haus. Despite lively cultural activities and initial renovations, the city of Leipzig repeatedly made plans to sell the building. According to the Förderverein Heinrich-Budde-Haus e. V. filed for bankruptcy in 2014, the cultural office of the city of Leipzig took over the management of the property. After a tender, the FAIRbund e. V. since January 2017 the Budde-Haus again as a socio-cultural center.

architecture

In the popular Gohlis district, which was mainly built for residential purposes, many upper-class villa buildings were built in the 19th century. In 1880 the engineer Gustav Adolf Bleichert acquired the property on Feldstrasse (today Lützowstrasse). The house on top was assigned to be demolished / converted. The construction plans for the new Bleichert villa were submitted in 1889.

The renowned Leipzig architects Pfeifer und Handel was commissioned with the construction, the construction was carried out by the Leipzig company Eduard Steyer. The inscription “Villa Hilda” can be read on the central gable of the main facade, which was to be understood as a reference from the client to his wife Victoria Emilie Hildegard Bleichert. As a result, the house has become known as Villa Hilda in addition to the name Bleichert Villa.

The construction work continued until 1891, the family was able to move in the following year. The rich furnishings include Postelwitz and Cotta sandstone on the facades as well as marble, stucco and gold decorations, art glazing and fine woodwork in the interior. The central projection, decorated by Ionic columns, is flanked by two wing structures. A veritable program of images on the main facade presents fruit garlands, a coat of arms with the owner's initials in the triangular gable, a lion's head above the balcony, women's heads with flower tendrils on the wings. Today's flat roof was crowned by a monumental glass dome.

The symbolic and mythical character of the main facade is continued in the area of ​​the ornamental fountain. Here you can find free uses of ancient and Assyrian style features: sphinx-like mythical creatures of Egyptian origin, lion head, dolphin figure and plant ornaments.

The interior is / was just as generously decorated: the staircase was adorned with a wall fountain, and the rotunda originally had a colored glass dome light, which enabled a light-flooded atmosphere in the spacious foyer.

The Second World War left a lot of damage to the house: the southeast corner with the winter garden pavilion was completely destroyed, and the glass dome inside and the glass pyramid outside have also disappeared.

The Bleichert works

The Adolf Bleichert & Co., factory for cable cars Leipzig-Gohlis was a company that was particularly active in cable car construction and was based in Leipzig - Gohlis . The former company premises are under monument protection (see list of cultural monuments in Gohlis-Mitte, A – K and list of cultural monuments in Gohlis-Mitte, L – Z ).

Namesake of the Budde House

Caspar Heinrich Budde was born on January 28, 1887 in Dorstfeld near Dortmund as the second oldest of eight siblings. After various training and advanced training courses, he was employed as a technician from April to August 1909 at what was then the Adolf Bleichert & Co. Leipzig transport plant .

In 1914 he married his wife Else (née Funke), with whom he had two children: Herbert (* 1910) and Gertrud (* 1915). In 1914 the Budde family moved to Duisburg, and after the First World War Heinrich Budde went into business for himself as a transport company. The years 1921/22 saw the return of Heinrich Budde to Leipzig, he was again employed by the Bleichert company as an iron constructor / engineer. In the Great Depression he was unemployed. In 1935 Heinrich Budde got a job at the Leipziger company Mannesmann-Rohrlinien AG.

During an air raid guard at Mannesmann in 1943, Heinrich Budde brought up about the Nazi regime and was then reported by colleagues to the Gestapo and arrested. The indictment accused Budde of hate speech, plotting a communist overthrow and attempting to manipulate the will of the German people. In July 1944, the trial at the Dresden Higher Regional Court took place with the sentence to seven years in prison for degrading military strength and seven years of loss of honor. The prosecutor appealed and the fascist People's Court passed the death sentence on October 27, 1944. Heinrich Budde was executed on November 27, 1944. As an honorable souvenir of Budde, Beaumontstrasse in Gohlis was renamed Heinrich-Budde-Strasse in 1945, and in 1956 the clubhouse "Heinrich Budde" was named after him.

Web links

Commons : Heinrich-Budde-Haus (Leipzig)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bodo Pientka: Architecture and design of the Villa Hilda. In: Förderverein Heinrich-Budde-Haus eV, Bürgererverein Gohlis eV (Ed.): From Villa Hilda to the Heinrich Budde Clubhouse - Contributions to the history of the Heinrich Budde House Leipzig / Gohlis. (Gohliser historical booklets 4.) Leipzig 1999,23
  2. ^ Pientka 1999, 24
  3. ↑ Pientka 1999, p. 25
  4. ^ Pientka 1999, 26
  5. ^ Wolfgang Grundmann: Biography of Heinrich Budde. In: Förderverein Heinrich-Budde-Haus e. V., Bürgererverein Gohlis eV (Ed.): From the Villa Hilda to the Heinrich Budde Clubhouse - Contributions to the history of the Heinrich Budde House Leipzig / Gohlis. (Gohliser historical booklets 4.) Leipzig 1999, p. 31
  6. ↑ Grundmann 1999, p. 32
  7. ↑ Grundmann 1999, p. 34

Coordinates: 51 ° 21 ′ 49.7 "  N , 12 ° 22 ′ 27.7"  E