Cecilien Gardens
The Ceciliengärten housing estate, built between 1922 and 1927, is part of the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district of Berlin . It was added to the Berlin list of monuments in 1995. The green areas of the settlement were declared a garden monument in 1977 .
In its urban planning concept and architectural design by the architect and urban planning officer of the former Berlin district of Schöneberg , Heinrich Lassen , it stands in contrast to several Berlin settlements that were built at the same time , primarily in the style of New Building . The design of the Cecilien Gardens , which was still based on Art Nouveau , with ornaments , graduations and pointed roofs , took a back seat in the New Building style propagated by the architects Walter Gropius and the brothers Max and Bruno Taut .
The qualities of the Ceciliengärten are evident in the garden, the structure, choice of materials and the sometimes playfulness of the facades as well as the striking design of the studio tower and the sometimes very lush inner courtyard gardens. The facade decoration with the realistic depictions of everyday life and the traffic that was modern at the time, as well as the formal language of the door designs make the Ceciliengärten a public open-air museum of Art Deco .
location
The settlement with a total area of 42,200 m² is located in the Schöneberg district (near the Friedenau district and therefore often incorrectly assigned to it) on the Teltow ridge south of the Berlin-Warsaw glacial valley with an average height of almost 40 meters above sea level . The terrain of the facility has a total height difference of around three meters.
The system is limited by the - by the lawyers and politicians Albert Traeger named - Traegerstraße in the north, the Rubens street in the East, which - according to the Civil Reinhard Baumeister named - Baumeisterstraße and Semperstraße (so named by the architect Gottfried Semper ) in the south and in the west by the rear borders the eastern Land of - after the merchant, landowner and land speculators Johann Christian August Sponholz named - Sponholz road . The eponymous Ceciliengärten street , which has been traffic-calmed since 2000, runs through the entire settlement . The facility is essentially flanked by the following main traffic arteries:
- To the northwest by the main road - part of the former here as Berlin Potsdamer Chaussee running Reich and later national road 1 ,
- north through the S-Bahn-Ring and the parallel city motorway (A 100) behind Innsbrucker Platz ,
- southeast through the Wannseebahn railway line - formerly: Berlin-Potsdam-Magdeburg Railway , today: S-Bahn line S1 , as well as the west bypass (A 103) running parallel to it , on which federal highway 1 is also run.
Due to its location and transport links, the Ceciliengärten settlement has a relatively quiet yet central character. The distance to the Brandenburg Gate , for example, is just under six kilometers; the S-Bahn takes twelve minutes for this.
Naming
The namesake for the Cecilien Gardens was Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia (1886–1954), wife of the German Crown Prince Wilhelm . Among other things, she gave its name to the Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam , the Cecilienkoog in North Friesland , which was diked in 1905, and one of the large sailing ships of the first half of the 20th century, the four-masted barque Duchess Cecilie .
The name of the street leading through the settlement with the shape of the square, which has always been somewhat similar to that of the old town - which was previously called street 39 - took place in 1912.
With the naming of the complex one wanted to pay homage to the Crown Princess, who at the time enjoyed a very high reputation among the population, already during her lifetime.
history
planning
The first ideas for the parceling out and development of the former "Willmannschen Park area" west of Rubensstraße between Hauptstraße in the north and the Berlin-Potsdam-Magdeburg railway at what is now the Friedenau S-Bahn station in the south arose as early as the 1890s in connection with the development of the - Founded in 1871 as a villa suburb - at that time the Prussian rural community of Friedenau. Up until the preliminary planning stage in 1909, excessively wide streets with "interspersed green spots" were favored to develop the area.
It was only after the land was acquired by the then “Boden-Aktiengesellschaft Berlin-Nord” that the planners began to think about new aspects of urban development : The desired residential area was now concentrated around a large, continuous green area and decentralized courtyard parks were planned. For this purpose, the planners drew detailed facade designs and laid down all the requirements in a development plan - revised by the urban expansion office of the then independent city of Schöneberg .
In an exposé from 1912, there was the first talk of “the elimination of the fire gables , Berlin rooms and rear buildings” as well as of “sunny apartments through north-south alignment of all building blocks”. Furthermore, the architects dealt with the prevailing wind directions and the necessary equipment of the settlement with playgrounds "for the dear youth". Specifically, the horticultural design with hedges, borders , rows of trees, arcades and the installation of several fountains and a water fountain were devoted to . The settlement was to be built as a “garden city in the English style”, which should give the entire complex a greater attractiveness and increase in value.
All construction of the architecture and the parks should be carried out under the official supervision of the Schöneberg city building inspector Paul Wolf .
Implementation and completion
The completion of the residential buildings was primarily prevented by the First World War . After the war, the previous planning had to be canceled and then completely restarted. Although there was no fighting on German soil during the First World War, the consequences of the war were considerable: the loss of territory and the largely disbanded army led to a flood of refugees and additional housing requirements. In addition, the food supply was already severely impaired before the end of the war due to insufficiently managed agricultural land . The economic crisis in the Weimar Republic and the reparation claims limited the financial leeway of the cities and municipalities considerably, at the same time the demand for high-quality apartments largely collapsed. The generously planned city plans with the well-equipped apartments that were planned before the First World War no longer met current needs.
The original structural concept of the Cecilien Gardens was therefore ultimately not implemented in this form. Only one building (Ceciliengärten 1) was completed after the First World War - probably as a prototype - and can still be seen today on the corner of Traegerstraße. The street division, including the square-like green area, was completed with the old stock of trees, some of which already existed in Willmann's park area.
It was only after the incorporation into Greater Berlin in 1920 that Schöneberg's urban planners took on the already established development plan again. They soon found donors willing to purchase the parceled blocks. For the then non-profit Heimstättengesellschaft der Berliner Straßenbahn (for the north-eastern block) and the Wohnstättengesellschaft mbH (for the remaining blocks), the original planning of the residential buildings was revised and adapted to the changed living requirements. The newly built district was then ready for occupancy in various construction phases from July 1, 1923 to 1927 and primarily comprised company apartments that were reserved for employees of the state and for the employees of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG).
The chief planner for the realization of the plans was the Schöneberg city building officer Heinrich Lassen . A memorial plaque on Traegerstraße 2/3 still reminds of him today.
Little influenced by the new architectural signs of the time - for example the Bauhaus style, which was just emerging at the time - the facade design was no longer as extensive as it was aimed at in 1912. Nevertheless, the results in terms of usability and visualization were still well thought out and very detailed. The architect paid attention to the following structuring and design elements for the facade surfaces:
- The plasticity of the projections and recesses with the resulting light and shadow effect ,
- consistent observance of a strong symmetry of all houses,
- Use of different materials and creative cleaning techniques as well
- Use of various jewelry parts, for example above the entrance portals .
The architect Heinrich Lassen attached great importance to the fact that the floor plans of the apartments - sometimes only in details - differ from one another. When the last of eight construction phases was completed after five years of construction in 1927, the built-up complex area comprised around 18,700 m² with 621 apartments in which more than 1500 people lived
- 8 five-room apartments,
- 92 four-room apartments,
- 322 three-room apartments,
- 181 two-room apartments,
- 18 one-room apartments as well
- 12 stores and
- 4 studios.
The size of the rooms is on average 18 to 24 m², with almost every apartment having a hall and a bay window . The average apartment size is around 90 m².
At least one planned apartment block was dropped, contrary to the original project from 1912: between Semperstrasse, Baumeisterstrasse and Sponholzstrasse towards the Friedenau train station , another residential building project was completed around the same time.
A striking feature of the Cecilien Gardens was the studio tower as the southern boundary to Semperstrasse. This tower had no actual function, but represented an architectural landmark that underlined the closed impression of the entire complex. It owes its name to the studio apartment located in the upper part, which at the time extended over today's fourth and fifth floors without a false ceiling and which the painter Hans Baluschek lived in between 1929 and 1933 as his place of work.
The two life-size statues of women, The Morning and The Evening by the sculptor Georg Kolbe on the central park, were also a special feature of the settlement. When naming his bronze sculptures, Kolbe did not refer to the cardinal points in which his figures were placed, but to the way in which they begin the day (the sculpture The morning stretches towards the day) and end the day (the statue The evening, on the other hand, seems exhausted with arms hanging down). The sculpture Der Morgen was exhibited in the German Pavilion at the World Exhibition in Barcelona in 1929 . A copy of the Kolbe sculpture is now in the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona .
The partly large inner courtyards of the complex, which can only be reached via the respective house entrances, should be emphasized. The largest of these courtyards is the "Südhof", which is located at the southeastern tip of the settlement on Rubens- / Baumeisterstraße. This courtyard includes a 3500 m² lawn area and a horseshoe-shaped pergola . The relatively narrow “Nordhof” is located parallel to Rubensstrasse in the northern area. There were large clock towers at both ends of the elongated courtyard, which indicated the time to the employees of the transport companies living in this area so that they had no reason to be late for work. The architect's love for the entire facility can be seen in such details.
The second World War
Albert Speer's plans for an oversized “ world capital Germania ” with a north-south axis up to 300 meters wide between the Spreebogen in the north and the Teltow Canal in the south ended shortly before the gates of the settlement on Vorarlberger Damm, which began during the National Socialist era . When they were completed according to the planning status of 1942, they would not have brought about any direct changes to the grounds of the Cecilien Gardens.
In contrast to other urban areas in Berlin, the effects of the Second World War were limited for the Cecilien Gardens. Nevertheless, for reasons of population provision, the green spaces were used relatively heavily: On Allied aerial photographs from 1943, several trenches can be seen in the middle of the central green space . The settlement was not spared from air raids . In February 1943, Allied bombers dug a swath in the north of the facility from west to east. The houses in Ceciliengärten 4 to 9 were destroyed and house number 47 was badly damaged. In the houses at Ceciliengärten 39 and Rubensstrasse 40 as well as Rubensstrasse 32 to 38, some considerable damage was recorded. The damage was repaired in the post-war years , and the totally destroyed houses were rebuilt in a simplified manner by the end of the 1950s.
The studio apartment, located in the building of the studio tower at the southern end of the estate, lost its two-story ceiling height at around the same time as a result of renovations. This happened because of the great shortage of housing after the war and the resulting rental possibilities by inserting a false ceiling, which doubled the living space.
The plant today
On the occasion of Berlin's 750th anniversary in 1987, the entire facility was completely restored a year earlier. The facades were revised in accordance with listed buildings and the roofs re-covered. In parts of the Ceciliengärten (houses 42 to 49) loft extensions were made with dormers to create additional living space. Shortly after the restoration, the roof structure on Rubensstrasse 50 burned out and had to be repaired again. In connection with the 750th anniversary, the approximately 14,000 m² central square was restored according to the historical plans: the oval fountain with water fountain was restored, as was the fox fountain (with a sculpture of a fox by Max Esser from 1912). The lawn was laid out in the original way and replanted with roses. The above-mentioned female statues, The Morning and The Evening , came back to their traditional location in the Cecilien Gardens for this occasion. In the meantime, in the post-war period , Der Abend had its domicile on Wittenbergplatz and from 1954 both statues were set up in Rudolph-Wilde-Park at Schöneberg Town Hall .
The apartments in the complex are divided into different owner units:
- The larger part of the estate - with the houses Ceciliengärten 2 to 39, Rubensstrasse 40 to 50 (even house numbers), Baumeisterstrasse 4 to 8, Semperstrasse 2 and Sponholzstrasse 40/41 - was gradually converted into private property from 1999.
- The north-eastern part of the complex with the houses Ceciliengärten 40 to 53, Traegerstraße 2 and 3 and the even house numbers of Rubensstraße 16 to 38 is all rented by the majority owner.
Prominent residents
In the Ceciliengärten settlement and in the streets that border it lived personalities, some of whom are named here:
- Ceciliengärten 27: As one of the most prominent and important residents of the settlement, the painter and graphic artist Hans Baluschek worked and lived from 1929 to 1933 in the studio tower on Semperstrasse, where he had an “honorary apartment”. He did not have to pay rent for this and was able to pursue his artistic inclinations carefree. Baluschek was primarily known for realistic depictions of social life and illustrated works by Gerhart Hauptmann and Richard Dehmel , among others . He later became known as the author of his own short stories ( e.g. Spreeluft , 1913). He was a co-founder of the Berlin Secession (1898) and the League of Proletarian Revolutionary Writers (1919). Baluschek directed the Great Berlin Art Exhibition and was chairman of the Schöneberg art deputation. As a Marxist and politically ostracized unreliable, he put on the " seizure " of the Nazis in 1933, all his offices. A memorial plaque that was unveiled in 1981 at Semperstrasse 1 commemorates him, which shows next to the text a street scene in the style typical of Baluschek:
_Hans_Baluschek.jpg)
- A green connection near the settlement has borne his name since 2004: The Hans-Baluschek-Park is a narrow green area between the Priesterweg and Südkreuz S-Bahn stations with a length of 1.5 kilometers and a size of seven hectares. A four meter wide asphalt path leads through the park, which is part of a higher-level pedestrian and cycle path connection and which will later extend over the park at Gleisdreieck to the Landwehr Canal near Potsdamer Platz . Hans Baluschek's grave is in the Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof in Stahnsdorf (Dept. L I – S III – 334).
- Ceciliengärten 20: In October 1945, the literary historian and writer Heinrich Spiero moved into his last apartment here. He had previously lived near the complex on Fregestraße , Wilhelm-Hauff-Straße and Odenwaldstraße in Friedenau , but had to give up these apartments again because of his Jewish origins. His most important works include the biographies of Detlev von Liliencron , Gustav Falke , Theodor Fontane , Julius Rodenberg and Wilhelm Raabe . From 1929 to 1934 he was editor of Jedermanns Lexikon . His last work, The Story of the German Novel, was written in the Cecilien Gardens . He found his final resting place in a grave of honor in Department 605-005-017 of the Old Cemetery of the Twelve Apostles Congregation in Schöneberger Kolonnenstrasse. The Spieroweg in the Staaken district of Berlin reminds of him .
- Baumeisterstraße 8: The clarinetist and Berlin chamber virtuoso Alfred Bürkner lived here from 1946 until his death in 1981 . From 1921 to 1925 he studied clarinet with Oskar Schubert, and from 1922 to 1924 he was clarinetist at the Great Volksoper Berlin, today's Theater des Westens . From 1925 to 1973 he was a member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra . In 1930 he was one of the founding members of the Chamber Music Association of the Berlin Philharmonic, the orchestra's oldest chamber music association, which still exists today under a different name.
- Traegerstraße 2 was the address of the composer and music writer Arnold Ebel in 1922 . He was a master student of Max Bruch at the Berlin University of Music . After graduating, he first worked as a choir director and organist for the Order of St. John in Berlin, and in 1921 he became organist at the Schöneberg Paul Gerhardt Church . He was also chairman of the Berliner Tonkünstler-Verein and the United Music Pedagogical Associations. Among other things, he composed songs and a requiem .
- Semperstrasse 3: Hugo Egon Balder , who became known as a television presenter, producer, musician, actor and cabaret artist, grew up in this house .
In addition to the personalities mentioned here, Heinrich Lassen should be emphasized as the architect of the Cecilien Gardens. Although he did not live here and none of the local streets bears his name, it is closely linked to the architectural design of the Ceciliengärten. He lived in Friedenau in 1896, not far away at Schmargendorfer Straße 18. As a later city councilor and town planner in Schöneberg, he suggested the Schöneberg settlement Lindenhof and created the Schöneberg public swimming pool in Hauptstraße . The kiosk with a bus shelter and public facilities on today's Breslauer Platz in front of the Friedenau town hall was built in 1929 according to his plans. In 1953 the Heinrich-Lassen-Park was named after him, which arose from the gardens of the old Schöneberg families Richnow and Willmann, who were known at the time as " Millions of Millions " because they sold their large estates to the city during the early days and thus became one considerable fortunes came.
The settlement as a garden monument
The facility, designed by Albert Brodersen at the time, has been designated as a garden monument since 1977 . The Ceciliengärten street , via which the large central square with the two fountains can be reached, is flanked by Japanese cherry trees in the respective areas in front of the square . These rather atypical street trees were only planted towards the end of the 1950s. Since the beginning of the 2000s, the trees have been gradually replaced by new plantings due to their age.
In order to meet the requirement of being a “garden city” in the planning of the complex, the planners attached great importance to sensible greening right from the start: A sequence of flowering plants from spring to autumn should be guaranteed:
- The forsythia in their yellow flowers form the blooming prelude in April .
- Immediately afterwards (end of April / beginning of May) the Japanese cherry trees form a pink roof over the street Ceciliengärten .
- Then the umbels of the lilac-colored lilac bushes open in the area between the studio tower and the central square.
- Shortly afterwards, the white flowering horse chestnuts put on their “lights” in the central square and let the summer begin.
- This bloom is then continued by the pink roses in the square around the two women statues, The Morning and The Evening .
Anecdote on the side: until well beyond the post-war period , the most remarkable thing about Baumeisterstraße - which bordered the Ceciliengärten - was the lavishly blooming lilacs on the S-Bahn embankment in May. He regularly experienced a "miraculous thinning" on the night before Mother's Day .
- Plants in the Cecilien Gardens
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Transport links
The Ceciliengärten is between the S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations Innsbrucker Platz ( Ringbahn -lines S41, S42, S46 and U-Bahn-Line U4 ) as well as the S-Bahn station Friedenau ( Wannseebahn -Line S1).
The settlement can be reached with the Metrobus lines M48 and M85 via the Hähnelstraße stop and with the 187 bus at the Ceciliengärten stop and with the 248 buses at the Innsbrucker Platz stop .
For private transport , the Ceciliengärten can be reached via the nearby junction 17 - Innsbrucker Platz of the A 100 .
See also
- Lindenhof settlement
- Settlement on the Fischtalgrund
- Horseshoe Settlement
- Rheingauviertel around Rüdesheimer Platz
literature
- Gudrun Blankenburg: Friedenau - artist's place and idyllic residential area. The history of a Berlin district . Frieling, Berlin 2006. ISBN 3-8280-2350-9 (with register and enclosed monument map).
- Christel and Heinz Blumensath: The other Friedenau - walks through 125 years of art, literature and building history . District Office Schöneberg, Berlin 1996.
- Alfred Bürkner: Friedenau - streets, houses, people . Stapp-Verlag, Berlin 1996. ISBN 3-87776-065-1 .
- Hermann Ebling: Friedenau - From the life of a rural community, 1871-1924 . Zinsmeister and Grass, Berlin 1986. ISBN 3-9801309-0-8 .
- Stefan Eggert: Walks in Schöneberg. Berlin reminiscences. Volume 78. Haude & Spener, Berlin 1997. ISBN 3-7759-0419-0 .
- Heinz Lassen : Ceciliengärten estate in Berlin-Schöneberg . In: Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung , vol. 47, 1927, pp. 156–160 ( digitized version of the Central and State Library Berlin ).
- All of Berlin's streets and squares, from the foundation to the present . Lexicon ed. v. Hans-Jürgen Mende. 4 volumes, Edition Luisenstadt. New life publishing house, Berlin 1998. ISBN 3-355-01491-5 .
Web links
- Cecilien Gardens. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near Kaupert )
- The Cecilie Gardens in the culture database
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List (complete system)
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List (garden monument)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Exposé of the Cecilien Gardens from 1912
- ↑ Figures from the Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung No. 14 of April 6, 1927
- ^ Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona ( Memento from March 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
Coordinates: 52 ° 28 ′ 27 ″ N , 13 ° 20 ′ 31 ″ E