German House (Brno)
The German House was a cultural and social center for the German-speaking population of the city of Brno in the Czech Republic .
history
The actual construction of the German House in Brno was preceded by two attempts that failed.
First try
On the occasion of a "Schiller and Arndt celebration" on December 7th, 1869 in the Brno gymnasium, one of the key speakers expressed the wish to build another house next to the gymnasium, which was dedicated to physical exercise, to look after German intellectual interests. This suggestion was generally well received and the Moravian Trade Association was commissioned to implement it. A corresponding motion was introduced on February 10, 1870 in preparation for the annual meeting of the trade association and was also accepted at the meeting on February 24.
A five-person committee was appointed by the Moravian Trade Association to continue the project and 16 German associations based in Brno were invited for further consultations. Not all clubs came to this meeting on March 24th, which ended without any concrete results.
In response, the committee sent a questionnaire to 13 clubs. Questions had to be answered, which should clarify the type of participation in the construction of a German house - especially in financial terms - but also whether and in what size they would rent premises in the German house. The hesitant replies from only a few associations were of no help in moving the project forward. Neither in the meeting of the Moravian Trade Association held on November 17, 1870, nor in the annual meeting held on February 16, 1871, the German House was still an issue.
Second try
After this initial failure, the Brno Men's Choir decided on July 12, 1871 to continue the project and immediately began collecting donations, which got off to a good start.
A seven-member committee set up on November 25, 1871 was supposed to draw up the statutes for the establishment of the German House. However, the draft submitted in May 1872 received little approval, so that it had to be revised. At a new meeting on May 17th, the statutes were finally approved. On this occasion it was also found that although donations of 54,900 crowns had been promised for the construction project, only 11,000 crowns had been paid in. During this time, Professor J. Leizner also wrote the first construction plan for the future building.
Since numerous donors asked for their paid-in money back due to the economic crisis in the wake of the Vienna World Exhibition in 1873 , the men's choir decided at a meeting on October 23, 1873 to repay all contributions paid so far.
third try
On the occasion of the general meeting of the Central Association for the Beet Sugar Industry in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in Brno in May 1882, Friedrich Wannieck called for the project to finally build a German House to be implemented.
Occurred on November 18, 1882
- Adolf Ripka von Rechthofen,
- Josef Ripka from Rechthofen,
- Karl Ripka von Rechthofen,
- Ignaz Fleischer,
- Josef Drucker,
- Gustav Drucker,
- Moriz Illek,
- NC Fleischmann,
- Max Putzker,
- Julius Steiner,
- Samuel Weil and
- Friedrich Wannieck
together to discuss the implementation of the project. A committee formed from Ignaz Fleischer, Josef Ripka von Rechthofen and Friedrich Wannieck initiated the third attempt to build a German house in Brno.
At a meeting of the committee on April 25, 1883, it was found that around 300 donors had donated around 160,000 crowns so far. Since this result fell short of optimistic expectations, the original concept of a semi-detached house was abandoned in favor of a more affordable, unified building.
When a donation of 180,000 crowns was reached in May 1873, the previous preparatory committee was replaced by two others:
- the legal commission should work out the most appropriate legal form for the planned project and
- the building commission took over the planning of the actual construction work.
The controversial discussion about the future location of the German House was held intensively in public. A building site planned as early as 1873 at the kiosk or a place at the theater were up for debate. The declaration by the Kaiser-Josef-Denkmalverein to erect the monument in front of the German House, wherever it is erected, had a calming effect.
At the second general assembly held on March 11, 1886, of the German House Association, which had been founded in the meantime, the question of location was finally clarified.
There was a choice
- the purchase and renovation of the old country house on Dominikanerplatz or the construction of a new building
- at the theater ,
- in front of the daughter's school or
- at the kiosk.
The location at the kiosk was finally chosen on the advice of the Mayor of Brno at the time, Winterholler.
Friedrich Wanniek, Heinrich Gomperz and a Mr. Rohrer were elected to the building committee. Together with Professor Prokop and master builder Josef Nebehosteny, as experts, they created the construction program for the future house.
When the concrete planning for the construction began, the ladies also became active. About 300 of them gathered to either raise funds for the interior design of the German House or to make them themselves.
The sale of the building site by the city of Brno to the Deutsches Haus association was hindered by the Czech representatives in the Moravian state parliament . On December 21, 1886, the state parliament finally authorized the city by a majority to sell an area of 4,000 square meters to the Deutsches Haus association in accordance with the municipal council resolutions of March 8 and May 18, 1886. In February 1887, Emperor Franz Joseph I approved the resolution of the Moravian Parliament.
Building tender
On March 9, 1887, following the decision of the building program, an architectural competition was announced, which was open to all architects of the German nation. In the construction program published in mid-March, a construction area of 4,000 square meters and a budget of 350,000 crowns were made available. July 15, 1887 was set as the end of the submission period.
Took over the function as judge
and from the German House Association
- Professor Prokop,
- Friedrich Wannieck,
- Gustav Ritter von Schöller,
- Karl Reissig and
- Rudolf M. Rohrer.
Over 100 inquiries regarding the competition were received in Brno. In the end, 22 works were submitted, which the judges - Hansen and Hasenauer had not come - examined on September 24th and 25th and exhibited publicly in the Moravian Trade Museum from September 27th.
Numerous designs were not considered due to the sometimes considerable cost overruns. The German project by Ende & Böckmann in Berlin was ranked first , and the German House project submitted by Professor Max Haas from Innsbruck was purchased.
In the plenary meeting on December 7th, the German Association finally decided to carry out the project submitted by Ende & Böckmann. Due to various changes compared to the construction program on which the tender was based, the plans were revised in the winter of 1887/1888.
The final construction plans were handed over to the authorities on April 26, 1888 for the issuing of the building permit. The excavation work began on August 6, 1888 and the masonry work began on the 20th of the same month. The opening of the German House in Brno was celebrated on May 17, 18 and 19, 1891, after the trade association had already moved into the new premises in April.
After the Czechs took over the previous German Theater in Brno after the founding of Czechoslovakia, one of the ballrooms was converted into a theater with space for around 760 visitors in 1919.
The German House in Brno was badly damaged by a bomb hit in 1945 and demolished after the war.
Cultural highlights
The highlights of the cultural activities in the Deutsches Haus include a Brno Philharmonic concert conducted by Richard Strauss on April 2, 1911 - Beethoven's Eroica and his own compositions were performed - and a 1932 performance of the opera Wozzeck by Alban Berg . On October 19, 1903, Arthur Schnitzler was a guest here for a reading. The lecture given by Adolf Loos in 1899 on current men's fashion is considered a curiosity .
description
The first plan, designed by Professor J. Laizner, was for a strictly symmetrical, two-story building. Two inner courtyards were to flank the ballroom: In addition, a guest house and a coffee house including an apartment were planned for the landlord: Furthermore, rooms for the trade association, the trade museum, reading and billiard rooms, a concert, a dining room and an exhibition room were planned . The German House was to be a home for the music and men's choir, the natural research and commercial association and the Schiller library.
The German House in Brno, which was finally built according to plans by Ende & Böckmann in the style of the German late Renaissance, had a symmetrical front, but the other three sides took into account the arrangement of the respective interior rooms. The towers of the Dominican Church were used as a model for the design of the roof turret.
The German House included
- Administration rooms of the German House Association,
- Premises of the Moravian Trade Association,
- Rooms of the Schlaraffia Society ,
- Rooms of the German Reading Hall Association,
- the ballroom with around 656 square meters and an organ supplied by the Rieger brothers in Jägerndorf , the second largest in Moravia ,
- a dining room with a stage for a small orchestra,
- two more small halls,
- Rooms for the coffee shop and the inn with two bowling alleys,
- an exhibition hall and apartments for servants.
The German House was partially illuminated with gas and partially with electric light. However, since the construction of its own power plant was not planned in the city of Brno in the foreseeable future, its own machinery was built on a neighboring property leased by the city. Two gas-powered motors with generators generated the electricity required to illuminate the main rooms, while the adjoining rooms were equipped with gas lighting.
The gas facility was built by the Moravian gas company, while Siemens & Halske from Vienna installed the electrical systems. The gas engines were supplied by Langen & Wolf, the lighting by C. Kramme in Berlin.
German House Association
In the summer of 1884, the statutes for the planned association “Deutsches Haus” were submitted to the responsible authorities, from which they were approved at the beginning of December. On December 17th, the association was formally established with Friedrich Wannieck as chairman.
literature
- Gustav Trautenberger: Festschrift for the opening of the German House in Brno on May 17, 18 and 19, 1891 , published by the association “Deutsches Haus”, Brno, 1891
Web links
- Collection of historical city plans and maps of Brno - In city plans after 1900: The house is located a little north / above the St. Jacob's Church.
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.bruenn-deutscher-sprach-und-kulturverein.com
- ↑ www.bhb.bruenn.org/archiv ( Memento of the original dated November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 6.4 MB), 2006-4
- ↑ www.bhb.bruenn.org/archiv ( Memento of the original from March 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 7.4 MB), 2007-3
Coordinates: 49 ° 11 ′ 57 ″ N , 16 ° 36 ′ 24 ″ E