Dismantling
Removal of stucco (sometimes also stuccoing ) is the deliberate removal of stucco decorations on buildings. From around 1920 to 1975, the plaster stucco decor, which was perceived as "lying", was knocked off mainly in Germany from facades and interiors from the Wilhelminian era . From now on, the facades should no longer imitate elaborate sandstone facades, but rather show their barreness; afterwards it was mostly plastered smooth.
Beginnings
The theoretical foundations for de-stucking were laid before the First World War . From the circles of the arts and crafts and architectural reform movement around Adolf Loos , Hermann Muthesius and Paul Schultze-Naumburg , massive criticism of the partly industrially manufactured decorative elements in imitated styles of Gothic , Renaissance , Baroque , Rococo or Classicism was already being exercised around 1900 , with those in the facades were decorated during the founding period. Above all, the stucco on apartment buildings was branded as a disguise of poor social conditions. On the artistic level it played a role that a large number of stucco facades on buildings from the period from around 1880 to 1910 were influenced by eclecticism , i.e. H. of mixing several historical styles in one building. After 1910 the mixing of styles was viewed as dubious in terms of design and the historicist stucco facade was increasingly disqualified. This attitude became a common feature in German architectural criticism until the 1960s. However, an industrial building can be considered the first building deliberately freed from the decor: In 1911, Peter Behrens had the clinker brick decor removed from the AEG “old factory for railway materials”, which had only been built a few years earlier in the Voltastrasse in Berlin-Gesundbrunnen .
Removal of stucco and new building
However, the active removal of the decor on a larger scale did not begin until the 1920s in Berlin. There pioneers in the removal of stucco were architects of the new building such as Erich Mendelsohn or the brothers Hans and Wassili Luckhardt , but also older architects such as Peter Behrens or Richard Riemerschmid . Some of their facade redesigns were quite remarkable in terms of design and were perceived as independent buildings by the respective architects. From Berlin, the removal of the stucco, promoted by advocating articles in the most important architecture magazines, spread as an urban planning model throughout Germany.
De-stuccoing and “de-trading” during the Nazi era
In the time of National Socialism , the concept of de-stuccoing lived on and was mainly propagated for small towns and villages. As part of the so-called “de-trading”, an attempt was made to free entire streets, squares and ensembles of buildings from the decor of the late 19th century. The architect and homeland protector Werner Lindner played a central role in these efforts . The Semlower Straße in Stralsund became a showcase project of the “de-trading” .
Peak in the 1950s
However, it did not reach its quantitative peak until after 1945, when war was declared in almost all German cities against the forms of the Wilhelminian era. In Berlin-Kreuzberg alone , one of the largest Wilhelminian style districts in Europe, the stucco was removed from around 1,400 houses by 1979. In many places, however, stucco facades on buildings that had survived the war slightly damaged also represented a security risk, as facade parts crumbled down again and again and the owners had no financial means for a professional facade restoration in the immediate post-war period.
It is noteworthy that during this period the removal of stucco was carried out en masse in both western and eastern Germany, while in neighboring countries such as France or Italy the phenomenon was and is largely unknown.
End of demounting since the 1960s
Since the early 1960s, criticism began to stir against the dismantling. As early as 1964, the Berlin architect and urban planner Werner Düttmann turned against the massive dismantling of stucco decorations. In this context, the publication of the polemical illustrated book Die gemordete Stadt by the publicist Wolf Jobst Siedler and the photographer Elisabeth Niggemeyer in 1964 is of particular importance . The criticism of the removal of stucco was initially based on the reassessment of the achievements of historicism in the field of architecture. In addition, it was criticized that buildings with a stucco facade lose their historical authenticity as a result of the stucco removal . that is, they are then no longer readily recognizable as buildings of a particular architectural epoch . For this reason, laypeople often mistakenly attribute stuccoed houses to the 1950s because of their smooth plastered facades. From a purely aesthetic point of view, too, structures that have been stuccoed often appear unsatisfactory, as the facades were designed to support the ornamentation and, after they have been removed, often appear disproportionate due to the loss of structure.
Since the 1970s, Wilhelminian-style architecture has been gaining recognition from the preservation of monuments and from the general public. As a result, monument protection in many places prevented further removal of stucco by placing the facades under its protection, or stucco facades that had already been removed were reconstructed.
See also
literature
- Hans Georg Hiller von Gaertringen: Fort with flourishes, stucco and damage. The removal of stucco in Berlin in the 20th century . In: BerlinLabor (ed.): Berlin research young scientists, Vol. 1. Verlag für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89700-129-2
- Hans Georg Hiller von Gaertringen: No frills. The redesign of buildings of historicism in Berlin in the 20th century (Landesdenkmalamt Berlin: Die Bauwerke und Kunstdenkmäler von Berlin. Supplement 35) Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-7861-2650-8
Individual evidence
- ↑ Save the rest . In: Der Spiegel . No. 32 , 1964, pp. 72 ( online ).
Web links
- Initiative "Against the destruction of historical facades through thermal insulation" (Stadt.Bild.Berlin: Building Culture and Monument Preservation in the German Capital)