Garden city of Marga
The garden city Marga is a factory settlement with garden city character in Brieske near Senftenberg ( Brandenburg ).
history
The garden city was built between 1907 and 1915 as a workers' colony of Ilse Bergbau AG , whose director Gottlob Schumann u. a. wanted to bind his core workforce more closely to the company by creating factory settlements. Its name goes back to the Marga mine opened in Brieske in 1906 , which in turn was named after Schumann's daughter who died as a child. In its elaborate and high-quality architectural design, the garden city of Marga is particularly shaped by the reformed architecture of Dresden and elements of the late Art Nouveau . It was planned under the impression of the English garden city, which goes back to the city planner Ebenezer Howard (late 19th century).
The architect of the settlement was Georg Heinsius von Mayenburg , 78 houses with approx. 15 different house types were built, in which officials and workers of Ilse Bergbau AG lived.
Due to its external appearance, Marga is often referred to as the first German garden city, but the settlement only externally fulfills the criteria of a garden city, since as a factory settlement of Ilse Bergbau AG it manages without a cooperative model, as is typical for garden cities.
Overall system
The houses are grouped on a circular settlement plan, in the center of which is a rectangular market square, which is surrounded by a school, church, cemetery, inn and commercial buildings. The buildings on the market are based on models of small-town architecture, while the settlement houses are more based on the motifs of rural and manorial architecture. The settlement was placed under monument protection in 1985 and renovated from 1998 to 2000.
market
The market, which was built between 1910 and 1915, forms the center of the "Colony Marga" and is the starting point of the Radiale. The market started on the northwest side. This is where the so-called “Alte Post” is located (due to the rapid growth and the high volume of mail this building was already too small before its completion), the Ilse department store, a bakery and a butcher shop. The buildings of the “Alte Post”, the department store and the bakery are connected to one another by pergolas, behind the buildings a farm yard with storage rooms, stables and vehicle sheds extends across the entire width of the market. The quality and attention to detail that can also be found in such subordinate buildings is remarkable. The school, which occupies the entire north-eastern side of the market, was built according to the most modern standards of the time (canopy to protect against rain, large vestibule and tiled walls in the corridors, the room layout also corresponds to a high contemporary standard). Opposite the school on the market is the inn. The "Kaiserkrone" had separate guest areas for high officials, civil servants and workers, it also offered rooms for a hotel and had an event hall in which public and private celebrations took place, theater groups gave guest performances and dance events could be held. The church was built on the southeast side of the market in 1914, a voluminous, dominant building. Behind the church there is a cemetery, the existence of which is highly remarkable in two respects, because on the one hand, the 19th century had only just banned cemeteries from the cities for hygienic reasons, and on the other hand it was not customary already during the planning of workers' settlements to think of the death of their mostly young residents. Approx. 20 m in front of the church, the market is cut through by the formerly insignificant, but now heavily traveled, Senftenberg-Ruhland road . The rectory of the colony is adjacent to the church and cemetery on the left, a building that differs significantly from the other houses in the colony. As a counterpart to this building, the original plan envisaged the construction of a doctor's house to the right of the church. The building of the (new) post office, which is also located on the market, stands out architecturally from the other buildings in the colony. The simpler building was probably built during or immediately after the war.
Street scene - Photo: 2003
At the market - Photo: 2003
Residential buildings
The architect von Mayenburg distributed 64 different residential buildings, which were developed from 15 different basic designs, over the spiral to circular floor plan. Despite the use of basic designs, hardly any building is the same as another. Through the use of different building materials and roof shapes, through the use of different structuring elements such as window mirrors, pilaster strips, half-timbering, etc. a multi-faceted settlement was created. The arrangement of the houses on the streets of the settlement, laid out as avenues , also brings this settlement to life. The architecture of the residential buildings often makes reference to rural castle buildings in Saxony, but also to models from English country house construction, as Muthesius conveyed to Germany in words and pictures. The smaller buildings correspond to models of rural architecture.
By connecting individual buildings with arches, von Mayenburg created groups of buildings that are perceived as urban accents and that are mostly to be found in exposed locations. The two identical buildings with bell-shaped roofs, which mark the beginning of the settlement and which, thanks to their symmetrical location on the Chaussee from Senftenberg to Ruhland, create a gate situation, are to be seen as such an urban accent, as is the building near the market, which is characterized by its architectural form is reminiscent of buildings such as Moritzburg Castle near Dresden.
Green ring
The outer green ring closes the “Marga workers' colony” from the surrounding area. This green ring was subdivided into different functional areas: festival meadow, sports field, factory garden, kindergarten, nursery. Today the green ring is no longer as clearly recognizable as it was in the early days due to later development.
literature
- Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation and State Archaeological Museum (ed.), Maximilian Claudius Noack: Between Wilhelminian demand architecture and moderate modernity. The factory colonies in the Lower Lusatian lignite district. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2016, ISBN 978-3-7319-0404-5 .
- Sybille Gramlich: Brieske. The Marga Colony. A workers' colony between the factory housing estate and the garden city. In: Brandenburgische Denkmalpflege , 3rd year 1994, Issue 1, pp. 85–95, ISSN 0942-3397 .
- Ulf Jacob and Ute Jochinke: oases of modernity. Urban and landscape design in the Lausitz area . International building exhibition Fürst-Pückler-Land, Großräschen ( time machine Lausitz ), Verlag der Kunst, Dresden in the publishing group Husum, Husum 2004 (therein: The colony "Grube Marga" as a living oasis of the Ilse-Bergbau-AG , pp. 24-59) , ISBN 3-86530-065-0 .
- Wolfgang Joswig: Marga. The first German garden city. Förderverein Kulturlandschaft Niederlausitz eV, Cottbus 1994, ISBN 3-00-004020-X .
- Alexander Niemann: Brieske. The design of the open spaces of the Marga colony. In: Brandenburgische Denkmalpflege , 3rd year 1994, issue 1, pp. 95-105, ISSN 0942-3397 .
- Paulhans Peters: Marga. Miners colony in Lusatia. Emergence, decline, renovation. Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-935549-19-9 .
Web links
- Entry in the monument database of the State of Brandenburg
- Brandenburg Monument Preservation
- Private website on the history of Lusatian lignite mining and mining settlements
- Private website with historical views of the Marga mine and other places in the region
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Baxmann, Matthias : Schumann, Georg Gottlob in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 23 (2007), pp. 750–751 online version
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 23.9 ″ N , 13 ° 58 ′ 26 ″ E