Society House Union
The Gesellschaftshaus Union is a residential building in Wuppertal - Barmen at the address Friedrich-Engels-Allee 202 , which has been under monument protection since 1993. It was built in its original form between 1867 and 1871 in the classicism style and has been home to the Society Union, founded in 1829, since 1968 .
building
The house is part of the historic development on Friedrich-Engels-Allee , which was laid out as a connecting road between Barmen and Elberfeld between 1811 and 1813. The two-and-a-half-storey building with an expanded gable roof and plastered, four-axis structured facades was built between 1867 and 1871 as a solid construction. The ground floor is characterized by ashlar plaster, whereas the upper floors are smoothly plastered. The door and window openings on the ground floor only have simple, profiled stucco frames , and a cornice forms the upper end of the ground floor. The base area of the facade optically separates the ground floor from the upper floors.
On the first floor, the window openings optically rest on a cornice . The parapet fields of the windows each have ornamentation, which consists of cassettes of various formats, with the window openings being framed by circumferential stucco profiles. Above the window openings, triangular gables resting on consoles are attached as roofs. A total of four transversely rectangular windows are set into the frieze in the area of the cornice , but without elaborate edging.
Society Union
The company Union was on 21 November 1829 by eight entrepreneurs in the no longer existing local of Isaac Gerhardt founded (corner of Friedrich-Engels-Allee / Oberbergische road) for the purpose of social entertainment and recreation of its members without political or ideological commitment. The admission of new members took place by balling on the proposal of a member. The increase in members made the first move of the conference center to the larger premises of the then Gasthof Zur Stadt London on January 21, 1842 .
In 1864 the 139-member society got its own domicile in the newly constructed building Friedrich-Engels-Allee 200. Due to the increasing number of members, this building was rebuilt in 1894 and expanded to include a bowling alley and the addition of a ballroom in the rear areas. After further renovation work towards the end of the 19th century, the building was expanded to include a hunting, reading and billiard room as well as a large ballroom with a stage for up to 180 people. Between 1919 and 1929, 60 larger performances were staged here, including a small opera every year, which were staged and cast by members of the society.
The Great Depression marked a turning point in the history of society as 45 members left the Union in 1932 due to economic difficulties. The seizure of power by the National Socialists also had little beneficial effects on the morale of the members due to distrust and hostility. The front building was destroyed by the air raids on Wuppertal on June 25, 1943, but the hall and other rooms were preserved. After the end of the war, the stage room served as a makeshift venue for the Wuppertal stages until 1948 , during the renovation of the opera house from 2006 to 2008 the theater choir rehearsed here.
Social life recovered only slowly. The reconstruction was completed in 1954, but for reasons of profitability and financial difficulties, the old company building had to be sold, which was taken over by the Tabak-Troost company in 1963 . The Union moved to the neighboring building, Friedrich-Engels-Allee 202, which the company had acquired in 1924. In 1968, after renovations, it was ready to move into and was now equipped with a bowling alley and various common rooms. Today the society still has around 70 members.
Web links
- Entry in the Wuppertal monument list
- Manfred Görgens: Society on Engels-Allee: Rush at the Union. In: wz-newsline.de. September 10, 2012, accessed June 25, 2016 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Unterbarmen - Society "Union". (No longer available online.) In: free.fr. mankel.free.fr, archived from the original on June 25, 2016 ; Retrieved June 25, 2016 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 15 ′ 42.8 " N , 7 ° 10 ′ 29.5" E