Goethe's garden house
Goethe's garden house in the park on the Ilm in Weimar was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's place of residence and work . Since 1998 it belongs as part of the ensemble " Classical Weimar " for UNESCO - World Heritage Site .
history
When Goethe came to Weimar in 1775, he showed great interest in the property for sale on the eastern Ilmhang . The house is possibly a winegrower's house from the 16th century - a time when viticulture still played a major role in Weimar. In its time, the slope was more of an orchard or vegetable growing area. A representation by Georg Melchior Kraus from 1777 shows this condition.
The garden was in a desolate state when Duke Carl August intended to give the property to his friend as a present. In April 1776, Johann Wolfgang Goethe acquired the garden on the Horne, including the garden house located in it, along with everything that is earth, wall, ribbon, hanging and nail festivities. This is shown in the sales contract of April 22, 1776, which was confirmed four days later. The payment of the purchase price of 600 thalers in two installments of 300 thalers each was made by Friedrich Justin Bertuch from the Duke's box, but he considered it advisable to let Goethe appear as the buyer.
Goethe himself worked with great devotion on the renovation of the garden and had the house made habitable again. In 1777 he installed a wooden arbor on the south side of the house, which fell into disrepair during the Italian trip and was later removed. However, it has been handed down through a drawing by Georg Melchior Kraus from 1777. Furthermore, Goethe had trellises attached to the house facades and planted. Roses ( Rosa turbinata ) grew in the north and west, vines in the south and honeysuckle in the east (presumably Lonicera caprifolium ). The “ stone of good luck ” is located near the summer house . All in all, unlike today, the garden was also a kitchen garden. Here, Goethe laid the foundation stone for the redesign of the Ilmpark based on Wörlitzer Park .
Since the small and modestly furnished house did not meet the requirements placed on Goethe by office and social conditions, but could no longer accommodate his library and collections, he moved to the city in 1782, to the house on Frauenplan . But the summer house remained his favorite place to stay, which he used and visited again and again, the last time on February 20, 1832.
Goethe worked on central works in the garden house. Here he created parts of the prose version of " Iphigenie auf Tauris ", here he worked on the dramas " Egmont " and " Torquato Tasso ". Well-known poems such as “To the Moon”, “Restless Love” and “Hunter's Evening Song” were written here.
Today the garden house is set up as a museum.
In 1990/91, Cornel Wachter and Elmar Schmitt proposed, as a project by the artist duo UnterbezirksDada in Weimar, the reconstruction of the Goethe house or the Goethe garden house in lightweight construction on the green meadow at the gates of Weimar. The artists wanted to ask what the aura of the original can be experienced in the copy, and “provide visitors with Goethe at the entrance to the classic city and send them home again”, an artistic provocation that raised the question of the value of a tourist visit to the classic cities should ask. Discussions with the University of Civil Engineering (today Bauhaus University ) on a possible cooperation took place, but came to nothing. No sponsoring partners were found for the project and the project was abandoned. Then in 1999 this idea reappeared; The organizers of “Weimar 99 - European Capital of Culture ” realized one of the attractions of the year of the Capital of Culture year with the replica of the Goethe garden house in close proximity to the original. Wachter said at the time in the Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung : “We do not assume that the makers of Weimar-99 copied us, in the time of the cloned sheep Dolly there was such an idea in the air, we do not assume theft of ideas, we are happy on the realization of the idea that we could not master. ”The copy from 1999 was also shown at the Expo 2000 in Hanover . It has been in Bad Sulza / Thuringia since 2002 .
tour
Ground floor : The entrance is still today via the stairwell , which houses the cash register and a small museum shop. From there you get to a larger room that Goethe called his “Erdsälgen” (Erd-Sälgen) and used it as a dining room . The oak tables still standing there today and the two brown-painted mineral cabinets were already part of the first furniture by Goethe. The two large Rome maps on the opposite walls served Goethe since 1829 to remember his trip to Rome and to be able to orientate his work on the second volume of his "Italian Journey". Back over the staircase and a small anteroom, the visitor has a view of the kitchen from the door , of which the stove, the fireplace and the sink are still part of the original furnishings from Goethe's time. The other equipment (equipment and dishes) come from Goethe's time, but not from his possession.
Upper floor : The stairs lead into an antechamber in which busts of Duchess Anna Amalia, Duke Carl August and a silhouette of his wife Luise can be seen. The atrium opposite the stairs was used as a salon and reception room. Here there are reliefs of portraits of Goethe's family members (parents, sister Cornelia) and Charlotte von Stein, as well as a watercolor from 1779/80 by Goethe, which documents the back of the garden house with the attached arbor. From the main room you get to the study , which is dominated by the standing desk with seat and the fireplace. The study is adorned with various drawings by Goethe: Christiane Vulpius, sleeping on the sofa , dampening valleys near Ilmenau , Luisenkloster and Bergwerkskaue near Ilmenau . The bust on the mineral cabinet shows the philologist and writer Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi , with whom Goethe was friends during his time in Frankfurt. Next to the study is the library as a central room on this side of the building . The filing cabinet and the writing secretary in Viennese style still belong to the original furniture from the years 1776 to 1782. The second corner room was Goethe's bedroom , in which there is his travel cot and a herbarium press, which is also used as a desk. The easy-to-assemble travel bed was supposed to protect Goethe from vermin in guest beds.
- Tour in the garden house
Erdsälgen
kitchen
Altanzimmer
Workspace
bedroom
- Views of Goethe's garden
The stone of good luck, seen from the south
The stone of good luck as seen from the north
literature
- Hans Wahl : Goethe's garden house. JJ Weber, Leipzig undated
- Manfred Kahler: Goethe's garden house in Weimar. Edited by the National Research and Memorial Centers for Classical German Literature in Weimar. 3rd edition Berlin, Aufbau-Verlag in Komm., Weimar 1966.
- Paul Raabe : Walks through Goethe's Weimar. 10th updated edition. Arche, Zurich, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-7160-2256-X .
- Uwe Grüning , Jürgen M. Pietsch: Goethe's garden house. Edition Schwarz-Weiss, Spröda 1999, ISBN 3-00-004693-3 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Sven Taraba: climbing aids on the garden house. In: rankhilfe.de. September 15, 2016, accessed January 27, 2019.
- ↑ Georg Balzer: Goethe as a gardening friend . F. Bruckmann KG, Munich 1966.
Web links
- More and visitor information on the homepage of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar
- Goethe's garden house in pictures
- http://sundoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/diss-online/05/08H028/t2.pdf
Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 33.9 ″ N , 11 ° 20 ′ 12.9 ″ E