Hackesche Höfe
The Hackesche Höfe are located in the Spandauer Vorstadt in the Mitte district ( Mitte district ) of Berlin , not far from the so-called Scheunenviertel . They have been a listed building since 1977 .
Historical environment
In 1672 a Jewish cemetery was laid out north of the Spree in front of the Spandauer Tor . In the same year, the elector issued a decree to relocate all hay and straw barns in front of the Berlin city wall in order to reduce the risk of fire in the urban area. Both measures changed the arable area directly in front of the Berlin fortifications. Gradually a new part of the city developed, the later Spandauer Vorstadt. The name Scheunenviertel for part of the area has been preserved to the present day.
In 1750, Frederick the Great commissioned his city commander, Hans Christoph Graf von Hacke , to build on some open spaces in the semi-developed district. A market square was created that was named after the count, today's Hackesche Markt . In the 19th century the overpopulated Scheunenviertel became a social problem, the poor house of Berlin. In other parts of the Spandau suburb a bourgeois, predominantly Jewish milieu had developed. The center of Berlin's Jewish community was the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse , which was inaugurated in 1866.
The economic development of the Spandau suburb was influenced by the clothing industry . Textile factories had already settled here in the 18th century . In the late 19th century, ready- to- wear clothing and accessories were manufactured in numerous factory floors or at home . In 1906, when the Hackesche Höfe emerged, Berlin was a metropolis of clothing.
Construction of the Hackesche Höfe
The courtyards across from Hackescher Markt were opened on September 23, 1906. The eight courtyards between Rosenthalerstrasse and Sophienstrasse now offer 27,000 square meters of space for 40 commercial companies, as well as cultural institutions and apartments.
The amalgamation of several properties between Rosenthaler Strasse and Sophienstrasse resulted in an area of 9200 m² usable as building land, with access from both streets. In 1905, the owners at the time, the Quilitz heirs, had the existing old buildings torn down and built the largest residential and commercial complex in Germany in the tradition of the life reform movement in 1906/07 according to plans by the architect and building contractor Kurt Berndt . The main entrance led through an office and commercial building at Rosenthaler Straße 38. A transverse building in the first courtyard was designed as a ballroom wing, in the second and third courtyards there were buildings with factory floors, and in the green block interior areas, the rental apartments were mostly arranged with balconies. All buildings together formed eight courtyards. The interlinking of the various functions in this form was unique at the time. Shortly before that, Kurt Berndt had built a similar project in a traditional arrangement: an apartment building on the street, then a residential courtyard, and only then purely commercial areas.
At that time, the concept of using the first courtyard for cultural purposes and designing it accordingly was unusual and new. Here, too, the influence of the life reform movement propagated around 1900 was evident. Whenever possible, the courtyards were laid out in such a way that they could get sunlight and oxygen from neighboring green spaces - the old Jewish cemetery from 1672 and the cemetery of the Evangelical Sophiengemeinde. The courtyards were equipped with green plants, a large sandpit and several wells. The 80 or so apartments often had balconies and all had bathrooms, indoor toilets and central heating.
Architectural design
The Berlin architect and designer August Endell was commissioned to design the courtyard facades and the Neumann's ballrooms in the first courtyard that belonged to the wine bar. His previous work was assigned to Art Nouveau (although he had intended otherwise). Presumably, therefore, he should not also design the outer facade - the Art Nouveau did not correspond to the prevailing taste in Berlin, which was influenced by the aesthetic preferences of the imperial family. The result was a street facade with all the characteristics of Wilhelmine eclecticism , an overloaded mixture of different styles, with a neo-baroque roof landscape, Egyptian obelisks and antique sculptures .
The building areas designed by Endell presented themselves completely differently. August Endell had studied philosophy and psychology , he dealt with problems of perception and was anxious to apply his theoretical knowledge in architecture and handicrafts. In his writings he spoke out against historicism and eclecticism . His main aesthetic concept was the implementation of movement in architecture and decor. In the first courtyard of the Hackesche Höfe, he created two different facades through the shape, size and arrangement of the windows and with the help of colored glaze stones, which give the courtyard the grace of a small public square lined with various houses. To the east the colors are blue and white, the shapes refer to Moorish models. The west side, predominantly in shades of brown, is reminiscent of the then ultra-modern buildings by Alfred Messel for the department stores of the Wertheim Group .
Endell also pursued his idea of moving space in the interior. The stairwell in the left side wing, a vestibule in the right side wing and the one-story ballroom on the first floor of the transverse building, which, however, says the least about Endell's intentions, are tolerably preserved. The large, two-story ballroom was destroyed as early as 1930. Here the architect had given his ideas the clearest expression through a specific wall and ceiling construction, with swelling profiled pillars and the undulating end of the ceiling cornice .
Previous use
Family and club celebrations as well as company anniversaries have been held in the ballrooms run by the wine merchant and innkeeper Wilhelm Neumann. The Neumann ballrooms thus assumed a very important function as a meeting and communication point for the residents of the surrounding districts. A special event was the founding of the association of expressionist poets in “ Der Neue Club ”. For the office and commercial space, a marked mixed use developed by a wide variety of companies: a bank branch, companies for men's clothing, gloves, fur goods, for musical instruments, metal goods, office furniture , Wholesalers in flour, coffee and animal feed and many other things. Temporary tenants were also the girls' home of the Jewish Women's Association and the Jewish student canteen .
A change began as early as the 1920s. With the turmoil and economic problems after the First World War , many companies left the farms, and cultural and public activities soon subsided completely. Until the end of the Second World War , large parts of the building complex were used by the DeFaKa (German family department store) department store group - the front building as company headquarters, the large, horizontally divided large ballroom as a company canteen and numerous commercial spaces as storage rooms.
Redevelopment
"In November 1993 I came to an apparently forgotten world with gray walls."
At that time there was only the Hackesche Hoftheater , which was just being built , whose focus on Jewish culture was to become almost synonymous with the Hackesche Höfe in the following years.
In the GDR, the Hackesche Höfe had been neglected for decades, the ballrooms were structurally defaced and used for purposes other than intended, and the street facade was destroyed in the 1960s. After all, the tenants managed to prevent the complete destruction of the facades in the first courtyard around 1950 - an important prerequisite for the later renovation in accordance with listed buildings.
In 1951, soon after the GDR was founded , the Hackesche Höfe were declared public property and in 1977 listed as a historical monument. In 1991 the “Society for the Promotion of Urban Life - Hackesche Höfe e. V. “The Berlin-Mitte district office had a social study carried out on the complex. After the plant was returned to the heirs of the previous owner in 1993 and sold to the Heidelberg entrepreneur Roland Ernst in 1994 , a close cooperation began between the investors, the monument protection authority and the agency "New Roses Corporate Communications", which maintained the mixed-use concept while retaining the resident Developed cultural sites, defined the new corporate identity and corporate design and made the Hackesche Höfe known to the public through extensive public relations work. The very elaborate renovation work - it concerned larger conversions and extensions, monument preservation activities and the entire building services - was completed in 1997.
Current usage concept
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The courtyards are closed in the evening and thus guarantee nocturnal peace. Extensive office space was created in the earlier factory floors. These rooms are mainly used by members of creative professions such as architects, internet designers, and PR agencies . The small shops correspond to their special range of design products that are designed, manufactured or processed in the courtyards. In addition to the residents, visitors are the target group of the catering facilities for the Hackesche Höfe Kino , the Sophienclub and the Varieté Chamäleon in the complex.
After the renovation is complete, the Hackesche Höfe will be one of the most expensive and well-known properties in Berlin. Due to the artistic and gastronomic offer, they form a sight that also influences the surrounding area.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Made the court . tagesspiegel.de of September 23, 2006
- ↑ In the abdomen from the middle .
- ↑ In the beginning there were gray walls .
- ↑ The Hackesche Höfe are 100 years old . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 22, 2006
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 27 ″ N , 13 ° 24 ′ 8 ″ E