House Clermont (Vaals)

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House of Clermont; View of the south and west wings

The house Clermont (also Rathaus Vaals called; Dutch Huis Clermont, Gemeentehuis Vaals ) on . From Clermontplein No. 15 in Vaals is the former headquarters of the cloth manufacturer Johann Arnold of Clermont , and thereafter by Franz Ignaz Tyrell, who see it as factory buildings, office urban and Used residence. It was built between 1761 and 1765 according to plans by Aachen- based architect Joseph Moretti as a four-wing complex in the classicist style and has been used as the town hall of the municipality of Vaals since 1979 after extensive restoration work .

history

Members of the Clermont family originally worked as needle and cloth manufacturers in the Free Imperial City of Aachen and in Burtscheid . The rigid guild law in Aachen, with its restrictions on freedom of establishment, technology, pricing and staff, led the Clermont family to set up branches in Vaals, where they could operate their trade without these guild requirements. At the same time, as a Protestant family, she fled from the expulsion from Catholic Aachen, which was the order of the day during the first major religious unrest in Aachen . The great-great-grandfather of Johann Arnold von Clermont founded a first Lutheran congregation in Vaals and his great-grandfather bought the copper mill De Kopermolen , where Johann Arnold's father Esaias had a church built. Finally, Johann Arnold himself decided to settle in Vaals and in 1761 initially acquired the dilapidated aristocratic residence Vaalsbroek with an attached mill from Anton Ullrich Lamberts von Cortenbach . There he had the remains of the main building from the 15th century gradually converted by Joseph Moretti into his country residence, today's Vaalsbroek Castle , with a house, office wing and a factory for shearing , dyeing and pressing the cloth.

Site plan of the house, drawing by Joseph Moretti

At the same time, he commissioned Moretti to build a central factory building with administrative rooms and a representative urban residence in the village of Vaals in the immediate vicinity of the copper mill and the Lutheran church de Kopermolen. The decisive factor for the choice of location was the close source of the Gau stream, which with its constant water temperature of 10 degrees was ideal for rinsing and dyeing the fabrics and which had served as a source of drinking water for centuries. In addition, the thoroughfare from Aachen via Vaals to Maastricht ran past this property at that time , as the current connection “Maastricht Laan”, which is 200 meters away, was not built until 1825. The Clermont house, completed in 1765, became the headquarters of the company, which three of Johann Arnold's sons took over after their father's death in 1795 and with different areas of responsibility. At that time, the entire area including the copper mill with the Lutheran church and the meadow areas for drying the cloths was surrounded by a property wall and the interior open spaces between the buildings were designed like parks and provided with fish ponds.

As a late consequence of the contribution , the orders decreased and from 1825 the family business went out. In 1829 the sons sold the Vaals parent company to Franz Ignaz Tyrell, who continued to use the facility as a cloth factory and residence. After the last member of the Tyrell family died in 1924, three different buyers each acquired a wing of the building, with the east wing being demolished in 1926. A large part of the interior fittings as well as wallpaper and furniture were sold, in part to the Couven Museum of the city of Aachen. The entire complex served as a residential and office building until 1964, after which it was acquired by the municipality of Vaals and had the complex extensively restored between 1975 and 1979 by the architect Jos Hendriks from Maastricht and the architect group Peter Sigmond from Heerlen according to historical plans. In 1979 the municipal administration of Vaals was able to move in and begin its service.

Building description

View into the inner courtyard on the west wing

The Clermont house was designed by Moretti as a four-wing courtyard with a rectangular inner courtyard that was accessible through the west wing. The wings, which can be assigned to the different requirements of the company, are two-story and have a slate-covered mansard roof with several small dormers . Its walls are made of brick and have been painted throughout with an attractive yellow, which was typical of most of Clermont's buildings. The facades are kept simple and only interrupted by arched windows with bluestone frames .

The 13-axis west wing is the cantor wing facing the street with the main entrance and is characterized by the arched gate passage suitable for coaches, which is highlighted with pilaster strips that extend up to the gable . On the street side as well as on the courtyard side, curved and decorated tympana are placed above the gate passage at the height of the mansard roof , in which Clermont's maxims have been engraved and which are provided with clocks both inside and outside. The inscriptions in the tympana read on the street side: “ spero invidiam ” (“ I hope to be envied ”) and on the courtyard side: “ nil volentibus arduum ” (“ where there's a will, there's a way ”). In addition, a roof turret with a bell was placed on the ridge of the roof in the middle of an imaginary line above the gate passage . Clocks and bells were a typical feature of the beginning industrialization , with which all workers were given the time to start and finish work, both optically and acoustically.

South wing

The fifteen-axis south wing housed the living and state rooms and is accentuated on the outside with a three-axis, gabled and richly decorated central projection in which the family coats of arms of the married couple Johann Arnold von Clermont (castle) and Maria Elisabeth Emminghaus (French lily) are carved. In the central axis of the risalit is the main entrance on the ground floor and above it on the upper floor a balcony with a French window in the rococo style and a wrought-iron balcony grille.

The north wing housed the workshop rooms, where the cloths were napped and sheared , and it was directly connected to the simpler and lower east wing, which existed until 1926 and where the dye works were located. Historical plans, on which round tubs and two basins in the floor and two large water basins in the basement of the north wing can be seen, suggest that the north wing was also colored. The pools are vaulted with barrel vaults and the walls are lined with watertight natural stone. In addition, further plans show that there were canals under all wings in the spacious basement floors, which were connected to the main canal that ran across the inner courtyard and were fed with water from the Gau.

Wedding room in the south wing
Replica of the dye tank in the courtyard

After it was taken over by the municipality of Vaals in 1975, as part of the extensive restoration work, the east wing was not rebuilt and instead the former position was shown in the pavement. The entire roof area was completely replaced and the individual dormers as well as the roof turrets, which had been dismantled in the meantime, were rebuilt. The outer walls were given a uniform white paint and the former shade of yellow was only retained on the walls of the central projection on the south wing. In addition, the subsequently installed and suspended ceilings, stairwells and wet rooms were dismantled and the stucco ceilings that came to light were reconstructed and the various water basins were marked with tiles. A brick wall was also torn down in the “brown room”, behind which there was a wrought-iron fireplace and blue tiles with floral patterns from the 18th century. With the exception of a few compromises in the reconstruction of the rooms, which were necessary, for example, to incorporate the council chamber, the conference rooms and the public tribune, most of the rooms were restored in the old Louis-seize style.

As part of a redesign and modernization of the Clermontplein and the neighboring Julianaplein in 2015/2016 by the Cologne landscape architects Club L 94, the facades of the Clermont house were whitewashed again, the inner courtyard with a replica of a large dye basin and the squares with a small garden , a covered terrace and a gargoyle.

literature

  • JF van Agt: Zuid-Limburg, Vaals Wittem en Slenaken - De Monuments van Geschiedenis en art. Staatsuitgeverij, Den Haag 1983, pp. 83-102 and others. ( Digitized on dbnl.org ) (Dutch)
  • Georg Forster : Views of the Lower Rhine, Brabant, Flanders, Holland, England and France in April, May and Junius 1790. First edition 1792

Web links

Commons : House of Clermont  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heiner Hautermans: Vaals textile history comes back to life in the design of the square. In: Aachener Nachrichten . November 9, 2015.
  2. ↑ Aachen's “little sister” has a big party. In: Aachener Nachrichten. 23rd September 2016.

Coordinates: 50 ° 46 '14.3 "  N , 6 ° 1' 7.8"  E