House Grand Ry

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House Grand Ry, view from the northeast

The Grand Ry house , also known as the Alte Post , is a former drapery house at Klötzerbahn 32 in the Belgian city ​​of Eupen ( German-speaking community ). The building was erected between 1761 and 1763 by Nikolaus Joseph von Grand Ry according to plans by Johann Joseph Couvens and was owned by his family until 1893, before the Imperial Post Office moved there. The house then served as a post office building until 1978, before after several years of extensive restoration work it became the seat of government of the German-speaking community in 1984 .

The building stands as since February 14, 1968 a cultural monument under monument protection .

history

The client Nikolaus Joseph von Grand Ry, contemporary portrait by an unknown painter

At the site of the current building, not far from the confluence of the Stadtbach and Favrunbach, there used to be a house of the Leyendecker family called "Im Känntchen". This was acquired by the cloth manufacturer Andreas Grand Ry from Kettenis and his wife Maria Elisabeth Klebanck around 1700. Their son Nikolaus Joseph, Mayor of Eupen, had the old building laid down and, from 1761, a new representative residential building including a rear workshop area for cloth manufacture - the so-called Schererwinkel - was built. In 1763 the work on this was finished. The designs for the new building were supplied by the Aachen builder Johann Joseph Couven, who was probably supported by his son Jakob . Couven designed a residential building in the style of French city ​​palaces with a courtyard open to the street ; a form that he made popular in the Aachen region. As in the case of the Mennicken house on Eupener Werthplatz, the authorship of the Grand Ry Couvens house was initially controversial, but meanwhile everything indicates that it is Couven's last representative bourgeois building.

Nikolaus Joseph Grand Ry died in the same year that its new building was completed. After his death, his widow Marie Elisabeth de Wampe, daughter of a Liège mayor, inherited the house. The couple's children signed a contract in 1786 that stipulated that Andreas Joseph de Grand Ry should receive the building and its interior fittings and furnishings in return for the payment of 40,000  guilders to his siblings. However, he should only be able to dispose of the house after his mother's death. This case occurred in 1794. In 1826 Andreas Joseph's son Jakob Joseph was registered as the owner, in 1855 his son Karl Jakob Joseph. After the death of his sister Emilia Maria Theresia in 1886, it passed through Marie Anne Julie, daughter of Karl Jakob Joseph, to her husband, Andreas von Grand-Ry , a member of the Reichstag . He sold the property to the Reich Postal Administration, which moved in on April 1, 1893. In 1920 the Royal Belgian Post followed as owner of the house.

Grand Ry House around 1912 when it was a post office

The Grand Ry house was used as a post office building until 1978, which is why it is still known as the Alte Post in Eupen today . Then the plan arose to convert it into the seat of the government of the German-speaking community. For this purpose, extensive restoration and renovation work took place from 1979 to 1983, which totaled almost 45 million francs . All the stucco ceilings from the time it was built were so damaged that they had to be replaced. A single-storey counter hall with a baluster parapet at the top, which had been placed in front of the central wing for use as a post office, was dismantled. In 1984 the new seat of government was officially put into operation. Since 1994 offices and meeting rooms have also been housed in the top floor. During the restoration, the establishment of additional rooms had to be dispensed with for reasons of fire protection. The former storage facility could only be used with appropriate insulation. In the past it was probably used as a wool store.

description

Front view of the Grand Ry house

House Grand Ry is a three-wing brick building , the U-shaped wing of which surrounds a courtyard with natural stone paving . This type of building is a specialty for Eupen cloth makers and is unique in the city. The courtyard is closed off from the street side by a low, curved wall with an attached grid. This construction replaced a brick wall from the 19th century in 1981. A lattice gate between two heavy, cross-grooved pillars allows entry to the courtyard. They used to carry flame pots , which are now privately owned. One of them can be found next to the seat of the Prime Minister of the German-speaking Community (Gospertstrasse 42). A narrower pillar with a volute end is leaning against each of the pillars .

The two floors of the house rise on a bluestone plinth and are closed off by a slate-covered mansard roof. The two side wings have arched windows with bluestone frames and a simple wedge that divides them into four axes on the long sides . The front sides of these tracts have two axes. Blaustein was also used in the corner blocks of the house in a tooth cut sequence. The middle wing of the building has five axes. The middle of them is highlighted as a risalit by rusticated pilasters . At roof level it is crowned by a triangular gable, which has a representation of Cerberus with hellhounds in its gable field . The central axis of the back is also highlighted as a risalit. In the triangular gable there is an oval window.

Back of the house with garden

A three-step front staircase leads to the arched portal in the central axis of the house on the courtyard side. It has a profiled frame and a wedge at the top. Its double-leaf door with a skylight with rococo - ornaments equipped. Above this is a narrow balcony on the first floor with a fine, wrought-iron parapet . The balcony door also has a skylight, which has a similar design to that of the entrance door. Inside, hardly anything of the interior has been preserved due to the renovation under the Reichspost and the conversion to the seat of government. Only a wooden staircase with fluted posts and fine, twisted balusters is left.

The rear shear angle of the plant was demolished early on. Only rudimentary remains of it are left in a side street. Instead of the workshop area, there is now a garden behind the house. A small annex adjoins the northern side wing on the outside. Although it has two storeys like the main building, it is much lower. It probably dates from the time the entire complex was built and was probably used as a servants' entrance.

literature

  • Town houses. In: Michael Amplatz u. a .: The architectural and art monuments of Eupen and Kettenis (= Eupen history. Volume 10). Markus-Verlag, Eupen 1976, pp. 66–125, here: p. 102.
  • Marcel Bauer, Frank Hovens, Anke Kappler, Belinda Petri, Christine Vogt, Anke Volkmer: On the way in Couvens footsteps. Grenz-Echo Verlag, Eupen 2005, ISBN 90-5433-187-9 , pp. 118-119
  • Heribert Reiners : The art monuments of the districts of Aachen and Eupen (= The art monuments of the Rhine Province . Volume 9, Section 1). L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1912, p. 220.
  • Administration of the German-speaking Community (Hrsg.): Eupen (= monuments directory. Volume 5a). Administration of the German-speaking Community, Eupen 1989.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ under protection decree (PDF; 116 kB)
  2. ↑ a b c d e town houses. In: Michael Amplatz u. a .: The architectural and art monuments of Eupen and Kettenis. 1976, p. 102.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Information on the Grand Ry house on ostbelgienkulturerbe.be , accessed on October 23, 2017.
  4. ↑ a b Marcel Bauer u. a .: On the way in Couven's footsteps. 2005, p. 118.
  5. ↑ a b Christiane Syré: In the footsteps of migrants. Destinations between Aachen and Verviers in the Belgian-German border region. In: Landschaftsverband Rheinland (Ed.): A society of migrants: Small-scale migration and integration of textile workers in the Belgian-Dutch-German border region at the beginning of the 19th century. transcript, Bielefeld 2015, ISBN 978-3-8376-1059-8 , p. 142 ( digitized version ).
  6. ↑ a b Marc Komoth: Executive seat ready for occupancy. In: Grenz-Echo . Edition of October 29, 1983, p. 5 ( digitized version ).
  7. ↑ Werner Keutgen: Couven would be proud and satisfied. Restoration work on the old post office (1st phase) is 75 percent complete. In: Grenz-Echo. Edition of August 14, 1980, p. 5 ( digitized version )
  8. ^ Heribert Reiners: The art monuments of the districts of Aachen and Eupen. 1912, p. 220.
  9. ↑ a b Walter Buschmann: Das Tuchmacherhaus Grand Ry on rheinische-industriekultur.de, accessed on October 23, 2017.

Coordinates: 50 ° 37 '52.5 "  N , 6 ° 2' 2.8"  E