House K. in O.
Under the name House K. O. planned and implemented the architect Martin Elsaesser early 1930s on the parcel Kretkamp in Othmarschen a 1,700-square-foot private home for the cigarette manufacturer Philip Fürchtegott Reemtsma . The building was created with the utmost discretion and, despite a corresponding publication by Elsaesser, was hardly noticed in terms of architectural history.
location
Hamburg's Elbe suburbs are a preferred residential area, characterized by the development of villas on spacious plots. In the 1920s, plots were partially divided. Max Brauer , SPD mayor of Altona , to which Othmarschen belonged at the time, had the city acquire several large properties and thus protected them from being parceled out.
The Reemtsma cigarette factories had moved from Erfurt to Altona-Bahrenfeld in 1923 and had developed into a large national cigarette company with 16,000 employees and several factory branches. It was a matter of course for Reemtsma to choose his place of residence in the Elbe suburbs in Altona, Prussia at the time.
With the construction of the Schinckel Villa according to plans by Henry van de Velde , Reemtsma got to know the spatial effect of a modern building, the interior of which was largely determined by the architect.
Reemtsma wanted a house for himself and his family with three sons from his first marriage as well as representative rooms for his social life. The private rooms on the upper floor were smaller than the representative rooms on the ground floor.
On June 14, 1929, Reemtsma acquired two properties east of Jenischpark , separated from it by Holztwiete Street . These plots were expanded by a horse pasture and another area to a plot of around 64,000 square meters with a depth of 455 meters, on which a representative private villa was to be built.
In addition to Elsaesser, Henry van de Velde and other architects also took part in the closed competition. Van de Velde's design has survived. Reemtsma discussed his requirements with him on a visit to Brussels and finally paid a planning fee of RM 10,000.
Elsaesser, City Planning Director in Frankfurt am Main until 1932, best implemented the client's requirements and was ultimately commissioned by the Reemtsma cigarette factories to implement them. The construction cost 4,221,256 Reichsmarks and was rented to Philipp Reemtsma for 30,000 RM annually. Due to disputes with the tax authorities, Philipp Reemtsma finally bought the house from his company in 1938 for 2,743,000 RM.
The construction
The demolition of the existing buildings began in 1930. The construction plans were countersigned by Reemtsma in July 1930 and submitted for approval, which took place on August 29, 1930. The building was designed as a two-storey, partially three-storey reinforced concrete construction with a basement and followed the idea of New Building . The roof has only a slight slope and looks almost like a flat roof. The villa is located away from the driveway, to the east a covered entrance area was created with right of way for visitors.
The plans were benevolently approved by the Altona building administration under Gustav Oelsner , who was open to new building.
The buildings are clad with 43 × 21.5 cm greenish / white-gray ceramic tiles from Richard Blumenfeld Veltener Ofenfabrik AG . Originally, the wall on Parkstrasse was also clad with the same ceramic tiles; against the high wall neighbors had unsuccessfully turned to the building authorities. Today there is a fence made of steel bars.
In addition to the residential building, a farm building with apartments for the employees, a horse stable, garages with a water tower and electricity generators, and a porter's house on Parkstrasse to the east were built. Construction management was initially carried out by an Elsaesser employee from Frankfurt, HF Kramer, who was later replaced by the architect August Becker.
The garden was designed by Leberecht Migge in line with the life reform movement . In addition to a riding garden between the villa and the gatehouse, a utility and ornamental garden was created to the north. In the south and west the area was designed like a park and contained a swimming pond, the "home stadium", with a bathhouse, water slide and a small beach in the south-western part.
The entire front of the garden was glazed; 66 motors made it possible to sink the windows completely into the ground. The garden room adjoining the swimming pool had smaller windows in the original plan, which were replaced by rounded windows that could also be lowered during the later planning.
In front of the library, east of the terrace, was a rose garden, which was bordered by the semicircular tea pavilion. This was demolished in 1954 after the part of the park was opened to the public.
The rooms
The usable area of the villa is 1,700 m² (the information in the various sources differs and goes up to 2,000 m²). In the original plans, the living area on the upper floor was 600 m², the area on the ground floor was 900 m².
On both sides of the covered entrance there are women's and men's cloakrooms, from the latter there is direct access to a men's room. Behind the vestibule of the entrance is a large hall, which is lit through windows on the upper floor and from which a staircase leads to the upper floor with the private rooms.
From the hall you get into the dining room, which takes up the round shapes. The ceiling is covered with gold leaf and was restored in the course of the renovations in 2009. The room is lit from the west, the windows lead onto the terrace. The table, which was laid out for twelve people, could be expanded for twenty guests.
Next to the master's room is the library and a large living room, both of which face south. The bridge room is next to the living room.
A corridor with windows leads to the second building with a gym and swimming pool, which is followed by the garden room with a round window front. To the north of the hall are the utility rooms and a children's playroom with a playground, separated from the property by a covered row of pillars. A separate entrance also leads to the leisure area. To the west of the swimming pool was an air bath screened from view by a wall, which was roofed over as part of the later renovations.
On the first floor there are men's and women's bedrooms with dressing rooms and a shared bathroom. The children's area could be reached via the women's living room. On the second floor there are four guest rooms with their own small terrace.
Furnishing
The interior fittings in the original version were factually technical. The heating pipes in the fully glazed vestibule were not clad, and a glass door originally led into the hall. The hall is also illuminated by ceiling-high neon tubes and was originally provided with light maple paneling.
The hall is surrounded on the upper floor by a ribbon of windows made of etched frosted glass panes between chrome-plated supports. The hall floor consists of polished, light gray shell limestone with gray-red bands of granite. In the right wall there is a fireplace in a wall that is clad with small brick clinkers. Originally, brass-framed doors led into the living and dining areas. In the course of the renovations in 1939/1949, these doors were exchanged for carved wooden doors.
The dining room and bridge room were furnished with tapestries by Richard Seewald , which are now in the Altona Museum . The chimney and swimming pool reliefs were made by Richard Scheibe .
The swimming pool was clad in terracotta-colored ceramic, the 170 m² pool was tiled in sea green.
The garden room received a wall painting by Kay Heinrich Nebel with lake and harbor motifs as well as a riding scene.
Most of the furniture comes from the United Workshops . Cantilever tubular steel armchairs by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe were also used. The designer of the tubular steel loungers that can be seen in several images has not been passed down.
Reconstruction 1939–1940
Reemtsma had until the early 1930s in the Great Depression considerably strengthened its economic position in the tobacco and cigarette manufacturing. He used to interact with the politicians of the Weimar Republic and received honors, among others from Max Brauer , for his social commitment in the vicinity of his works.
When the National Socialists came to power, his influence threatened to wane and he was threatened by corruption proceedings that were stopped in exchange for a donation to Hermann Göring . He adjusted to the new circumstances and sought to be close to Goering. His house was redesigned to suit the taste of the time. The property was in the planning area of the "Gaustadt Hamburg" and was therefore subject to building restrictions. The changes therefore mainly affected the interior of the house. Elsaesser's clear, light construction, which followed a diagonal room concept, could be adapted relatively easily to the contemporary taste of neoclassicism thanks to the reinforced concrete construction . The glass doors in front of the hall gave way to a massive wooden door with carvings. Wrought iron grilles were installed in front of the chrome-plated radiators. Many of the original details have been hidden behind wooden panels. The curved stairs of the main hall gave way to a straight construction.
A new wall was placed in front of the bright garden front of the living room, the massive pillars of which were covered with sandstone. The work was again carried out under the direction of Elsaesser.
The garden renovation was planned by Wiepking, who had designed various gardens for National Socialist greats, but only partially implemented due to the economic conditions of the war period.
Reconstruction 1952–1954
The house was confiscated on May 16, 1945 by the British occupation authorities, who set up an officers' mess in it and used the house until 1952. In October 1950, Reemtsma was convicted of bribing Göring by the Hamburg district court , and in the same month he was exonerated in the denazification committee. In 1950, Philipp Reemtsma decided not to use the house for living. He then lived in the immediate vicinity.
In 1952 the complex was bought back by Reemtsma GmbH from Reemtsma's private assets. In December 1952, the construction of the administration for Reemtsma GmbH began under the direction of Godber Nissen . The rededication of the previously purely residential property was approved by Oelsner, who was at Max Brauer's side as an advisor. In return, part of the complex west of the house was released for public use as a park. A public path leads from Holztwiete to Kreetkamp. The swimming pond located here was renatured to a garden pond.
Nissen erected several elongated three-story buildings in the previous garden area, some of which were connected to one another by transitions. One of them also housed laboratories. The buildings found recognition in architectural circles, but various authors mocked the round columns in front of the facade, which were not due to the design.
Various conversions were carried out in the villa, whereby the existing substance was partially covered. The swimming pool was converted into a canteen, the pool was covered by a floor and the terracotta-colored wall tiles were covered by a wall.
The greenish-white-gray ceramic cladding was replaced by tiles of the same format and probably also of the same color because it was damaged. The living room was converted into a conference room and individual walls were moved and new windows cut into the upper floor.
HF Wiepking-Jürgensmann redesigned the gardens as a park, although only a small part of the plans from 1938 were taken up again.
Modifications after 2001
In the course of the sale of the Reemtsma Group , the property was passed on to the Herz siblings in 2003 .
The farm building was demolished and a new residential building with rental apartments was built. The administrative buildings erected after 1952 were converted by the architects BHL (Bassewitz / Hupertz / Limbrock). An underground car park was built below the former riding arena, the entrance to which is south of the gatehouse.
In addition to the renovations, five more houses were built, so that outside the villa there are a total of 57 residential units on the site.
When the property passed to the Herz family, Johannes Weckerle turned to Hermann Hipp from the Department of Art History at the University of Hamburg. Weckerle was the head of the tobacco historical collection, which was housed in the villa and was donated to the Museum of Labor in 2004 . As a result, the interest in monument protection was examined. The villa has been a listed building since the beginning of 2006.
Since the end of 2008, the villa has been restored and cautiously modernized by the architect Helmut Riemann with the participation of the monument protection authority, which however does not restore the concrete condition of the previous years, but follows the basic intentions of the client. Many elements that were covered up during Nissen's renovations have been exposed again, such as the terracotta reliefs by Richard Scheibe in the area of the swimming pool.
In the summer of 2009 the restoration was well advanced and the intention is to divide the villa into two rental units.
Architectural-historical reception
Elsaesser himself published a monograph on the house in 1932, but it went largely unnoticed. The time of "modern building" was already coming to an end, and many important publications appeared before this date and could not include the project. Reemtsma, who supported the publication financially, insisted that his name not be mentioned. Internationally, various architecture magazines dealt with the Elsaesser monograph. Photo documentation was provided by the photographers Carl Dransfeld and Max Göllner.
In the monthly issues for architecture and urban development (issue 12/1932) and modern building forms (1/1933) as well as in the Ullstein-Illustrierte Die Dame (1/1933) essays dealt with the building.
The house was not listed in the 1953 sequel Hamburg and its buildings . Rainer Meyer dealt with Elsaesser's work in Bauen + Wohnen in 1989 and devoted a lot of space to the property. A more recent appraisal of Elsaesser's work is still missing.
literature
- Hermann Hipp , Roland Jaeger, Johannes Weckerle (eds.): House K. in O. 1930–32. A villa by Martin Elsaesser for Philipp F. Reemtsma . With an essay by Werner Oechslin and texts by Jörg Schilling as well as contributions by Roland Jaeger and Rüdiger Joppien. Photographs by Carl Dransfeld, Max Göllner, Hans Meyer-Veden. Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-7861-2511-2 (quoted as "Haus K. in O").
Web links
- Article in Die Welt of January 2, 2006; Retrieved October 20, 2009
- Article in Manager-Magazin on April 14, 2009, accessed October 20, 2009
Individual evidence
- ↑ The spelling of the street is currently Kreetkamp; in literature, the spelling with an "e" is common.
- ^ House K. in O., p. 7
- ^ House K. in O., p. 29
- ^ House K. in O., p. 29 f
- ↑ According to today's value, this corresponds to 18,980,000 euros. This figure was based on the template: Inflation determined, has been rounded to a full 1000 euros and relates to last January.
- ^ House K. in O., p. 35
- ↑ 0606.pdf Jörg Schilling: The gardens of the Villa Reemtsma. Part 1: Leberecht Migge's gardens , in: stadt + grün , 06/2006. Retrieved October 21, 2009
- ↑ Jörg Schilling: The gardens of Villa Reemtsma , in: stadt + green , 07/2006. P. 23f. Retrieved October 21, 2009.
- ^ House K. in O., p. 221
- ^ House K. in O., p. 227 f
- ↑ Reemtsmapark, accessed October 19, 2009
- ^ Evening paper of March 14, 2006. Retrieved October 22, 2009
- ↑ Oral explanations by representatives of the architectural office and the Office for Monument Protection during a guided tour on July 11, 2009
Coordinates: 53 ° 33 ′ 3.3 ″ N , 9 ° 52 ′ 32.3 ″ E