Vercken House

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House Vercken, view from the northwest

The house Vercken , colloquially convent called, is a baroque town house in the center of the Belgian city of Eupen . The building with the address Marktplatz 1 is now a convent of the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family and is under the name Marktplatz 1 since February 25, 1950 as a cultural monument under monument protection .

history

Couven design for a town house in a corner location

The house was built from 1748 to 1752 according to plans by the Aachen builder Johann Joseph Couven for the cloth manufacturer Leonhard Vercken, who moved into the new building in 1753. In 1770 the company Leonhard Vercken & Cie. Owner, followed from 1787 by the merchant Gerhard Nikolaus Vercken. In 1826 the house was owned by the widow Mostert. After that it belonged to Johann Anton Joseph Oetgen in 1832 and Hermina Katharina Oetgen from 1835. Acquired in 1836 by Johann Christian Jeghers, after Jegeher's death in 1856, Haus Vercken probably passed to his daughter Elise, who was married to the Aachen needle and tobacco manufacturer Stephan Beissel. As a widow, she sold the house on December 18, 1856 to the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family, represented by Maria Katharina Bree and Katharina Josephine Koch .

The monastery sisters used the building as the mother house from 1857 to 1875 , before it was relocated to Leuven in Belgium as a result of the culture war . At the same time, the nuns looked after old women there. In the early 1980s, the religious order had a new old people's home built in the former monastery garden by replacing a building from 1857. The new building was expanded again in 2005. Since April 13, 1994, the house has again served as the seat of the Order's leadership. She initiated a restoration of the building, which was completed in 1997.

description

architecture

The Wespienhaus in Aachen, similar to the Vercken house, before 1900

House Vercken consists of a main building with a slate mansard roof , which is joined by wing structures to the southeast and south. Its appearance is reminiscent of the Wespienhaus in Aachen, which was completed 15 years earlier . The building shows Maasland and Main Franconian elements and thus unites the style of the Liege Régence with that of the South German Baroque. At the time of its construction, the design was actually already out of date, because at that time three-wing town houses with a courtyard such as the Grand Ry House were already in fashion.

North facade of the Vercken house

The main wing has three floors, of which the second floor is designed as a mezzanine . The north-facing facade is divided into five axes by windows . On the rusticated ground floor it shows hewn bluestone blocks , while the masonry on the upper floors consists of bricks painted red and has corner blocks in a tooth cut sequence . The arched windows have a bluestone frame with a sculpted wedge . The central axis of the north facade is framed by pilasters made of bluestone, which end on the second floor under the strongly profiled eaves cornice in Ionic capitals . At the roof level, the cornice has a curved , rococo- shaped gable , the gable field of which shows the coat of arms of the Vercken family. The central axis of the building ends in an octagonal bell tower crowned by a cross.

A three-step outside staircase leads to the former main entrance in the middle. After the Franciscan nuns moved in and the associated establishment of a house chapel on the ground floor of the house, the entrance had to be walled up and converted into a niche surrounded by a knee-high wrought iron grille. It shows the year 1752 and the intertwined letters LV and originally comes from the balcony on the first floor of the house directly above the entrance. In the niche there is a statue of St. Francis . Above the former balcony door is a richly decorated cartouche from the Baroque period, which shows the inscription MDCCLII (1752). The letters from the former balcony grille are repeated in the window baskets on the first floor.

The rear facade of the building has a completely different design. The masonry consists of sand and blue bricks and is also delimited by corner blocks in a tooth cut sequence. Narrow windows divide the facade into six axes. It can only be viewed from a courtyard at the rear of the house. The former servants' wing, which adjoins the main house to the south, can also be reached from there. It probably dates from the early 19th century and would be built over an older core. The two-storey wing has a tile-covered gable roof , corner cuboids in a tooth-cut sequence and a simple entrance, the straight lintel of which shows the year 1747.

The main building is adjoined to the south-east by a four-storey wing, which in the beginning probably served as a shearer's corner for fabric manufacture. Originally it only had three floors, the fourth was not added until the 19th century. The area in front of the eight-axis building is separated from the main house by a wall. The forecourt created in this way can be entered through a lattice gate with urn-bearing gate pillars made of bluestone.

Interior decoration

The staircase with a heavy, spiral baluster staircase in the main building is still preserved from the original interior from the mid-18th century . The flooring of this room has a compass rose made of locally occurring marble in the middle . The black marble comes from Theux , while the red marble was quarried in the St. Remy mine in the Ardennes . In addition, some stucco ceilings with Rococo decorations have been preserved.

The simple house chapel of the monastery with a neo-Gothic altar is on the ground floor . Next to it is a small grave with the crypt of the founder of the order Elisabeth Koch. This is freely accessible during the day.

  • Statue niche

  • Balcony door

  • Tail gable with coat of arms

  • Rear facade

  • House chapel

literature

  • Town houses. In: Michael Amplatz et al .: The architectural and art monuments of Eupen and Kettenis. (= Historical Eupen. Volume 10). Markus-Verlag, Eupen 1976, pp. 66-125, here pp. 103-107.
  • 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. 108-110.
  • Martine Joway-Marchal: Eupen / Martplatz: No. 1, Couvent des Soeurs franciscaines. In: Ghislaine de Bièvre (ed.): Le patrimoine monumentale de Belgique. Volume 12, Part 1: A-E. Mardaga, Lüttich 1984, ISBN 2-8021-0062-9 , pp. 285-288.
  • Richard Klapheck : The art of architecture on the Lower Rhine. Volume 2. Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia, Düsseldorf 1916, p. 121 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Haus Vercken  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Haus Vercken on the cultural heritage website of the German-speaking Community , accessed on January 4, 2019.
  2. ↑ Information on the building on verckendevreuschmen.fr , accessed on January 4, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b Marcel Bauer u. a .: On the way in Couven's footsteps. 2005, p. 109.
  4. ↑ town houses. In: Michael Amplatz et al .: The architectural and art monuments of Eupen and Kettenis. 1976, pp. 103-104.
  5. ↑ a b c d e town houses. In: Michael Amplatz et al .: The architectural and art monuments of Eupen and Kettenis. 1976, p. 104.
  6. ↑ History of the St. Franziskus Eupen Senior Center , accessed on January 4, 2019.
  7. ^ HS: A modern old people's home at the Eupener Klösterchen. In: Grenz-Echo . Edition of August 19, 1978, p. 5.
  8. ↑ Marcel Bauer: The white coat as a program. In: Care Today. Vol. 3, 2011, No. 2, p. 8 ( PDF ; 1.9 MB).
  9. ^ A b Alfred Minke: Inventory of the archive of the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family (1703-2011). General State Archives , Brussels 2015, ISBN 978-90-5746-761-5 , p. 28 ( PDF ; 3.3 MB).
  10. ↑ a b Dagmar Preising , Gisela Schäffer (ed.): Sound worlds in Couven rooms. Couven-Museum, Aachen July 2013, p. 47 ( PDF ; 4.9 MB).
  11. ↑ Marcel Bauer u. a .: On the way in Couven's footsteps. 2005, p. 108.
  12. ↑ Vercken coat of arms and family history on ostbelgien.net
  13. ↑ Marcel Bauer u. a .: On the way in Couven's footsteps. 2005, p. 110.

Coordinates: 50 ° 37 '48.7 "  N , 6 ° 1' 51.6"  E