House Zeller

House Zeller.

The House Zeller was a living room and doctor's house in Stuttgart in Reinsburgstraße 20, designed by the architect Theodor Fischer in 1903 for Dr. Albert Zeller was built. It is not preserved.

prehistory

The architect Theodor Fischer was appointed professor of building history from Munich to Stuttgart in 1901. After moving, he studied the existing Stuttgart building stock intensively. In 1903 he presented his critical, provocative observations in a lecture to a select audience in Stuttgart. Contrary to the contemporary historical trend, he had in mind "a new artistic spatial concept tied to traditional building forms and grown squares".

Fischer's first building in Stuttgart was Haus Zeller, which was supposed to embody his ideas as a kind of “model house”. The client was Professor Dr. med. Albert Zeller (1845–1914), head of the surgical department of the Marienhospital in Stuttgart, a son of Albert Zeller , the first director of the Winnental Sanatorium . Zeller owned a vacant building plot at Reinsburgstrasse 20 in the west of Stuttgart, on which Fischer was to build a house with practice rooms. The property was located between “desolate tenements” from the last quarter of the 19th century, which challenged Fischer's creative mind with their unimaginative and uniform design.

description

Fischer, the architect who “tasted in” from Munich, presented himself to the Stuttgart bourgeoisie with a bang. He placed the Zeller house across the eaves of the surrounding houses by aligning the gable side with the street. He broke through the monotony of the usual four-story construction by integrating the two upper floors under a curved, steep mansard roof. Overall, the house won over its neighbors through its lightness and elegance. With the old Swabian looking building, Fischer anticipated a type of construction that similarly prevailed between 1906 and 1909 during the renovation of the old town in Stuttgart.

Structure

The Zeller house rose above a floor area of 240 square meters, at a width of 14 meters and a depth of 17 meters on the gently sloping Reinsburgstrasse. The building with a basement consisted of two attic floors in addition to the two lower floors. Behind the house there was a terrace and a small garden plot. The mandatory 3 meter wide construction wall separated the building from the neighboring houses.

Facades

The pointed gable, brightly plastered street facade of the house with its rich architectural decoration set a graceful accent against the gray-in-gray of the neighboring houses. The rear and side facades, which otherwise remained in an unsightly raw state for cost reasons, were also given cheerful, light-colored plastering. The eye-catcher of the first floor was a splendid, three-axis central bay window, which, like the base and the ground floor, was made of yellowish-white sandstone.

The windows were not evenly lined up and one above the other, but were irregular on the ground floor and rhythmically arranged on the upper floors. The arched entrance to the house was on the right side of the front. An ornate, wrought-iron door with the rose motif of the Zell family coat of arms, a work of the Stuttgart master locksmith Albert Irion, opened the way into the entrance hall, which led via a staircase to the doctor's office and into the living rooms.

The right-hand side facade formed a friendly, second front side, which enhanced the otherwise usually dark structure with its light plastering, the three open arcades of the entrance hall, a small bay window on the first floor, a two-story open loggia and, last but not least, the round stair tower that with its bell dome protruding from the mansard roof.

Front view.
Right side facade.
Entrance.
Salon.

inside rooms

In addition to a waiting and consulting room for the doctor's practice, the Zeller house, as a house for the upper class, had several living rooms, bedrooms, offices and function rooms. The open entrance hall led into a vestibule with the main staircase, the great hall and the kitchen. The first floor, as the actual living area, contained three living rooms, three bedrooms, dining room and bathroom. The attic, to which the side staircase in the side turret led, contained spacious children's rooms, guest rooms, servants' rooms and an open hall for drying clothes. The basement accommodated the functional rooms: laundry room, ironing room and storage rooms.

Architectural jewelry

House Zeller, bay window.

A magnificent bay window with rich sculptural and picturesque decoration was the central eye-catcher of the Zeller house. A copper roof in the shape of a fisherman's arch over the bay window protected a colored, oval medallion with a fresco by the Stuttgart architect, painter and sculptor Gustav Halmhuber . It represented the parable of the good Samaritan who has mercy on someone in need. The portrait alluded to the building owner's medical profession and the charitable work that doctors did for their patients.

The bay windows were crowned by a recessed fisherman's arch above a rose blossom relief. Six naked cherubs making music by the sculptor Jakob Brüllmann forced themselves into the ears of the windows . The window parapets of the bay window were decorated with three reliefs, also by Jakob Brüllmann. Two reliefs depicted scenes from the works of Eduard Mörike , from the “ Fairy tale of the safe man ” (left) and from the “ History of the beautiful Lau ” (right). The middle relief showed the motif of the pelican who, according to legend, feeds its young with blood. The peg-like extensions of the bay bore the numbers 19 and 03 for the year of construction and the architect's initials TF in a coat of arms.

The rest of the facade consisted of natural colored plaster, which was enlivened by scratch plaster decorations ( sgraffito ) on a red and black background. The motif of the rose, which is repeated here many times, referred to the Zell family coat of arms. Except on the ground floor, the windows were crowned with fisherman's arches over a rose blossom or a wave pattern, the parapets were decorated with garland ornaments. Two rose branches flanked the double window on the third floor, and a rose bush with two birds nestled around the top opening in the gable.

reception

Modern designs, 1904

“The facade looks downright surprising between the adjoining interest boxes from the last quarter of the last century. It may be said in advance that the position of a lower gabled house in a flight of higher, cube-like houses may appear to us to be daring; but perhaps this is precisely where the convincing language that is characteristic of the house lies. "

Süddeutsche Bauzeitung, 1904

“The streets that only show this type at a recurring distance of 3 m always have something unfinished and uncomfortable about them, and the insight into the space itself is mostly offensive. It is now one of the main merits of the Fischer family to have made a virtue out of the necessity of the prescribed lateral distances. In this case it is actually something quite natural to turn a gable towards the street and let the roof fall off after the gaps between the sides, but such things always have to be demonstrated first. ... With the street front, the free detachment of the whole character and the basic form from the conventional type of environment is a relief. The house stands clear and calm like a landmark in the otherwise unattractive street scene. If an environment shows as little good as there, there can really be no question of an adaptation to the environment. On the other hand, the basic shape and use of materials ties in with the good Swabian type from earlier times, and in that sense the house is the only one native to the whole street. "

Architectural review, 1906

“In the artistic wasteland of a modern street, the houses of which are separated from each other by 3 m each and z. Sometimes showing neglected sides next to overloaded front sides, Professor Fischer has set the house reproduced here as an eloquent example of how the much scolded Bauwich can be used for an extremely attractive construction method following the best local tradition. So is the Zellersche house with the strongly outlined, simple gable facing the street. With the simple, convincing design of the street front, only through the rhythmic window arrangement and the magnificent bay window in the middle, and with the clever animation of the sides, it has become a jewel for the whole area. "

Structural Engineering Journal, 1907

“When I strolled through the streets of Stuttgart for the first time at the house of Dr. Zeller passed, I stopped involuntarily. That was a completely new tone in the eternal organ organ melody of the facade architecture. Even on the outside, the pure white stood out so freshly from the dirty gray and brown of the cement plastered surfaces smeared with oil paint. And then this wonderful natural simplicity; only a really big man could dare to do that here. … Architecture has often been compared to poetry; In any case, this building has an unmistakably lyrical mood. Like newer composers old folk songs, Fischer chose the old Swabian gable house as the basis of a thoroughly modern creation. … It is remarkable that at first this quiet, poetic creation in the Swabian residence was not understood at all. It was even ridiculed as a 'barn' in the carnival procession. Today, of course, the people of Stuttgart are ashamed of this lack of understanding and wish that the beautiful building would only have a slightly less bleak neighborhood. "

Gustav Keyssner: Theodor Fischer: Housing Buildings , 1912

“As very much as this picturesque house appears to be at one with the surrounding nature, the Zeller house stands isolated between the barren tenements on Stuttgart's Reinsburgstrasse. So isolated that, when it was just finished, most of the Stuttgarters didn't even notice how intimately and organically it had grown out of good old Swabian architecture. The high, broken roof, the mighty gable facing the street, the light-colored plastering with the recessed ornaments, the dark green shutters - even today in Stuttgart itself, let alone in the small Swabian towns and in the countryside, the old houses with these are still there Style symbols to be found in no small number. Only that at the Zellerhaus - and that was the master builder's right - the old-fashioned and small-town feel was made a little more elegant and patrician. "

literature

Older literature

Architektonische Rundschau 1906, panels 8-10, panel description: booklet 2.
Theodor Fischer: Urban expansion issues with special consideration for Stuttgart. A lecture by Theodor Fischer on May 27, 1903. With 32 illustrations. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1903, pdf .
Gustav Keyssner: Theodor Fischer: residential buildings. For Theodor Fischer's 50th birthday. Leipzig: Arnd, 1912, page VII, VIII, 16-21, pdf .
Modern designs 1904, pages 6–7, plate 4.
PB: Residence of Professor Dr. Zeller in Stuttgart. In: Süddeutsche Bauzeitung, 1904, pages 305–308.
Otto Voepel: [House Dr. Zeller]. In: Bautechnische Zeitschrift, Volume 22, 1907, page 5, 3 tables after page 4, 1 illustration on page 10.

Newer literature

Stuttgart. Workers houses. In: Rose Hajdu (photos); Dietrich Heißenbüttel: Theodor Fischer. Architecture of the Stuttgart years. Tübingen: Wasmuth, 2018, page 18.
Bernd Langner: Non-profit housing construction around 1900. Karl Hengerer's buildings for the Stuttgart Association for the Welfare of the Working Class. Klett-Cotta: Stuttgart 1994, page 159, 161.
Rudolf Pfister: Theodor Fischer: life and work of a German builder. Munich: Callwey, 1968, page 44, 112, 113.
Claudia Schinkiwicz: Residential building with Dr. Zeller. In: Winfried Nerdinger: Theodor Fischer. Architect and town planner 1862–1938. Exhibition catalog of the architecture collection of the Technical University of Munich and the Munich City Museum. Berlin: Ernst & Sohn, 1988, page 200.