House of the Empire
Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 45 " N , 8 ° 48 ′ 46" E
The House of the Reich on Rudolf-Hilferding-Platz in Bremen is, among other things, the official seat of the Bremen Senator for Finance.
history
The "Kontorhaus" was built from 1928 to 1931 by Nordwolle , which had relocated their company headquarters from Delmenhorst to Bremen. The Nordwolle was at the start of construction, the largest European wool processing company with more than 20,000 employees. With the construction of the house, the company managers, the brothers G. Carl , Heinz and Friedrich Lahusen , intended to erect a monument in the form of an administrative palace. The architects were the brothers Hermann and Eberhard Gildemeister .
The building, with a gross floor area of almost 34,000 square meters, was completed in early 1931 and is still one of the largest office buildings in Bremen today. The construction costs are said to have been around 12 million Reichsmarks . After the building was accepted in February 1931, Nordwolle went into bankruptcy before the inauguration in July of the same year . In 1934 the financial administration of the German Reich took over the building. It was named "House of the Reich" and was initially used by the state finance office Weser-Ems, later by the Reich governor for Oldenburg / Bremen and the Gauleiter Bremen of the NSDAP. It remained largely undamaged during World War II . During the war, the Bremen Navy Service Center (KMD) was located on the first floor . After 1945 it became the seat of the military government for Bremen and Bremerhaven in the American occupation zone . From 1947, the Bremen tax authorities gradually started using the building again.
architecture
The building does not follow a specific architectural style, but is a creation of its own. Sandstone from the Obernkirchen sandstone quarries was used for the facade . The details of the structure and the equipment are extremely rich, on the macro level, however, the building is strictly functional. Influences of New Building , Expressionism and Art Deco can be seen.
In the inner courtyard of the four-winged but not rectangular building there is a fountain with a clock tower. The clocks are intended to remind employees every time they look out of the window that they are wasting valuable working time looking out of the window.
Due to its architectural importance and equipment as well as its urban development effect, the House of the Reich is a listed building .
There are still three remaining paternoster lifts in operation in the building (see also the list of existing paternoster lifts ).
Todays use
The House of the Reich is used today by the Senator for Finance and by the Bremen Tax Offices (formerly Bremen-West / East / Center), the Tax Office for External Auditing and the State Main Treasury and the Hanover Regional Tax Office. Up until the structural reform of the federal tax administration in 1998, the Bremen regional finance department was located in the House of the Reich , as was the customs training institute . Since the Hanover Regional Finance Directorate, which was taken over in the Bremen Federal District, was also dissolved on January 1, 2008, its presence in the building will be represented by the newly established Federal Finance Directorate North (by the Bremen Main Customs Office ).
On the sixth floor of the building there is a publicly accessible barrier-free restaurant with a roof garden and a good view of the city.
Surroundings
Since 1988/1991, Fragment , a work of art by the Lower Saxon painter and sculptor Hawoli , has taken the place in front of the main entrance of the building. The work pays homage to Rudolf Hilferding , after whom the square is named. Four fallen red-black granite pillars symbolize the fallen power - Hilferding lost his office as Reich Finance Minister in a “red-black” government after the start of the global economic crisis in December 1929. The other three standing in the center of the square, clinging to one another with a steel beam , polished granite pillars represent the remaining members of the government, which now lacks a majority.
Individual evidence
literature
- The Senator for Finances (ed.): House of the Reich - From the North Wool to the Senator for Finances . Architecture and history of a Bremen administration building. Hauschild, Bremen 1999, ISBN 3-931785-37-8 .
