Historical workers' settlement of Kuchen
The historic workers' settlement in Kuchen was commissioned by the manufacturer Arnold Staub and built in Kuchen between 1858 and 1887 . The workers' settlement is one of the most interesting of its kind in Central Europe.
history
The industrialist, who came from a Swiss entrepreneurial family, had been running the largest textile factory in Württemberg on the Fils below the village of Kuchen, with almost 30,000 spindles and over 500 looms , since 1857 . Ten years after the company was founded, 800 people were employed in the cotton spinning and weaving sector, and Kuchen became the center of the South German cotton industry at that time.
The purpose of the workers' settlement was to attract reliable workers and to keep them permanently. For the times, it was equipped with exemplary and progressive cultural, leisure, supply and health facilities.
The plant in the early days
The workers' housing estate in Kuchen was experimental in character, and different architectural styles came into play. The first workers' apartment building with five apartments was built in 1858. In front of this building, flower and vegetable gardens with precise usage regulations were laid out. In the 1860s, other buildings were added, such as the staircase with the dining and ballroom. Steam-powered warmers were also used here for the first time to warm up the food brought along. The Gasthaus Staubbach was built in 1862, a winged building in English arbor construction served as a multi-purpose building with living rooms, shop, school, library , kindergarten, pharmacy and hospital from 1864 . In the same year the Swiss house was built in the Swiss country house style. The showpiece of the workers' estate, the bath and wash house with an integrated swimming pool, steam bath and laundry facility with ironing room was added in 1869, and a clock tower adorns the building. In 1886/87 another building was built especially for the master and supervisory staff who had moved in from abroad. At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1867 , Arnold Staub received the Grand Prize with a gold medal for his settlement and was awarded by Emperor Napoléon III. made a Knight of the Legion of Honor .
Todays use
After the bankruptcy of the company Süddeutsche Cotton Industrie AG Kuchen (ESBI) in 1983, the community of Kuchen bought the area, the listed workers' settlement and the associated factory were included in the state renovation program. The buildings were modernized, repaired and partially converted. Today there are 27 modern apartments in the complex, and a kindergarten is located in the former bath and wash house. The central square of the complex with the streets of the workers' settlement were redesigned.
The former factory buildings were partially demolished and the areas built on with residential houses, a public parking lot for the historic workers' settlement was created.
literature
- Christel Köhle-Hezinger , Walter Ziegler (eds.): “The glorious history of our factory”. On the history of the village and the cake cotton mill (= publications of the Göppingen district archive. Vol. 13). Anton Konrad Verlag, Weißenhorn 1991, ISBN 3-87437-304-5 .
- Hubert Driver , Heinz Steinert : The manufacture of reliable people. About the "elective affinity" of the monastery and factory discipline. Heinz Moos Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7879-0193-0 (2nd edition. Westfälisches Dampfboot, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-89691-612-2 ).
- Hans-Joachim Aderhold: "As if it were born with the factory". The workers' settlement in Kuchen . In: Denkmalpflege in Baden-Württemberg , Volume 11, 1982, Number 4, pp. 158–170. ( PDF )
