Hotel Verenahof

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Hotel Verenahof

The Hotel Verenahof is a former hotel in Baden in the canton of Aargau . It is on Kurplatz in the spa district . The listed building is a cultural asset of national importance and an outstanding example of 19th century Swiss spa architecture . The hotel has been empty since 2002 and is to be converted into a clinic from 2017.

building

Verena statue
Side entrance

The hotel building, which has been a listed building since 1967, dominates the western side of the Kurplatz. Together with the adjacent former Bären and Ochsen hotels, it forms a striking urban complex. The older, southern part from 1844/45 is characterized by a delicate, classicistic design language . Five axes of the facade face the square, three of the alley to the south-west. Joints and arched windows structure the ground floor. The newer part with five axes was built in 1873/74 and adjoins it to the north. The transition forms a risalitartig formed portal construction : Two fluted Tuscan half-columns with cranked string course carry a smooth Pilasterpaar with Corinthian capitals , which reach up to the roof gutter on the third floor. There they support a volute base with a statue of Saint Verena . The statue is attributed to the sculptor Robert Dorer from Baden . Facing the north is a wing, also built in 1873/74, which is one floor higher and protrudes slightly into the square.

Inside the old building from 1844/45 a glass-covered atrium opens up . Against this, three-story galleries with slender, marbled wooden columns open up. Another, largely identical, atrium forms the transition between the wings from 1873/74. Both farms are based on Italian models. The north wing contains the former dining room. Its wall panels were decorated with alpine landscapes between 1914 and 1918; the works of the brothers Eduard and Hermann Rüdisühli were later painted over with a white paint.

history

Today's Verenahof stands above the foundation walls of the earlier inns “zum Löwen”, “zum Halbmond” and “zur Sonne”, some of which were first mentioned in documents around the middle of the 14th century. The Verenahof spring was discovered in March 1844 . The then owner of the lion, Baden city councilor Franz Josef Borsinger, immediately initiated the planning of a new building. The architect Joseph Caspar Jeuch, also from Baden, was awarded the contract. The lion and the crescent moon were replaced while the newly renovated Gasthaus Sonne was left standing (separated by a narrow moat ). The new hotel was named Verenahof after it opened in 1845. Borsinger also acquired the Gasthaus Sonne in 1872 and had it torn down. According to plans by the architect Johann Heinrich Reutlinger, the Verenahof was then expanded on the vacated area until 1874.

Over the decades, numerous well-known personalities stayed at the Verenahof. The composer Richard Strauss stayed here several times for a cure and worked on the opera Arabella , among other things . For almost three decades the writer Hermann Hesse was a regular at the Verenahof; In the gloss collection written in 1923 Kurgast he recorded impressions from his first stay at the spa. In 1954, the Ethiopian Haile Selassie stayed here for a few days after visiting the Brown Boveri works in Baden .

The hotel's operating company, Verenahof AG, gradually acquired various other hotels in the spa district in a long process of concentration. She tried to stop the ongoing loss of attractiveness of the spa district with ambitious plans. In 1989 a 50 million franc project with a Roman bath, senior citizens' residence and health center failed. In 1996 the management suggested demolishing the Verenahof, Bären and Ochsen hotels and replacing them with a thermal bath. This project did not come about for reasons of monument protection either. In May 2002, Verenahof AG submitted an almost unchanged project, which also included the demolition of the hotel, which the city of Baden and the canton of Aargau resolutely rejected. Finally, the hotel in need of renovation was closed on September 30, 2002 by order of the Aargau Insurance Office.

In January 2009, around 100 people occupied the hotel for one night and celebrated an illegal party in it, which resulted in various acts of vandalism and theft. The Aargau canton police then investigated 32 members of the Young Socialists in Switzerland , including their then President Cédric Wermuth . You were sentenced to conditional fines and fines for trespassing in February 2010.

In 2006, a local real estate investor took over the majority of shares in Verenahof AG and initiated new planning. After he and the city of Baden had commissioned five renowned architecture firms to study, Mario Botta's project was awarded the contract in August 2009 . Among other things, it intends to connect the Bären, Ochsen and Verenahof hotels inside and to convert them into a rehabilitation clinic with 78 rooms. The buildings will be completely gutted , while the listed parts (facades, light wells) will be retained. Botta originally wanted to build a glass dome over the roof, for which the cantonal monument preservation authorities did not issue a permit.

literature

Web links

Commons : Hotel Verenahof  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hoegger: The monuments of the Canton of Aargau. P. 316.
  2. ↑ Hoegger: The monuments of the Canton of Aargau. Pp. 316-317.
  3. ↑ Hoegger: The monuments of the Canton of Aargau. P. 315.
  4. ^ Willi Schuh : Richard Strauss in Switzerland. (PDF, 7.1 MB) du , November 1951, accessed on May 10, 2017 .
  5. ^ Klaus Brath: Hermann Hesse (1877–1962): Anything but a robust nature. Deutsches Ärzteblatt , 2012, accessed on May 10, 2017 .
  6. ^ Otto Mittler : History of the city of Baden . tape 2 : From 1650 to the present . Verlag Sauerländer, Aarau 1965, p. 314 .
  7. ↑ Roman Huber: After 30 years of planning: Today finally the start of the pool project. Aargauer Zeitung , January 9, 2017, accessed on May 10, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Lukas Mäder: Vandal Party: Police are investigating Juso. 20 Minuten , January 27, 2009, accessed May 10, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Rosmarie Mehlin: Objections rejected: Ten Jusos go swimming. Aargauer Zeitung , November 3, 2010, accessed on May 10, 2017 .
  10. ↑ A bang at the Limmat knee: Mario Botta is building in Baden. Tages-Anzeiger , August 20, 2009, accessed May 10, 2017 .
  11. ↑ project. thermalbaden.ch, 2017, accessed on May 10, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Mario Botta continues with the new “Verenahof” in Baden. Swiss radio and television , June 23, 2014, accessed on May 10, 2017 .

Coordinates: 47 ° 28 ′ 51 "  N , 8 ° 18 ′ 49"  E ; CH1903:  665,945  /  259250