Hulda Zumsteg

Guests in Hulda Zumsteg's “Kronenhalle”, in the foreground Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1963)

Hulda Zumsteg (born Durst, born in Winterthur in 1890 ; died in Zurich in 1984 ) was the landlady of the “ Kronenhalle ” restaurant in Zurich.

Life

Hulda Zumsteg was born in Winterthur in 1890. After a few jobs as a housekeeper and barmaid in Zurich, she met her future husband Gottlieb Zumsteg and took over the former hotel "Couronne", the restaurant Kronenhalle on Rämistrasse in Zurich , with him in 1920 . The legendary restaurant was already visited by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer , the painter Arnold Böcklin and Gottfried Keller ; the guests were Zurich dignitaries, manufacturers and scholars. Hulda Zumsteg acquired many works of art for the restaurant, for example by Marc Chagall , Joan Miró and Wassily Kandinsky , which can still be seen there today. She also had a personal relationship with many of these artists, which is how sheets and drawings were created with dedications for the landlady.

In 1957 her husband Gottlieb Zumsteg died after a traffic accident, from then on she managed the operation largely on her own. Her son Gustav Zumsteg was a passionate art lover, but was not interested in the restaurant.

Hostess of great artists

She was a host through and through, and writers and artists such as James Joyce , Thomas Mann , Robert Musil , Bertolt Brecht , Hans Arp , Alberto Giacometti , Max Gubler and Henry van de Velde as well as great musicians such as Richard Strauss and Othmar Schoeck met in the Kronenhalle , Igor Stravinsky , Franz Lehár or Rolf Liebermann . Fashion designers also found their way into the “Kronenhalle” and dressed the landlady in their creations. At the same time, she was a benevolent landlady who liked to give hungry students soup and a piece of bread.

Honor

In 2007, Hulda Zumsteg was honored by the Fraumünster Society on the occasion of the Zurich Sechseläuten .

literature

• Catherine Ziegler Peter: New Year's Gazette of the Society of Fraumünster for the year 2008. Volume 2, No. 2. Edition Gutenberg, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-9523176-2-4 .