Hat factory Friedrich Steinberg, Herrmann & Co.

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The former hat factory Friedrich Steinberg, Herrmann & Co. is an expressionist industrial building in Luckenwalde . As one of the most important buildings by Erich Mendelsohn and " incunable of modern industrial architecture", it is a listed building . The building of the former hat factory in Industriestraße 2 is now known as the “Mendelsohn Hall”.

Hat factory with dye works (left)

history

In the middle of the 19th century, Luckenwalde was the second most important location for German hat manufacturing after Guben . The two hat factories of Friedrich Steinberg (founded in 1844) and Gustav Herrmann (founded in 1883 by the brothers Moritz and Salomon Herrmann) were important family businesses with roots in the city. Salomon Herrmann initiated the construction of the Luckenwalder synagogue. The still unknown Erich Mendelsohn met Gustav Herrmann in Berlin in 1919. Through him he received his first significant commissions with the workers' settlement of the Luckenwalder Bauverein, which Herrmann co-founded (1919–1920) and the garden pavilion of the Herrmann family (1920). As a result, a long-term friendship developed between the Mendelsohn and Herrmann families.

Facade detail
Inside of the hat factory
Restored dye works building with a new wooden roof

When the Herrmann factory at Luckenwalder Potsdamer Strasse 2–7 was to be expanded, Mendelsohn, who had built an iron half-timbered hall on the site from 1919–1920, received the order to modernize the factory. However, since the building law did not allow for any expansion, the conversion was not carried out. After the two companies Steinberg and Herrmann merged on January 21, 1921 to form Friedrich Steinberg Herrmann & Co., the largest hat factory in the city, they were able to build a new factory together in the new industrial area, with which Erich Mendelsohn was commissioned. From 1921 to 1923 - interrupted by a large fire that broke out on February 19, 1923 and destroyed the wooden roof structure - the new hat factory was built. Construction was completed in the summer of 1923 and the factory started production. The hat stumps produced there were then further processed in the main plants in Treuenbrietzener Straße (formerly Steinberg) and Potsdamer Straße (formerly Herrmann). Two additional warehouse buildings, which adapted to Mendelsohn's architecture, were built in 1924 and 1927.

After Gustav Herrmann's death in 1932 and because of the family's fear of the effects of the National Socialist racial policy, the Herrmann family left Germany in 1933 and ended their collaboration with Steinberg. The Steinberg company continued to produce in its main factory until it was expropriated in 1948. Then she was transferred to the VEB hat fashion. The joint factory building on Industriestrasse was sold to Norddeutsche Maschinenbau AG (Nordeuma) in 1934. This used the building since 1935 for the production of anti-aircraft weapons. In 1936 the roofing of the gatehouses was replaced by a concrete slab and a production building was built to the east by 1937. Paul Renner built extensions to the east and west of the former dye works in 1941 . The dye works helmet and ventilation system were torn down to protect the factory from possible bombing attacks. The hall's wooden paving was largely replaced by screed in 1944 .

After the war ended, the machines were dismantled in 1945 and taken to the Soviet Union as reparations . The Red Army used the hall as a repair shop until 1956. The newly founded VEB has been producing rolling bearings in the former hat factory since 1957. The original steel windows were replaced by composite wood windows in 1958–1960, largely changing the heights of the sill. The boiler and machine house was rebuilt from 1962 to 1964 and thus completely devalued. In 1990 DKF Kugelfischer bought the company, but withdrew at the end of 1991 and stopped production. After that the buildings were empty. In 1991, DKF commissioned the Kühn-von Kaehne und Lange architectural office to carry out a historical study and to draw up a restoration concept.

A support group established in 1999 enabled the preservation and partial renovation of the industrial plant, which was also supported by the German Foundation for Monument Protection . In 2001, the Berlin building contractor Abbas Ayad bought the building in order to set up a sorting and processing plant for used textiles, but this turned out to be unprofitable. After that there were plans for a poultry breeding facility in the halls and the simultaneous expansion of the boiler house as a slaughterhouse. The Berlin Academy of the Arts and the new owner set up an exhibition on the 50th anniversary of Mendelsohn's death, in which a true-to-original model of the facility on a scale of 1: 100 could be seen. With the help of URBAN funds, the dye works hall was reconstructed from 2006 to 2011 and the characteristic skylight was restored.

Continuous use of the buildings has not yet been achieved; they are currently empty.

architecture

The factory complex built in reinforced concrete in the direction of the Zinna Monastery just outside the city center consists of a dye works, four production halls in a row and an energy center. The halls were constructed in such a way that they could be extended in the longitudinal axes if necessary. The area was enclosed by a wall, the south side of which was interrupted at a central point by two gatehouses that belonged together and the driveway leading through between them. The structure is strictly symmetrical from south to north. Two gatehouses, arranged in mirror image on the central axis, are followed in the middle by the ten- bay- wide dyeing building. This is followed by the four-aisled and thirty-bays long hall complex. The end point of the axis of symmetry is the cubic boiler and turbine house. In its consistently pursued symmetry, the complex represents a unity between the production process and architecture and thus a perfectly composed building organism that shows that a purely functional building also has a claim to beauty. In terms of production technology, the factory was state-of-the-art at the time.

The halls were built using modern reinforced concrete frame trusses ( wall supports and roof trusses are manufactured as one component). Mendelsohn elegantly tapered the reinforced concrete columns at the lower and upper supports . Other details are also designed in an expressionistic design language, which gives the building lightness and elegance. These include, for example, the exposed masonry with protruding and receding horizontal brick strips that represent upside-down gables as light-and-shadow reliefs and cut the windows diagonally, the building corners protruding from the façade at an angle and extending upwards Form of conical pointed pillars and the curved window sills modeled from the wall.

The most striking part of the factory is the dye works, the last station in hat production. The hall, with its concrete trusses tapering towards the top, was given a shaft-shaped roof dome with a new type of ventilation system above the attic with two skylights running upwards. With a frontal view of the dye works, its appearance resembled the cross-section of a fedora hat, which made it a landmark of Luckenwald. The roof structure removed during the war could be restored. Since the faithful execution as a reinforced concrete skeleton could no longer be realized for static reasons, a wooden construction was chosen for the roof. The expressionist facades of the boiler house, however, have completely disappeared today.

Mendelsohn was apparently already working on the project in mid-1920. His dune sketch from 1920 looks like an anticipation of the dyework building. In his book Das Gesamtschaffen des Architekten , published in 1930 , Mendelsohn compared this sketch to a picture of the hat factory on page 62.

Due to the convincing architectural and technical quality of his hat factory, Mendelsohn was awarded the contract for the “Red Banner” textile factory project in Leningrad as early as 1925 , in whose inner courtyard he built three parallel low workshops (two dye works and one bleaching plant) with ventilation shafts similar to the dye works building in Luckenwalde planned.

literature

  • Sonja Dirauf: "The hat is back where it belongs". Mendelsohn Hall completely restored. In: Pelikan-Post. The Luckenwalder Stadtblatt , 3rd year, issue 9/2011 (PDF; 3.1 MB), p. 7.
  • Thomas Drachenberg: Erich Mendelsohn's hat factory in Luckenwalde. (PDF; 630 kB) In: kunsttexte.de, No. 2, 2002.
  • Gerald Kühn-von Kaehne, Christoph Lebek, Mathias Noell: Luckenwalde. The former hat factory Friedrich Steinberg Herrmann & Co. owned by Erich Mendelsohn. In: Brandenburgische Denkmalpflege , Vol. 1, H. 1, 1992, pp. 75–84.
  • Karin Carmen Jung, Dietrich Worbs: Functional Dynamics. The hat factory Steinberg Herrmann & Co. in Luckenwalde by Erich Mendelsohn. In: Bauwelt , vol. 83, no. 3, p. 117 f.
  • Bruno Zevi: Erich Mendelsohn. Verlag für Architektur Artemis, Zurich 1983, ISBN 3-7608-8117-3 , pp. 48–53.

Web links

Commons : Hutfabrik Friedrich Steinberg Herrmann & Co.  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerhard Vinken (arrangement): Handbook of German art monuments. Brandenburg. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-422-03054-9 , p. 620 ( online ).
  2. ↑ The following hat factory buildings were placed under protection: gate entrance, administration building, production building, boiler and machine house as well as the remains of the factory entrance; see. Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation and State Archaeological Museum (BLDAM): List of monuments of the State of Brandenburg, Teltow-Fläming district
  3. ^ A b Roman Schmidt: Luckenwalde. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2000, ISBN 3-89702-185-4 , pp. 16, 20 (with a large number of historical images).
  4. ^ Architects' office Kühn-von Kaehne und Lange, hat factory in Luckenwalde by E. Mendelsohn - safety and repair
  5. ↑ Refurbishment without a hat. In: art , H. 2/2002, p. 115.
  6. ↑ a b c chickens instead of hats. In: db deutsche bauzeitung , booklet Metamorphose - building in existing buildings , issue 5/2011, pp. 6-9.
  7. ^ Exhibition "Erich Mendelsohn and the hat factory in Luckenwalde" from September 14, 2003 to May 15, 2004 in the Luckenwalde hat factory.
  8. ↑ Frank Peter Jäger: Put on the hat. Mendelsohn's famous factory in Luckenwalde is being renovated. In: Der Tagesspiegel , September 30, 2003.
  9. ↑ a b The felt was dried under a hat-shaped roof. In: art , H. 10/1994, p. 131.
  10. ↑ sketch of a dune architecture , pencil drawing; 12 x 22.4 cm; separately enclosed a note with the later inscription “Dune Architecture 1920” in pencil.
  11. ↑ a b Sigrid Achenbach: Erich Mendelsohn. 1887-1953. Ideas, buildings, projects. (Catalog for the exhibition from February 20 to April 5, 1987 for the 100th birthday from the holdings of the art library of the Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz), Arenhövel, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-922912-18-4 , pp. 64, 51 f.

Coordinates: 52 ° 4 ′ 47.5 ″  N , 13 ° 9 ′ 12.1 ″  E