Johann Joseph Couven

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Johann Joseph Couven (born November 10, 1701 in Aachen ; † September 12, 1763 there ) was a German architect and builder of the Baroque and Rococo periods . He was not only responsible for the construction of representative town houses , palaces and churches , but was also active in the field of interior design and decorative art . In addition, he worked at times as a surveyor and developed geodeticSurveying equipment. Couven mainly worked in the triangle of Aachen, Liège and Maastricht .

family

The Couven family originally called themselves de Couves and came from the Belgian town of Clermont-sur-Berwinne, about 20 km from Aachen . They had been based in Aachen since the 16th century and the Junker Jakob Couven was born there in 1575. One of his grandsons was Johann Jakob Couven (between 1656 and 1660–1740), who was married to Maria Agnes von Baexen (1672–1732) for the second time. He was initially secretary at the Spanish ambassador in Vienna and first council secretary and from 1694 court procurator ( notary ) in Aachen. The sources leave open whether Johann Jakob Couven was possibly also employed as a city architect and entrusted with building plans for the city in order to close the vacant lots that still existed decades after the devastating city ​​fire of Aachen in 1656.

The Couven von Baexen couple had their son Johann Joseph Couven in 1701, who married Maria Dorothea Gertrudis Mesters (1705–1779) from Maastricht in 1731 . The couple had two sons and four daughters. While the older son, Johann Wilhelm Couven (1732–1796), was appointed court chamber councilor by the elector of Trier , Clemens Wenzeslaus von Sachsen , in 1785 , the younger, Jakob Couven (1735–1812), who had no descendants , sat later continued his father's work as a master builder in Aachen.

Life

Like his father, Johann Joseph Couven attended the Jesuit grammar school in Aachen. Nothing specific is known about the choice of his subsequent training courses and locations and any study trips that may have been carried out. It can be assumed that as a budding architect he was trained and shaped by his father, who worked in the city administration, and especially by the builder and architect Laurenz Mefferdatis . Couven was involved several times in his building projects by Mefferdatis, who was 24 years older than him, and he initially designed mostly the plans for the interior furnishings and fittings for him on his own initiative. In later years, Couven was occasionally commissioned to carry out modern modifications and additions to the Mefferdatis buildings. The Westphalian master builder and architect Johann Conrad Schlaun also had a significant influence on Couven, and Couven was also involved in the planning team on several occasions. In addition, Couven studied and copied the sketch sheets, floor plans and gardens of the French architect François Blondel , which contributed significantly to his own style.

From around the middle of the 1730s, Johann Joseph Couven signed his plans with the addition "engineer-architect", which he was not satisfied with and therefore applied to the city to officially take him over as city architect. This request was granted and Couven was appointed first city architect on August 29, 1739 and promoted to council secretary in 1742. However, this did not mean a permanent position in the usual sense, but only that he could be preferred for municipal assignments. The same applied to the office of the Council Secretary, which authorized him to take part in meetings that were important to him if necessary. In this context, it was among his duties to offer princes, kings and emperors an impressive sightseeing tour during their visits to the city, which resulted in important contacts for Couven for later building projects. In addition, Couven was commissioned as a member of the city council to organize the celebrations in Aachen on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Franz I Stephan in Frankfurt am Main with an opulent illumination and a final fireworks display in central squares of the city.

Couven worked as a freelance architect primarily in Aachen, as well as in Burtscheid , Geilenkirchen , Düsseldorf , Liège , Eupen and other places in the neighboring Duchy of Limburg . In 1752 Couven was awarded the title “Architect of the Prince-Bishop of Liège” for his meritorious work for the Prince-Bishopric by the incumbent Prince-Bishop of Liège , Johann Theodor von Bayern .

At the end of the 1750s, Couven increasingly suffered from health problems, which meant that his son Jakob, who was trained and promoted by him and was not even 30 years old, was increasingly involved in the current construction projects and largely continued and completed them.

Finally, on September 12, 1763, Johann Joseph Couven succumbed to his illnesses of many years.

In honor of Couven, a street was named after him in Aachen and Düsseldorf and a square in Eupen, as well as the Couven Museum , the Couven Gymnasium and the Couven Hall of the RWTH Aachen University in Kármánstraße, the original seat of the Couven Gymnasium.

Act

Johann Joseph Couven shaped the city of Aachen like no other through his great creative power as a builder and architect as well as a technician and interior designer. The new infrastructure he created, the church buildings designed or supplemented according to his ideas with their lavish furnishings and imposing high altars as well as his design of entire rows of houses and representative city villas brought a huge building boom to Aachen in particular in the 18th century and fundamentally changed the cityscape. Couven acquired the knowledge and skills of other established builders of his time and developed his own style, which in Aachen is called the so-called "Couven style", which encouraged other builders to also design their buildings in the "Style à la Couven" to build. Until around 1745, Couven was primarily based on the French-influenced Regency style and then switched to the generally preferred Rococo style.

The years of collaboration between Johann Joseph Couven and his son Jakob developed stylistic similarities, so that it is not always clear to whom the later buildings can actually be attributed , especially since the numerous plan sketches are often insufficiently signed. Especially in the last years of his father's life and after his death, Jakob Couven more and more often completed and completed his father's ongoing construction contracts, before Jakob also made a style change towards Empire from around the turn of the century .

The often simultaneous realization of several important large buildings could only succeed because Johann Joseph Couven was sure of the support of the city of Aachen as well as influential electors as well as wealthy private individuals and entrepreneurs. This enabled him to request the best construction crews and site managers, as well as specialists such as art carpenters and plasterers, and to carry out the overall supervision himself, commuting between the individual construction sites.

A large part of the couven buildings and interior fittings were destroyed over the centuries, mainly by wars, and most of them could not be rebuilt or restored in the old style. Nevertheless, individual facades or attachments could such as the Couvenwandbrunnen or parts save of interiors and in the meantime as a whole or in parts translocate . In addition, numerous sketch sheets and plan drawings of Couven's works can be found in the Couven Museum and the Suermondt Ludwig Museum in Aachen, as well as in the Aachen City Archives , as well as those from building projects that have been lost or have not been carried out.

Urban orders

The first surviving study sheets and drawings from the pen of Johann Joseph Couvens date from the year 1722. Soon afterwards, the first orders from the city administration followed, which he apparently got through through his father, who was employed there. For example, in 1724 Couven was commissioned to design an illustrated map of the city of Aachen for the royal Polish general, Marshal von Flemming. His first official work as an architect began between 1728 and 1732, when he was involved in the baroque redesign of the Aachen town hall together with the Maastricht master builder Gilles Doyen . Couven first made the designs for the redesign of the town hall stairs with the entrance portal and for the conversion of the market facade of the building, while Doyen dealt more with the interior redesign. It was not until 1731/1732 that Couven was responsible for remodeling some of the interior spaces.

Two years later, Couven drew up plans to build a social welfare and reformatory for the unemployed, work-shy or unemployed. In 1735 he designed the bluestone basin for the reconstruction of the Karlsbrunnen on the Rathausplatz, to which he later added the two bronze fish sculptures and in 1736 two small fountains to the side of them, from which the citizens of Aachen could draw water. Between 1748 and 1752 Couven was commissioned to plan the necessary renovation of the "Eight", the court house of the lay judges at Katschhof , as well as the adjoining drapery hall of the drapery guild into a new comedy house . He cleverly combined the existing buildings with the adjoining tower of the town hall to form a stylistic unit, since the upper rooms of the "eight" were to be added to the comedy house complex and one of the entrances to the theater was to be via the town hall tower. Couven's change from the previously preferred Regency style to the now popular Rococo style was particularly evident in these two buildings.

In addition, Couven was entrusted with the improvement of the city's infrastructure in those years, which had to be tackled as an important prerequisite for the organization of the Aachen Peace Congress of 1748 . This work continued after the congress and Couven was responsible around 1750 and together with his son Jakob for the surveying of the new road route from the Aachener Jakobstor to Lüttich, today's Lütticher Straße.

  • The town hall and market redesigned by Couven, steel engraving by Henry Winkles , around 1840

  • Karlsbrunnen with fish sculptures and two running fountains, Aachen market square

  • Old Comedy House and Eight

Sacred buildings

St. Johann, Burtscheid

A particular focus of Couven was the designs for the new construction and renovation of numerous churches and their interiors. When his first two churches were built around 1732, the St. Agatha Church in Eys and the Redemptorist monastery church in Wittem , Couven was still part of the staff of Johann Conrad Schlaun, the actual builder of these churches commissioned by Count Ferdinand von Plettenberg . Couven contributed his own designs and took over the building supervision. He also arranged for the Austrian brothers Franz and Paul Klausener , master masons and carpenters from Flirsch in Tyrol , to be requested as building contractors, whom he repeatedly referred to in the following years for his other building projects.

Couven then applied with his own plans for the planned new building of a baroque instead of the existing Gothic abbey church of St. Johann of the imperial abbey of Burtscheid , which the ruling abbesses approved. Due to financial difficulties of the order, the construction of the west tower alone took 15 years (from 1736 to 1741), followed by the actual church building in a further six years (from 1748 to 1754). At the same time, the neighboring Leutkirche St. Michael was rebuilt between 1747 and 1751, also according to Couven's plans, to replace the ailing Gothic predecessor building. Couven again commissioned the Klausener brothers to carry out the practical construction work for both churches.

At the same time, Couven built the chapel for the beheading of John the Baptist in Eupen-Nispert in 1747/1748 for the dye works owner Erich Adolf Goertz, a relative of Johann von Wespien , who was involved as a builder and for whom Couven had previously built the Wespienhaus . The entire interior of the chapel was also created according to Couven's plans. That same year realized Couven the construction and expansion of the Anna Church in Aachen and received in the same period of Emerich of Mórocz as representatives of Count Karl Josef Batthyány commissioned the dilapidated Gothic Hungary chapel at Aachen Cathedral redesign. But the construction of this relatively small project compared to his other buildings turned out to be a fiasco for Couven. The idea of ​​constructing the inner dome for the first time only from stone and not, as usual, from wood, as well as an obviously incorrectly calculated anchoring, but also poor material and superficial day laborers, meant that this chapel had to be abandoned in 1755 and still unfinished. A year later, it was rebuilt by the Italian Baroque master builder Joseph Moretti and is still there today.

From 1750 onwards, Couven received, on the recommendation of the Prince-Bishop of Liège, the orders for the conversion, extension and construction of various nunneries in the prince-bishopric. First, Couven built the new Augustinian monastery in Sinnich near Teuven between 1750 and 1754 on behalf of Abbess Anna Carolina von Berghe and Trips, and then on behalf of Abbess Antoinette Countess von Eltz-Kempenich (1756–1771) the renovation and extension work for the nunnery in Munsterbilzen . Then he took on the order for various conversions and extensions as well as for the new construction of an economic building and the lease at the St. Gerlach nunnery in Houthem near Valkenburg aan de Geul . Couven's son Jakob was significantly involved in this project due to the progressive health-related restrictions of the father and it is not possible to differentiate exactly from the sources which plans originate from the father and which from the son, since at that time the two did not differ in style and the now prevalent Louis-seize style preferred.

Town houses and garden houses

The largest proportion of the couven buildings are undoubtedly the representative city villas and town houses, the number of which, including the renovations, is around 50. In addition, there are designs by other houses, such as that of House Mantels, which were never realized in Aachen. In addition, it is not always possible to distinguish between the plans of father and son Couven, especially in the later works, which is why some houses were ascribed to the father Johann Joseph Couven solely on the basis of stylistic features.

Depending on the space requirements, a town house included a baroque garden, which Couven equipped with an imposing garden house if necessary and for which he designed the paths and stairs with ornate wrought iron railings. The Mantels garden houses on the Lousberg and Nuellens in the Kurpark Burtscheid, which he designed and are still preserved today, are prime examples .

One of Couven's early works and at the same time the most successful buildings was the construction of the Wespienhaus built between 1734 and 1737 for the mayor Johann von Wespien. It was followed at short intervals by numerous new buildings in relative proximity to the Aachen city center and in the area of ​​the main street in Burtscheid. Several so-called Couven houses can still be found in Eupen today, including the “ House Grand Ry / Mennicken / Signon ” for the Grand Ry family on Werthplatz, the “ House Vercken ” on the market square, where the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family from 1857 onwards were housed, or the "House Grand Ry" on the Klötzerbahn, today the seat of government of the German-speaking Community of Belgium . The city palace, built by Couven between 1738 and 1741 for the banker Michel Willems, is located in Liège and is now home to the “Museum d'Ansembourg”.

In addition, Couven accepted numerous orders for contemporary renovations and interior fittings on existing houses, such as the Londoner Hof and the Wylre'schen Hof , both buildings by his former teacher Laurenz Mefferdatis, who died in 1748.

All of these buildings show the typical so-called “couven style”: In contrast to his castle buildings, the town houses were mostly kept simple and often only decorated on the front. Only occasionally, for example at the “Zur kaiserlichen Krone” hotel in Aachen or at the “Haus Grand Ry” in Eupen, did he opt for a Cour d'Honneur construction. Its mostly three to nine-axis mansions were particularly emphasized by a central projection extending over one to three axes . In this, Couven particularly emphasized the ornate entrance portal and on the first floor an oriel with a wrought iron grille extending over one to three axes. At the end of the roof he often integrated a conspicuous triangular or curved tympanum , which was equipped with the respective family coat of arms, the guild coat of arms or other decorations. Just as typical of his style were the lattice windows framed with a bluestone frame and, on some houses, a house base also made of bluestone, as well as the mansard roofs with the extended mansards .

  • Wespienhaus, Aachen

  • Nuellens Pavilion, Burtscheid

  • House de Grand Ry, Eupen

Castle systems

Jägerhof Palace, Düsseldorf
Kalkofen Castle, Aachen

Early on, Couven devoted himself to larger and more representative orders such as the construction of entire castle complexes. First of all, it was Johann Conrad Schlaun, who has already been mentioned several times, under whose overall direction Couven was involved in extensive renovations and additions to Neuburg Castle in Gulpen between 1732 and 1735 . Among other things, he was jointly responsible for the addition of two tower-reinforced wings. For the practical implementation, he again resorted to the Klausener construction company he knew.

On behalf of Elector Karl Theodor von der Pfalz , Couven was then independently commissioned to convert his Jägerhof Palace in Düsseldorf in the style of a rococo pleasure palace . Couven submitted four designs that provided for a three-story building with a central tower and wings around which the Düssel was to be directed. However, the city's chief building director Nicolas de Pigage only implemented part of the originally planned construction work, which began around 1749 and was only completed in 1762 without a side wing. For the Elector Karl Theodor, Couven then built the Palatinate buildings in Heinsberg, such as the district court and the Rentmeisterhaus, and designed the extensive renovation plans of his ancestral seat at Breill Castle in Geilenkirchen for its governor, Count Johann Ludwig von Goltstein , which was carried out around 1754 .

At the same time, Couven again accepted an order from Johann von Wespien and made the plans to convert his Lime Kiln estate into a pleasure palace. He realized this building between 1750 and 1753 while maintaining the almost square plan of the Kalkofen and incorporated older parts such as the towers and the surrounding wall into the new building. Couven only had the northern part of the north-eastern curtain wall laid down to reveal a garden ground floor from the new manor house. Couven then carried out another order for the Liège Elector Johann Theodor and created the designs for his new hunting lodge “Prinzenhof” in Maaseik , which no longer exists today. This building, erected between 1753 and 1758, was connected by a tunnel under the dikes and with a gate to the outdoor facilities and the plantation , which were located outside the dikes.

Based on the drafts, further larger castle conversions suggest couves, some of which, for example Amstenrade Castle, could never or only partially be realized. In addition, he took on smaller orders such as the construction of gatehouses and extensions to existing castle complexes, such as Castle Thor in Astenet , Castle Genhoes in Alt-Valkenburg and Castle Schleiden .

Altar buildings and other church furnishings

High altar St. Nikolaus, Eupen

In addition to his preference for house designs of all kinds, Couven also dealt extensively with the artistic interior design and interior design of his buildings with rich furniture and magnificent decorations. Couven equipped a large number of churches in particular with ornate pulpits , communion benches and choir stalls , organ cases and organ galleries and, above all, with imposing high altars. His first works included the inner side wings, which were extended in 1732, and the organ loft built in 1735 for the church of St. Nikolaus in Aachen, which Mefferdatis completely renovated in 1706 , which Couven had followed in 1755 with the Loreto altar for the Loreto chapel there. The altar attributed to him and the pulpit designed by him in the Lutheran church “ De Kopermolen ” in Vaals from 1736/37 are also among his first works in this field .

From 1739 to 1746, Couven took over the construction of the pulpit, the gallery parapet and the organ case as well as the construction of a mighty high altar for the Church of St. Katharina in Wenau . During the same period he designed the baroque high altar for both the church of St. Nikolaus in Eupen , built by Mefferdatis, and for St. Katharina in Kettenis, and designed the Theresienkirche in Aachen, also built by Mefferdatis, with a closed, uniform interior including a high altar in pure rococo Ornamentation.

In addition, Couven had designed sacred interiors and high altars for numerous other churches and chapels, some of which can only be attributed to Couven on the basis of sketch drawings or the originals of which have been destroyed over time.

Couven created a work of art of a special kind for the collegiate chapter of Aachen Cathedral . On the occasion of the Aachen Shrine Tour in 1748, he created a richly decorated wall calendar engraved in copper with a height of 1.53 m and a width of 0.71 m. In later years the calendar and the coat of arms of the canons were changed several times on this object, until it finally ended up in private hands and is therefore no longer accessible to the public.

Works in detail

  • see list of works by Johann Joseph Couven . This does not claim to be complete, but based on the sources it can only reproduce a rough selection of the best-known works that are definitely ascribed to him.

literature

sorted by year of publication

Web links

Commons : Johann Joseph Couven  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of the Anna Church in Aachen
  2. ↑ Portrait Castle Sinnich
  3. ↑ Portrait Munsterbilzen (ndl.) ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.landrada.be
  4. ↑ Portrait of the Prinzenhof (ndl.)
personal data
SURNAME Couven, Johann Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Couves, Johann Joseph de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German builder of the Baroque and Rococo
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1701
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1763
Place of death Aachen