Art Academy Düsseldorf (building)

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Main facade of the art academy from the north-west
Historical floor plans, 1879
The old and new academy in Düsseldorf , title page by Caspar Scheuren , German artist album , 1877
North facade of the art academy and security harbor , photo 1897
The Hofgarten zu Düsseldorf , plan drawing by Düsseldorf city gardener Heinrich Hillebrecht , 1895: Depiction of the location of the art academy at the security harbor (at the bottom of the plan)

The building of the art academy at Eiskellerstraße 1 in Düsseldorf - Altstadt was built between 1875 and 1879 by Hermann Riffart in the style of historicism based on the models of the Italian Renaissance . On the Rhine side of the building there is a modern studio building of the art academy designed by Rudolf Schwarz .

Building history and description

After the fire at the Düsseldorf Residenzschloss , in which the Düsseldorf Art Academy was housed until 1872, the new building was built on the former security harbor, on the "Hafenwall" (today Eiskellerstraße). The architect and art historian Wilhelm Lotz , who had held a professorship at the art academy since 1872, proposed this location to the professors in June 1872 because of the north exposure of the studio rooms and presented the first drafts. Hermann Riffart, a Starck student who had been commissioned by the government with the further elaboration of drafts and the new building, developed the concept further in parallel to an ongoing discussion of the location among the professors. There was a dispute over the question of whether a reconstruction of the art academy on the site of the burned down castle or a new building at the security harbor was the better solution. In this discussion, Wilhelm Camphausen's position in favor of a new building program that the Prussian Ministry of Culture approved in the summer of 1873 prevailed . The design and layout were also influenced by difficulties in acquiring the necessary land at the new building site. In August 1875, construction of the elongated academy building at the security harbor could finally begin.

The three-storey building originally extended with its north side along the harbor basin. All of the academy's studio rooms face this side, which cannot be built in at the time of construction. While the facade facing the old town on Eiskellerstraße is kept relatively unadorned, the show facade on the north side has been lavishly designed. The facade is divided into 21 axes, 158 m long and 12 m wide. The north facade of the building, which is heavily windowed, is designed with side and middle risalites , clay pen mosaics decorate the fields between the upper floor windows. The ashlar of the basement is made of basalt lava , tuff was used to cover the first and first floors , cornices and other architectural parts are made of Udelfang sandstone . The balustrade of the flat roof is crowned on the front by acroteria .

The classicist building has carved a frieze with 65 names of important artists from all eras on the front and the top of the ground floor . Above the frieze there are seven city ​​coats of arms and names of European art cities: Athens (2 x), Florence, Venice, Rome, Ravenna, Paris and Madrid. In the fields on the top floor there are eighteen artist portraits in medallions, including Dürer's self-portrait in a fur skirt .

The main entrance with two Ionic columns and arrow racks above, which support the entablature and thus frame the arch of the gate, is located on the narrow eastern side of the building.

In 1897 the security harbor was shut down, filled in and a studio for open-air painting was set up. The resulting shallow pit next to the art academy was called "Kull" [ku · l] by the residents of the old town .

At the end of the 1890s, pen mosaics by Adolf Schill were installed in the niches between the windows on the upper floors . Statues were provided for the eight niches on the second floor, which are still empty today. In 1902, according to plans by Adolf Schill, the building construction department of the city of Düsseldorf created a basement extension with skylights.

An auditorium on the second floor was particularly well equipped. The auditorium was designed architecturally and decoratively by Professor Adolf Schill in the mid-1890s, and the academy professor Peter Janssen the Elder. Ä. painted with lavish ceiling paintings and a wall frieze rich in figures. Themes of the ceiling painting were "nature", "imagination" and "beauty" as the three "main requirements art needs". The wall frieze described in a "series of scenes of man earthly and soul life". Around 1930, with the exception of Janssen's pictures, the historicist design of the auditorium fell victim to a redesign under the academy director Walter Kaesbach . He had the walls of the auditorium designed in gold, a measure that Paul Clemen criticized in 1944 as not justified. After it was destroyed in the Second World War, Janssen's figure frieze can only be traced back to black and white photos; only one of the scenes ("Bride's Home") has been preserved in the Middle Rhine Museum in Koblenz in color . A colored band on the walls reminds of this.

The academy building was badly hit in the air raids on Düsseldorf during World War II. In particular, the auditorium and its paintings were destroyed. In the post-war period, the building preserved in its outer walls was rebuilt with a contemporary, modern interior. From 1952 to 1953 Ewald Mataré created a new entrance portal and new windows. Around 1995, Mataré's bronze plate was pierced by a cylinder lock on the entrance portal. Entering the building through the main entrance, there are marble busts of Emperor Joseph I and Empress Wilhelmine Amalie , which Gabriel de Grupello had made shortly after 1705, on the walls to the right and left .

Immediately next to the north facade of the art academy, the access ramp, also known as the Hofgarten ramp, of the Oberkasseler Bridge has been rising since 1976 , which greatly affects the effect of this facade.

  • View from the courtyard garden to the security harbor and "Hafenwall", illustration by Johann Poppel , 1852

  • The new art academy , illustration by Wilhelm Gause , 1879

  • Auditorium with paintings by Peter Jansen the Elder Ä. (destroyed by the war)

  • Auditorium, general view

  • Peter Janssen, figure frieze in the auditorium (destroyed in the war)

  • Peter Janssen, figure frieze in the auditorium (destroyed in the war)

Artist in name frieze (assignment incomplete)

East side of the academy - main entrance

Main entrance
Art academy east side via main entrance
Art Academy on Eiskellerstrasse

Am Eiskellerberg - Düsseldorf painting school with the first directors after the academy was re-established, to the side of the entrance.

North side of the academy

(on Fritz-Roeber- Strasse)

West side of the academy - Rhine side

Art academy on Emma-Horion-Weg, corner of Eiskellerstraße

On Emma-Horion- Weg - German sculptor and Winckelmann as the founder of art history.

literature

  • Roland Kanz, Jürgen Wiener (ed.): Architectural guide Düsseldorf. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-496-01232-3 , p. 4, object no. 3.
  • Sophie Hasenclever : The new art academy in Düsseldorf . In: The Gazebo . Issue 43, 1879, pp. 716-718 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
  • Dawn Leach: The Düsseldorf Art Academy . In Places of the Düsseldorf School of Painting: Traces of Artists in Düsseldorf , Rheinische Kunststätten, issue 528, Rheinischer Verein für Denkmalpflege und Landschaftsschutz, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86526-069-7 , pp. 8-11
  • Eduard Trier (ed.): Two hundred years of the Düsseldorf Art Academy. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Electoral Academy in Düsseldorf in 1773 . Ernst Forberg Foundation, Schwann, Düsseldorf, 1973

Web links

Commons : Kunstakademie Düsseldorf  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Woermann : On the history of the Düsseldorf art academy . Düsseldorf 1880, p. 23 ff. Digitized
  2. ↑ Architects and Engineers Association Düsseldorf (ed.): Düsseldorf and its buildings . Self-published, L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1904, p. 214
  3. ↑ Kaule . shallow pit of shallow depth, created naturally or unintentionally; Deepening in the floor, in the wall, in the bed (straw, hay as a bed), on the body and the like; the K. in the ground without water or filled with water that has run together . In: Rhenish Dictionary , Volume 4, p. 330
  4. ^ Wilhelm Avenarius: Düsseldorf and Bergisches Land. Landscape, history, folk, culture, art. Library of German Cultural Studies / Dept. West Germany (Volume 2), Glock and Lutz, Nürnberg 1982, p. 231
  5. ↑ Willy Weyres: University buildings . In: Eduard Trier, Willy Weyres (Ed.): Art of the 19th century in the Rhineland . tape 2 . Architecture: II, profane buildings a. Urban planning . Schwann, Düsseldorf 1980, ISBN 3-590-30252-6 , pp. 155–173, see p. 169 f .
  6. ^ Architects and Engineers Association Düsseldorf, p. 204
  7. ^ A b c Architects and Engineers Association of Düsseldorf (ed.): Düsseldorf and its buildings. L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1904, p. 213 f
  8. ^ Wend von Kalnein : The Düsseldorf School of Painting . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1979, ISBN 3-8053-0409-9 , p. 180
  9. ^ Matthias von der Bank, Ines Heisig (Ed.): Middle Rhine Museum Koblenz . Selection catalog, Petersberg 2017, pp. 148–149 (entry by Jens Fachbach).
  10. ↑ Annette Bosetti: Art Academy: The Mataré portal is destroyed. , in Rheinische Post, on February 28, 2015
  11. ↑ Düsseldorf Art Academy . building art nrw

Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 49.7 "  N , 6 ° 46 ′ 29"  E