Orangery (Gera)
The orangery is a baroque building in Gera . It forms the western end of the kitchen garden in the Untermhaus district. Since 1972 it has housed the Gera art collection, which has also been using the Otto-Dix-Haus as a second exhibition building since 1991 .
history
The building was used as an orangery between 1729 and 1732 by order of Count Heinrich XVIII. Reuss-Gera built. The architect of the late baroque two-wing complex in the Gera kitchen garden, which was originally a formal French complex as a baroque garden , was the princely Saxon state master builder Gottfried Heinrich Krohne . The central pavilion with ballroom was only built between 1748 and 1749. The shape of a semicircle is reminiscent of the former orangery house (Berlin) , which Johann Arnold Nering had built in 1685.
Initially, the orangery served as an orange and greenhouse. After the death of the last count from the Reuss-Gera family in 1802, the orangery was given up as such by the Princely House and in the course of the 19th century it was used as a hospital and horse stable, gym and coffee house. From 1878 to 1919 it was the domicile of the Geraer Kunstverein.
During the air raid on April 6, 1945, the orangery, especially in its south wing, was badly damaged by bombs. In 1947 the building began to be used as a museum with a special exhibition entitled “Music and Theater in Gera”. In 1953, after Stalin's death , the kitchen garden was transformed into a Stalin memorial park and the orangery into a museum for the history of the revolutionary workers' movement in the Gera district . In 1963 this museum became part of the city museum, from then on the building was used for changing special exhibitions. Since 1972, the orangery has served as a presentation hall for the inventory and temporary exhibitions of the Gera art collection. The art collection consists of paintings (including by Rembrandt , Jan van Goyen , Lucas Cranach the Elder , Domenico Tintoretto and others), as well as prints, drawings and sculptures from the Middle Ages to the present day and comprises almost 11,000 objects; the graphic collection includes sheets from the Dürer period to the present day. Highlights and selected works from the collection are presented in temporary themed exhibitions in the orangery.
In preparation for the 2007 Federal Garden Show , the orangery was extensively renovated and is currently (2015) being renovated again. The kitchen garden was redesigned and was one of the official BUGA accompanying projects. In May 2007 the newly created forecourt of the orangery was named Orangery Square .
Web links
- Art collection Gera on the official website of the city of Gera
- Orangery on the official website of the city of Gera
Coordinates: 50 ° 52 ′ 58.4 " N , 12 ° 4 ′ 13.1" E