Single home Hamburg

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The single home Hamburg , better known there as the single home Rehhoffstrasse , is the second single home in Germany, next to the single home in Munich , that is still run as such. It was opened in 1913 and is still used as accommodation for single men, in the first few decades it was mainly dockworkers and seamen . The building has been a listed building since 2013 .

View of the single home in Hamburg, corner of Rehhoffstrasse and Herrengraben
Hamburg single home, 2011

Location and surroundings

The building is located in the center of Hamburg, in the southern Neustadt , in the immediate vicinity of Hamburg's landmark, the main church Sankt Michaelis . The single home is part of a triangular building complex, which is surrounded by the streets Rehhoffstraße, Herrengraben and Pasmannstraße. At the corner of Rehhoffstrasse and Herrengraben, the single home, with its triangular floor plan, forms the north-eastern tip of the entire building.

architecture

The architects Wilhelm Behrens and Ernst Vicenz designed a building complex for the property described above, which in addition to 15 five-story apartment buildings (170 apartments) also included a single home. The northern facade of the entire building was partially indented in the style of a Hamburg castle . The single home was architecturally separated from the rest of the building by an offset in the facade. In addition, it also has a triangular floor plan and, compared to the rest of the building, there is a wall relief in the facade as well as arched door and window frames on the ground floor.

The interior layout of the single home in the four floors of the house has remained almost unchanged to this day. Originally there were 112, now 120 small living rooms, each with an area of ​​8 m². The corridors are arranged in the middle and separate the opposite rooms from each other. Kitchens and washrooms are shared on the floors. The use and spatial division of the ground floor is no longer preserved in its original state. At the time of construction, the following rooms were located there: a dining and reading room, a porter's lodge, a guard's apartment and a shop. The porter's lodge can still be found in its original location in front of the staircase. The guard's apartment and the shop were converted into separate apartments. The access from the stairwell to the dining and reading room was bricked up. The separated rooms are now rented as separate commercial space. They are accessible through a newly created entrance from Rehhoffstrasse.

The interior of the single home was equipped with high quality materials. The terrazzo floor and the staircase with its decorative wrought iron railing with wooden handrail and the lattice windows with small, colorful glass panes are still there today . The single rooms were originally equipped with functional standard furnishings: a metal bed, a cupboard, a chair and a table. There was also electricity in each chamber and a sink with running water. The spacious dining and reading room on the first floor had a ceiling height of 3.5 meters and was decoratively clad with wood. A bathhouse in the neighboring house was available to the residents for communal use. It is no longer there today.

History of origin

The emergence of the single home can only be understood against the background of the city and social history of Hamburg. After the cholera epidemic of 1892 with more than 8,600 deaths and the great Hamburg dockworkers strike in 1896/97 , the city established three redevelopment areas in 1897/1898. The low-lying southern Neustadt was considered to be particularly at risk of epidemics because of the possible risk of flooding and the threat of backflow from the sewer into the ground floors and basements of the residential buildings. The closely spaced and nested half-timbered buildings were therefore torn down before the First World War. In addition, there was a lack of inexpensive living space for workers and their families, primarily for dock workers and seafarers, especially in the vicinity of the port, which is why sleepers were widespread there. The Bauverein zu Hamburg wanted to counteract these grievances by building the single home .

History of the building

The construction of the entire building complex was commissioned by the Bau- und Sparverein zu Hamburg . This was in 1892 by Senator Dr. Heinrich Traun founded as a cooperative to implement the goals of reform housing . In 1903 it was converted into a stock company. In 1912 the “Bauverein zu Hamburg” commissioned the architects Heinrich Wilhelm Behrens and Ernst Vicenz to build a residential complex with small residential units for single people and families in what was then the redevelopment area of southern Neustadt. One of the 16 houses "serves as a single home, in which unmarried workers can sleep and board, lounge and entertainment rooms." According to oral tradition, police cadets and firefighters from the surrounding guards also lived in the house during the Weimar Republic . During the Nazi era, the single home is said to have been used by the Gestapo , who had their headquarters at the nearby Stadthausbrücke . The single home was damaged by bombing raids in July and August 1943 during Operation Gomorrah , and the roof was destroyed. It was then not reconstructed as a mansard roof , but simply rebuilt as a stacked storey.

After the end of the war and the restoration of the single home, the rooms were rented to people of all professions and social classes. Usually seamen and dock workers continued to live here, but also police officers from guards 12 and 13 on Martin-Luther-Straße, customs officers from Baumwall and St. Pauli-Elbtunnel , municipal cleaning staff and firefighters from Admiralitätsstraße. The proximity to the port , the cheap rents and the growing house community made the house very popular in the district. As a service there was a regular laundry service, employed cleaning staff, a porter and a kiosk in the same building. The original dining room was managed by an innkeeper who lived in the former guard's apartment. In contrast to the surrounding homes and missions, the rooms could be rented permanently. In addition, the tenants were not selected based on profession, nationality or religious affiliation. In this respect, the single home on Rehhoffstrasse was "the first open single home in the strict sense of the word" in Hamburg.

Developments in recent years

Clear problems for the continued existence and functioning of the Hamburg single home only developed in the last few decades. The entire building complex has been sold several times. Necessary renovation and refurbishment work was no longer carried out. In addition, the common rooms were separated from the residential wing and rented out commercially. Services originally part of the house concept (see above) have been abolished over time. This led to a general deterioration in living conditions. Since 2010, the Rehhoffstrasse initiative , consisting of the local association Ros eV, individual residents of the single home and supporters from the district and district, has been committed to the long-term preservation and renovation of the single home. The aim of the initiative is to turn the facility back into a non-profit organization.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joachim Göres: Small rooms, great help. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of October 12, 2012
  2. ↑ Annual reports of the Bauverein zu Hamburg, 1912, 1913 and 1914
  3. ^ Rolf Spörhase: Bau-Verein zu Hamburg Aktiengesellschaft. Origin and history in the development of non-profit housing in Hamburg since 1842. Druckerei Hanf, Hamburg 1940, p. 300.
  4. ↑ Dirk Schubert, Hans Harms: Living at the port. Living and working on the water's edge. City history, present, future. The example of Hamburg. VSA, Hamburg 1993, pp. 67-71.
  5. ↑ Architects and Engineers Association of Hamburg (ed.): Hamburg and its buildings, taking into account the neighboring cities of Altona and Wandsbek. Hamburg 1914, p. 578.
  6. ↑ Architects and Engineers Association of Hamburg (ed.): Hamburg and its buildings, taking into account the neighboring cities of Altona and Wandsbek. Hamburg 1914, p. 583.
  7. ↑ Clemens Wischermann : Living in Hamburg before the First World War (= studies on the history of everyday life. Vol. 2). Coppenrath, Münster 1983.
  8. ↑ Gert Kähler : Unsuitable for single households. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 16, 2013
  9. ↑ Friederike Ulrich: Single apartments planned. Residents fight back. In: Hamburger Abendblatt from October 13, 2011
  10. ↑ Friederike Ulrich: The most exciting residential project in the middle. In: Hamburger Abendblatt from April 23, 2013
  11. ↑ Lena Kaiser: New concept for the single home. In: taz of April 16, 2013

literature

  • Johannes Classen, E. Vincenz: Small apartments. In: Hamburg and its buildings , volume 1. Hamburg 1914, p. 575 ff.
  • Hermann Hipp : Hamburg. (= DuMont art travel guide .) 2nd edition, Cologne 1989, p. 203.
  • Michael Ackermann: New learning place single house. In: Hamburg macht Schule , issue 1/2012.

Web links

Coordinates: 53 ° 32 ′ 50.2 "  N , 9 ° 58 ′ 56"  E