Magnus house
| Magnus house | |
|---|---|
 State in 2005 |
|
| Data | |
| place |
Berlin-Mitte , Am Kupfergraben |
| Construction year | Mid 18th century |
| Coordinates | 52 ° 31 '11 " N , 13 ° 23' 43.7" E |
| particularities | |
| Listed building | |
The Magnus-Haus is a Grade II listed , more than 250-year-old classical-baroque town house in Berlin district of Mitte , where the physicist Heinrich Gustav Magnus in the 19th century lived, researched and taught. The physical colloquium set up by Magnus also took place here, from which the German Physical Society emerged in 1845 . Between 1958 and 1990 the Magnus House was the headquarters of the GDR Physical Society .
The Magnus House, with its unobstructed historical garden, is an important building ensemble in Berlin-Mitte.
location
The main front of the Magnus House is on Am Kupfergraben 7 on one arm of the Spree with a view of the Pergamon Museum . The left wing of the house borders on Dorotheenstraße, the right side on Bauhofstraße. The rear garden boundary is formed by a footpath between Bauhofstrasse and Dorotheenstrasse. The total area of the property is 3780 m².
Building ensemble
overview
It is not certain whether the Bürgerpalais was the result of a total renovation of an earlier house or as a completely new building. Owes its current appearance to Johann Bouman , who by 1753 plans by Georg Wenceslaus von Knobelsdorff transposed to this in 1750 as a watercolor drawings had made. It is a two-storey building to which a transept with a carriage shed was added and a coach stable on the courtyard side. Friedrich II acted as the builder , who after completion handed it over to his official Johann Friedrich Westphal.
Basement
The basement (basement) consists of large sandstone blocks and has small, high-lying window openings that are about 40 cm above the sidewalk. In the beginning there was an apartment for the servants ("Domestique-Stube") along with a kitchen, toilets and plenty of storage space.
1st floor (mezzanine floor)
The generously divided first floor (mezzanine floor) consisted of at least eight large rooms in the first building and three staircases provided access. The main staircase, which has been preserved from the construction period, winds up in a spiral shape to the second floor and has a wrought-iron handrail decorated in rococo style.
2nd floor and attic
According to the plans of the first construction phase, the left part of the building on this floor only extended to the transept (courtyard wing), the rooms on the first floor up to Dorotheenstraße were roofed. During the first renovations by the architect Günther in 1822, the second floor and also the courtyard wing were increased in the classical style. A few small rooms in the converted attic complete the structure.
After the numerous renovation and renovation work, most recently carried out in 1993/1994, there is a large conference room for around 120 people with three small vestibules on the first floor, two small conference rooms for a maximum of 20 or 10 people and numerous smaller rooms on the second floor. which can be used in many ways.
Buildings in the yard
There is a courtyard entrance on Bauhofstrasse that used to lead to the Wagenremise, a plastered building with a hipped roof . In the 19th century, a small rehearsal stage was added in place of this coach house. The former horse stable was converted into a restoration for around 40 people during the renovations in the 20th century and is now generally called Remise .
facade
The plastered facade of the main building is divided symmetrically into nine axes by Corinthian pilasters and regularly arranged high windows. A two-axis building section is attached to this facade on the left. A risalitartig highlighted middle piece with a double- flight of stairs and a korbbogigen portal leads to the first floor.
history
Use in the 18th and 19th centuries
The first resident was the family of the royal official Westphal, the mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange , who was director of the Berlin Prussian Academy of Sciences from 1766 to 1787 , moved in next .
In 1822 the architect August Adolf Günther bought the property, who sold it to the physicist Gustav Heinrich Magnus in 1840 . Due to its close proximity to Museum Island , Carl Graf von Brühl , General Director of the Berlin Museums, had lived in today's Magnus House with his family. After the purchase, the numerous rooms were redesigned according to Magnus' ideas so that in 1842 he could set up a physical cabinet to carry out his research. He also invited students to do so, and there were discussions and courses in the house ( physical colloquia ). As a result of this intensive scientific activity, the German Physical Society (DPG) was founded in 1845 (in a bar on the Französische Strasse ), which directed its work from the Palais am Kupfergraben and held its meetings here.
Use until 1945
In 1908, the building became the residence of the family of the Germanist Rochus von Liliencron , who sold it to the Prussian state in 1911, shortly before his death . From 1911 he handed over the palace, now named after its first significant resident, the Magnus House , to the director Max Reinhardt , who lived in the rooms on the upper floor for ten years until 1921.
Extensive renovation work had to be carried out in 1927/1928, and renovation work also took place inside and on the remise . In 1930, the DPG had a memorial plaque attached to the house, which has since reminded of the work of Magnus, his employees and students.
When in 1934 many of the 1,300 members of the Physical Society left Berlin and Germany entirely because of political developments , the Berlin University became the owner of the Magnus House. Although the DPG was able to remain active through the election of academics loyal to the regime to the board (such as Carl Ramsauer ) and even received financial subsidies, it finally had to cease its work completely at the end of the Second World War in 1945. The Magnus house had lost its meaning.
After the Second World War
From May 1945 until at least December 1946 the Magnus House housed the remand prison of Operative Group 1 of the Soviet secret police NKVD / MWD in Berlin, which was responsible for the Mitte district. The prison was in the basement, had no sanitary facilities and could not be heated. At the same time, the Allies had dissolved all parties and organizations in Germany, including the DPG. In 1946, individual physical societies were re-established in the western occupation zones, which merged in 1950 to form the Association of German Physical Societies; In 1963 the German Physical Society was re-established in the Federal Republic .
In September 1949, the Soviet occupying power handed the building over to the Society for German-Soviet Friendship , which had just been founded in the GDR , and which used it until 1952 without major renovations.
In East Berlin and the Soviet occupation zone , a scientific society was not founded again until 1952, which was increasingly dedicated to the development of physics . It gave itself the name Physical Society of the GDR . On the occasion of the 100th birthday of Max Planck , who was also chairman of the DPG for many years, the Magnus House became (again) the seat of this society in 1958. The library was given the honorary name Max Planck Library , and the building was also given the name Max Planck for a time . The collected works of the scholar were returned to the Physical Society on the occasion of the naming by the Soviet scholar Abraham Joffé after the materials had been seized by Soviet soldiers at the end of the war. They include around 1,000 books, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, manuscripts, standard physical works from the 19th century, compendia, editions of Planck's works and commemorative publications that were published in his honor. According to the land register, the house now belonged to the city of Berlin.
The Physical Society of the GDR was very active; in addition to publishing physical specialist publications, it also succeeded in inviting numerous internationally successful scientists to give guest lectures in Berlin, such as the Italian particle physicist Bruno Pontecorvo in 1965 and many others.
Since 1990
After the political change and since the following merger of the two German physical societies, the (new) German Physical Society (DPG) is again using the Magnus House intensively. The Berlin Senate had the ensemble of buildings renovated in 1993/1994, and the Magnus House was expanded into a scientific meeting center for the German Physical Society with the following focuses:
- Addressing problems that physicists can help solve and that are of general concern to our civilization,
- Presentation of physical science and its neighboring disciplines,
- Promotion of physical research and teaching by intensifying the exchange of ideas between physicists,
- Promotion of interdisciplinary discussions between physics and other technical-scientific areas
Siemens contributed to the cost of this refurbishment with a substantial donation. The company feels connected to the company through the fact that company founders Werner von Siemens and Georg Halske were among the early members of the Physical Society. A second memorial plaque, placed directly below the one from 1930, has been a reminder of this restoration of the house and the former resident Max Reinhardt since 1994 .
As a further use, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation introduced the Magnus House Concerts as a musical salon from 1995 onwards . Some of the offices in the Magnus House were used by the former Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker and have been used by the Atlantik-Brücke Association since 1999 .
The Berlin Industry Talks, which are financed by the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation , founded in 1963 and organized by the DPG Working Group on Industry and Economy (AIW), also regularly take place in the Magnus House to promote research and training in the natural sciences.
Sale to Siemens
The sale of the Magnus House by the State of Berlin to Siemens AG in September 2001 caused a sensation , as the purchase price was only 2.86 million euros, although the market value is said to have been 9.8 million euros. Even after the controversial building permit was issued in 2015, the purchase price had not been increased, although the purchase agreement would have allowed this. That would have been obvious, because the approval for the new building increases the value of the property.
Siemens intends to use the building as a corporate representation in the medium term. The company already rented a small office of 30 m² in 2001, and when sublease contracts expire, the company's own usable space will be expanded.
This has raised loud concerns at the DPG, which fears that it will have to vacate the house in the medium or long term because the lease will not be extended. But a company spokesman assured: "The German Physical Society (DPG) will continue to be the main tenant in the Magnus House [...] and can use and / or sublet the approximately 1000 m² rooms rent-free for another 23 years". Siemens is very interested in a harmonious cooperation, because the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft and Siemens have been closely linked since the company was founded in 1847. Ultimately, an agreement was reached to extend the contract, which runs until 2024, for a further 30 years until 2054.
New building in the garden
Intensive discussions have been ongoing since 2012 because of Siemens' plan to build a new building for the company representative in the park belonging to the ensemble. On the part of the property previously used as a parking lot, a usable area of around 1800 square meters is to be created on a floor area of around 600 square meters. The height of the new building will be a good 17.5 meters, which is between the height of the Magnus House and that of the Collegium Hungaricum . Conservationists have spoken out against it, since a new building will destroy the "last example of a baroque bourgeois city palace in Berlin-Mitte" with the "associated garden areas". The then building senator Michael Müller and Mittes building councilor Carsten Spallek ( CDU ) nevertheless issued the preliminary building permit in favor of Siemens. Spallek explained this with a “consideration”: The economic interests of the country in setting up a representative in the capital through Siemens weigh more heavily than the concerns of the preservationists. In protest, eight well-known institutions such as who the Berlin Chamber of Architects (AKB), the Association of German Architects Berlin (BDA) and the Architects and Engineers Club of Berlin prompted (AIV) in a joint letter their members, not the competition for the Siemens -Capital representation to participate. This call has been published and is also aimed at foreign architects.
literature
- Christine Becker (Red.): The Magnus House in Berlin-Mitte. History, change and restoration of a baroque palace. Bruckmann, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-7654-2761-6 .
- Dieter Hoffmann (Ed.): Gustav Magnus and his house. GNT-Verlag, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-928186-26-4 .
- The architectural and art monuments in the GDR, capital Berlin I. Ed. Institute for Monument Preservation at Henschelverlag, Berlin 1984. pp. 190–191.
Web links
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List
- Magnus House at the German Physical Society
- Numerous sources of information about the “Magnus House” at the Luisenstadt Educational Association
Individual evidence
- ^ Drawing of the basement floor plan in the Architekturmuseum der TU Berlin, inv. 43047
- ↑ Drawing floor plan 1st floor in the architecture museum of the TU Berlin, inv. 43048
- ↑ Drawing floor plan 2nd floor in the architecture museum of the TU Berlin, inv. 43049
- ^ Founding document of the DPG
- ^ Dieter Hoffmann and Mark Walker: Between autonomy and adaptation. The German Physical Society in the Third Reich ( memento of October 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), a detailed study on the situation of the DPG in the Third Reich (PDF; 311 kB).
- ↑ Peter Erler: "GPU basement". Detention centers and remand prisons of the Soviet secret services in Berlin (1945–1949). Association of the Persecuted by Stalinists, Landesverband Berlin, Berlin 2005, p. 50 f.
- ↑ Historic house on Kupfergraben. In: New Germany . 29th September 1982.
- ↑ Magnus house sold below value . ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed July 30, 2017]).
- ↑ Agreement in rent dispute over Magnus house . ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed July 30, 2017]).
- ↑ Manfred Ronzheimer: Does Siemens sell the tenants from the Magnus house? ( Memento from April 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: BerliNews. October 28, 2001.
- ↑ Agreement in rent dispute over Magnus house . ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed July 30, 2017]).
- ^ Georg Mörsch : Magnushaus - A house in Berlin. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . December 26, 2015.
- ↑ Agreement in rent dispute over Magnus house . ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed July 30, 2017]).
- ↑ Sabine Gundlach: Architects call for a boycott of Siemens competition . ( Morgenpost.de [accessed on July 30, 2017]).