New houses

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Western row (No. 19-25)

The 15 houses that were built between 1798 and 1825 on the Laurenzenvorstadt in Aarau are called new houses . The houses are built next to each other and form two blocks. As an assembly, all of them are classified as regionally worthy of protection and are therefore under the second highest level of monument protection awarded in Switzerland . The new houses are considered to be the first housing developments in Switzerland to be uniformly planned and laid out as a whole .

history

The development of the houses is related to the declaration of Aarau as the capital of the Helvetic Republic by the French occupying forces on March 22, 1798. A government district therefore had to be planned within a very short time. On April 26, 1798, Johann Daniel Osterrieth submitted the "Plan d'Agrandissement de la ville d'Aarau". This plan provided for the government district east of the old town, with the Laurenzenvorstadt as its northern limit.

North of the street, in the last week of May, the construction of two rows of houses of unequal length, the so-called New Houses, began. They are the only buildings that got beyond the planning stage of the new Helvetic capital. The construction of the new houses was preferred because there was a lack of higher quality living space in Aarau. Osterrieth was in charge of construction management himself at the beginning, and Johann Schneider from Zurich was employed as the construction supervisor . 60 to 90 workers were employed on the construction sites and 20 to 60 workers in the quarries. The quarry stones come from the Aarau quarries, the house stones from Mägenwil and Othmarsingen . Most of the construction timber was obtained from the Emmental and delivered by water.

With the decision against Aarau and for Lucerne as the capital of the Helvetic Republic in September 1798, the plans for the government district became obsolete. The infantry barracks were then built on part of the planned area . As a result, the construction of the houses was no longer in such a hurry and the number of workers on the construction site decreased. Osterrieth also gave up his position and moved to Lucerne to serve the Swiss government.

In the spring of 1799, two houses were erected and under the roof and two more were finished in the shell. The rest of the buildings were not very advanced when the fighting between the Russians and the French finally brought the construction work to a standstill. In 1803 the city of Aarau decided to sell the houses, whereby the purchase price also included the citizenship of the city of Aarau. With these proceeds, the remaining houses were completed one after the other. However, it took until 1825 for the 15th and last house to be completed.

design type

Eastern row (No. 59–79)

The new houses are multi-family houses in an upscale style, with some significant differences in the standard of fit-out. The façade structure is all designed the same and is characterized by its simplicity. The front pushes without front yard right on the road to which they traufständig aligned. All houses are three-story, although there are small differences in the height of the ridge and the eaves . These small differences do not have a disturbing influence on the overall picture. There are portholes in the roof , which are also designed differently. The ground floor is separated from the two upper floors by a strong cornice . Due to the sloping terrain to the north, the gardens at the rear are accessed through the basement. The basement is free. The houses have between three and six window axes with a corridor running the entire length of the house. The staircase is placed next to this corridor, these are either one or three armed.

Houses

The origins and owners of the houses have been documented by Ernst Zschokke until 1932. The western row comprises four houses (Laurenzenvorstadt No. 19-25), the eastern row eleven houses (Laurenzenvorstadt No. 59-79).

The two houses No. 19 and No. 21 were erected in the spring of 1799 and under a roof. They were bought in March 1800 by the surgeon Benedikt Dürr. The houses were left to him at cost price, since the land before construction belonged to his garden.

House No. 23 was bought by Benedikt and Johann Dürr in 1800. As an intermediate owner , the town authorities passed it to Lieutenant Colonel Johann Nepomuk von Schmiel as early as 1805 , which gave him town citizenship. The new owner was the head of the Aargau professional company.

In 1807 Johann Jakob Hunziker bought the empty space between houses 23 and 59. However, he had to undertake to build an architecturally appropriate house for no. Then house no. 25 was built, which was the largest and most stately of all houses.

The first house in the eastern row, No. 59, was bought by Jakob Emanuel Feer in 1803. The first owner is the governor of the canton during the Helvetic Republic and later rector of the canton school (1805-1926), he later became a judge of appeal. Feer was the first to buy urban citizenship in this way. The inn "Zum Freihof" has been in this house since 1882.

House no. 61 was bought in 1804 by Franz Hoffmann, the first rector of the canton school. With the renunciation of his citizenship he sold the house to Heinrich Remigius Sauerländer in 1807. He opened a bookstore on the ground floor of the house and added a low building to the north in which he set up a printing shop. The publishing house Sauerländer emerged from this bookstore and printer . The house was owned by the Sauerländer family until 1899.

House no. 63 was acquired in 1806 by the copper engraver Johann Jakob Scheuermann from Aarburg together with town citizenship. The attic of this house was rebuilt between 1884 and 1885.

House no. 65 was acquired by Johann Wilhelm Mändlin in 1808 together with town citizenship.

House no. 67 was acquired in 1809 by the jeweler Carl Ernst Seiler from Karlsruhe , still undeveloped . This also received city citizenship. He undertook to make the house at least partially habitable by 1810.

House no. 69 was acquired in 1810 in an undeveloped condition by the tin caster Wilhelm Gottschalk from Tilsit together with town citizenship. He also committed to completion within two years. The first owner is the founder of the "Aarauer-Zinnfiguren Industry". In 1815/16 he acquired the still undeveloped land next to it, on which he built house no. Amazingly, there were no requirements regarding completion in the sales contract.

House no. 73 was only half finished when it was sold in 1811 to the mechanic Ludwig Essner from Strasbourg . This also received citizenship. He was allowed to obtain the bricks required for the expansion from the quarry free of charge.

House No. 75 was completed by the city and sold to Doctor Rudolf Feer in 1817, but five days later he ceded it to the government councilor Albrecht Rengger from Brugg under the same conditions .

Rudolf Feer bought the last, undeveloped lot No. 77 in 1824. The foundations were first dug and bricked on this property. The purchase contract for the property was provided with clear guidelines through which the row of houses came to a uniform conclusion.

The property of house No. 79 was bought by Johann Rudolf Meyer in 1803 . At this point in time the foundations had only been completed. In 1804 he exchanged the property for a garden behind the Kornhaus adjoining his estate with Andreas Hagnauer jun. He left the building site untouched and ran a beer brewery behind the property that reached as far as the stream. The actual house number 79 was built in 1824 by the new owner of the brewery Johannes Ernst. Through him in 1835 the house was granted the right to tavern "Zum Löwen". Ernst did this himself until 1850. In 1851 the house and the tavern rights were sold to the Oehler family.

literature

Web links

Commons : New Homes  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ KdKA, page 115
  2. ^ Raoul Richner / Swiss National Museum: When Aarau became the capital, In: Watson from May 6, 2018
  3. ↑ The payment instructions for the new houses carry Osterrieth's visa until October 6, 179X, after which they were signed by Schneider
  4. ↑ Ernst Zschokke: Aarauer New Year leaves 1932, p 21, and 1933, p. 6

Coordinates: 47 ° 23 '39.3 "  N , 8 ° 2' 57.6"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred forty-six thousand one hundred and seven  /  249449