Palais du Rhin (Cologne)
The Palais du Rhin , also known as Palais or Villa Oppenheim , is a villa built in 1908 in the Bayenthal district of Cologne . The client was the banker Emil Freiherr von Oppenheim .
Emergence
The castle - like neo- Rococo building with a curved flight of stairs , a view of the Rhine and a ballroom was built between 1906 and 1908 by the architect Alfons Bischoff and the Alsatian architect Charles Mewès (1858–1914), a student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris . Mewes also enjoyed a high reputation in the former banker circles . The planners orientated themselves on the most representative and decorative style epoch of France, the Louis-seize , and built a French city palace appropriate to the noble and social position of the client . The architectural role models here include a. the pleasure palace ("Bagatelle") in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, the palace of Besançon and the Hôtel de Salm- Kyrburg in Paris. A previous building existed on the property. It was built in 1847 as a villa for the manufacturer Paul Josef Hagen ( Kölnische Maschinenbau ) and demolished for the new building of the Villa Oppenheim. The construction of the villa cost two million marks (according to today's purchasing power approx. 12 million euros.) The house is in close proximity to the Cologne-Marienburg villa colony and has the (current) postal address Gustav-Heinemann-Ufer 144.
In 1944, the villa was as Kreishaus expanded bombproof. Immediately after the Second World War , the Rheinische Musikschule moved into the house, which had previously been restored with a modified roof without the original dome. From 1956 the ADAC used the villa as a club and event house. The Cologne sports driver association Scuderia Colonia was founded here in 1960 with the major participation of the racing driver Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips . Two office buildings were built on the site in the 1960s and 1970s. The Rhenish Study Institute for Municipal Administration moved in in 1982. After the institute moved to Rodenkirchen in 2009, the villa could be rented for individual events. One of the first events is the casting for “ Germany is looking for the superstar ”.
After the sale of the 12,300 m² property to an investor, the villa will be extensively converted and refurbished as the center of a newly built, exclusive residential area called “Palais Oppenheim Areal”. The old office buildings from the 1960s and 1970s will be demolished and rebuilt according to the surroundings. In the case of the villa itself, a. to secure the cornices and balustrades made of sandstone in accordance with monument protection. The renovation will create 11 luxurious apartments in the new Palais du Rhin, which largely do not affect the division of the previous rooms. (As of March 2019)
architecture
The external appearance of the villa has largely been preserved to this day, as the facades have only been changed insignificantly over the years and the roof has been rebuilt, except for the dome, in accordance with the original condition. The house is next to the Boisserée villa (Gustav-Heinemann-Ufer 94) one of the last testimonies of the upper-class development of the local bank of the Rhine. The castle-like stone construction ( Savonnières ) consists of a wide two-storey Bautrakt with semi-circular central buttress the Rhine, high basement ( barred windows) and mansard floor . This is followed by a component with an outside staircase and balcony on the south side. On the west side there is a protruding staircase wing and an entrance with a portico . This consists of four Attic-Ionic columns on plinths, over which there is a balcony with a metal grille. On the south and north side of the wing there is a plastered area with a drilled frame and a high oval panel with a floral frame
Basement
In the basement there is a barrel-vaulted room with a two-storey boiler room in the southeast . In 1944 a bunker was built under the terrace with an escape route to the Rhine.
Ground floor (mezzanine floor)
The mezzanine and upper floors are structured by a colossal arrangement with Corinthian wall columns or corner pillars. The high patio doors are partially reduced to windows. They have straight lintel arches and carved apex stones (on the risalit with figural sculpture). The upright rectangular windows on the upper floor have balustrade fields decorated with festoons or balconies with metal grids on the risalit.
The foyer is oval in plan and has a stone floor. Here it goes to the basement. The other secondary exits have been walled up. There is a double curved staircase with stone steps and wrought iron railings. The room is rounded off with four niches with shell vaults and the passage to the central hall. There is a mirror vaulted ceiling above .
On the mezzanine floor there are several representative rooms with rich stucco . So the central hall with stone floor and open fireplace on the north side. The glazed passage to the round hall is framed with columns and has side niches. Here, too, a mirror vaulted ceiling (glazed) with four chandeliers . The radiator on the west wall is covered with marble. The room in the southwest ("Mahogany Hall") has a wooden floor and wood paneling on the walls. To the south is the so-called Red Hall, which has a marble fireplace with a large mirror and wall cupboard above it. The “white hall” is to be found in the south-east and shows large, partly mirrored, arcades , the patio doors of which have been reduced to windows and have radiators. Doors and closets, as well as lateral Vestal in stucco found at the other walls Furthermore there is grisaille . The southeast and northwest corners have been preserved in their original form, while the southwest corner has only been copied. A wall cornice protruding above and an eagle-framed coat of arms (2 wall paintings later) are further components of the room. The north-eastern room served as a hunting room and has a (partially damaged) stone floor and marble wall cladding. One door has stuccoed hunting trophies. Here, too, there are large, partly mirrored arcades (patio doors also reduced to windows with built-in radiators). The other two rooms on the north side were created by merging two rooms, as well as the replacement of the previous staircase with stairs and elevator in the 1950s.
Upper floor and roof
The atrium on the upper and attic floors above the central hall has the original construction, with the hall ceiling being renewed with Plexiglas . There is a two-storey circulation with a metal railing. During the renovations in the 2010s, the historic building was expanded to include a two-storey mansard roof construction made of glass and horizontal metal slats, which is intended to reinterpret the original proportions of the villa.
The park
Two candelabra with three lamps to the side of the portico open access to the park, which ends at the street-side fence with a south gate, which is also framed by candelabra . The north gate was walled up in the base area and the candelabras were removed. The wall in the south is made of brick, but the park has been changed with new routes, parking areas and the two office buildings built in the 1960s. The two office buildings on Alteburger Straße and the subsequently created traffic areas on the property are not part of the ensemble.
The Palais du Rhin is a monument within the meaning of Section 2 Paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Monument Protection Act of North Rhine-Westphalia . The public interest necessary for the qualification as a monument is given because this monument is important for the history of the people and for cities and settlements, and there are artistic, scientific and urban planning reasons for its preservation and use. The monument has the number 8339 and has been protected since July 27, 1998.
Manor in Fühlingen
A ruin in Cologne- Fühlingen is also popularly known as Villa Oppenheim . But it was rather the stud of a close relative of Oppenheim, the Cologne banker Eduard Freiherr von Oppenheim (1831–1909). In 1884 he bought 186 acres of land from the municipality of Fühlingen, a few hundred meters south of the village, on which he had a manor house and a stud with a horse racing track built for "training purposes".
Coordinates: 50 ° 54 ′ 28.5 " N , 6 ° 58 ′ 34.2" E
Individual evidence
- ^ W. Hagspiel, Cologne: Marienburg, Cologne 1996, pp. 295–302
- ↑ Bundesbank: Purchasing power equivalents of historical amounts ... , January 2019, PDF 26.5 kB
- ^ Villa Oppenheim in Fühlingen . In: KuLaDig, Kultur.Landschaft.Digital. (accessed May 6, 2020)