Rautenstock

The restored building in 2015

The building in 2009

Rautenstock restaurant around 1900

The Rautenstock is a listed building in Doberlug-Kirchhain , Hauptstraße 18, in the Elbe-Elster district in Brandenburg . It was laid out in 1666 as the guest house of Doberlug Castle and is characteristic of the baroque character of the district. Until the end of the Second World War there was an inn in the building; then it was used as a command and later as an administration for the forestry authority. After years of vacancy since the 1990s, the house was restored until 2013 and was given a new use as a guest house.

history

In connection with the construction of Doberlug Castle , an inn to accommodate ducal guests was planned in 1664, following an order from Duke Christian I of Saxony-Merseburg . This knowledge comes from a first cost estimate from this year. Further documents from 1682 make it clear that construction work began much later. The building was fitted into the urban fabric of the time with an exposed location. In contrast to the otherwise predominant row development in Doberlug, the inn was built as a solitary building. The property was flanked by a lane to the east and west. The original inn consisted of an ensemble of buildings which enclosed a courtyard. With its main house, the "Rautenstock" was aligned to the north in the middle of today's main street, which served as a representative entrance to the castle. On the back, single-storey farm buildings were added in a U-shape in the 18th century. They included stable and barn areas . The inner courtyard, which was reached through a passage in the southern farm building and in the area of ​​the northern main building, was paved with reading stones .

The plans show that a brewery could have stood in the southern area of ​​the property . However, there are no documents to prove this. However, the Brauhausgasse in the west and the Brauhausstrasse in the south suggest the existence of such a building. In addition, this assumption is confirmed by a town chronicle, in which it is mentioned that the citizens demanded the right to brew Doberlug in 1676. At the beginning of the 20th century, extensive renovation work was carried out on the inn. In this context, structural changes were made in the main building. A decisive intervention in the original building structure took place in 1903 with the construction of a dance hall in the eastern part. This structure crosses both the former boundaries of the ensemble with the adjoining alley and the property boundary to the neighbor. In the thirties, renovation work was carried out on the outer shell. The only plans of the building complex that still exist today date from this period. Around 1960 renovations took place in the hall building, with which it was converted into a cinema hall. The “Rautenstock” inn is now a registered ensemble monument. The entire building complex of the "Rautenstock" had been empty since around 1990. The house, which was acquired by the city of Doberlug-Kirchhain in 2004, was sold to an investor who uses the house as a pension company after it has been restored in accordance with the heritage. In the grown structure of the inn, a varied history of use of three centuries is reflected today.

Urban context

After the castle, the inn is the decisive urban reference point for the city. It marks the middle of the main street, is the reference point of the intersecting street (today “Poststraße”) and takes the spatial position that would have been given to the town hall elsewhere . It stands free as a solitaire, originally framed by two narrow streets. In addition, the inn also differs from the rest of the buildings on the main street due to its significantly larger plot and extensive courtyard development. The building complex is therefore of great importance for urban development.

Its historical significance lies in its use as a guest house for the ducal visit to Doberlug Castle. This particular importance is clearly expressed in terms of size, urban structure and design.

The structural details provide information about the way the inn was built and how it was used in different times. For example, the use of sandstone for the window frames, the door frames and the fronts of the dormer windows, as well as the shapes used, point to Saxon building tradition and the close connection with the simultaneous expansion of the castle, which is also shown by the older door reveal on the ground floor. Numerous details such as stucco moldings, staircase design, the preserved panels below the upper floor windows of the courtyard-facing rooms and the chimneys that are no longer often found, the large roof structure and the construction details of the older farm buildings provide important information about regional building traditions of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, a time from which only a few structural evidence have survived in southwest Brandenburg.

The renovations in the early 20th century document the change in use and the position of the inn during this time. With great effort, the eastern guest rooms were furnished with elegantly designed wall panels in order to meet the changed taste and also the competition of the surrounding inns. The new construction of a lavishly equipped dance hall also took place in this context.

Today's appearance

The entire ensemble of the Rautenstock comprises the main building on Hauptstrasse and the farm buildings facing west and south.

Main house

The building as seen from Poststrasse 2013

The three-storey, nine-axis plastered main building has a high mansard hipped roof surmounted by two baroque chimneys. The evenly windowed street facade is divided into three three-axis sections by flat wall and corner templates. Smooth plaster mirrors between the ground floor and upper floor windows emphasize the axes. The ground floor windows have sandstone frames with a circumferential recess to enable the shutters, which are no longer available today, to be closed flush with the wall. The still existing fishing rods indicate the original shops. The larger windows on the upper floor have a simple plaster frame. The centrally located entrance portal with a rounded end is framed by a wide ashlar and emphasized by a curved roof placed above it. The lettering "Rautenstock" is affixed in between. The entrance door with lion's head fittings, divided by cassette fields, was used around 1880. The profiled eaves cornice made of solid wooden beams largely dates from the construction period. Five irregularly arranged, large skylights, the windows of which also have a sandstone frame, structure the lower part of the mansard roof . Older images show that two small bat dormers illuminated the upper roof space. The narrow sides of the building are almost closed today. Only windows to light the central corridors on the upper floors were used. The window division of the courtyard facade is carried out analogously to the street facade. Here, however, decorations such as plaster mirrors, wall or corner templates were dispensed with. As can be seen from the files of the Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation, the facade of the inn was rendered in 1933 according to the specifications of the preservation authorities. The windows were renewed in 1936. However, some of the courtyard-facing windows seem to be older.

The building has a basement only on the east side. The two barrel-vaulted, large cellar rooms had entrances to the street and the courtyard, which can still be seen.

The guest rooms are on the street side from a wide passage room on the ground floor, which was later divided by porch doors and a partition wall at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. On the courtyard side, however, are the basement access and the staircase. The two guest rooms on the east side have older paneling. On the west side there is a door frame from the 17th century between the two front rooms. The cross-vaulted room facing the courtyard, which was later divided and had a window facing the Brauhausgasse, is striking. The gable walls on this side are divided on the inside by large, flat wall niches. The expansive staircase with curved board balusters, which leads up to the top floor, has been changed in its guidance, as can be seen on the walls on the ground floor and on the older supporting structure under the stairs. This is also evident from the signs of wear on the large sandstone floor slabs.

On the upper floor, a continuous corridor opens up the rooms facing the street and courtyard. Some of the larger rooms, some of which were later divided, still have older stucco profiles between the wall and ceiling, and some simply framed ceiling mirrors. The smaller rooms facing the courtyard were remodeled. Here, on the wall facing the courtyard, parts of a wooden wall cladding have been preserved, which could come from the construction period or from the 18th century. In addition, the room adjoining the stairwell shows a painted wall mount from the second half of the 19th century. The two eastern, original chimney flues with large loading doors run in the hallway, the parquet floor of which probably dates from the beginning of the 20th century.

In the lower roof area there are individual guest rooms, attic rooms and a smokehouse on both sides of the longitudinal corridor. Here, too, the wide chimney flues lead through, which combine to form one flue in the upper roof area. The roof structure consists in the lower part of a wide, lying roof structure, in the upper part of a double-standing roof structure reinforced by a truss .

Farm buildings

Buildings in the courtyard in 2011

The courtyard area of ​​the inn, which has largely preserved reading stone paving, is bordered on three sides by buildings. A long, single-storey stable building from the 18th century borders it on Brauhausgasse. Half-round, sandstone-framed, high-lying windows face the alley. The building is divided into three sections by two fire walls that also extend beyond the roof area .

Immediately adjacent to this stable building is a transverse building from the same period with a wide gateway. The gabled roofs of these buildings Group partially still possess a Spließdeckung with hand-painted plain tiles . Some bat dormers that illuminate the roof space have also been preserved.

The small connector building on Brauhausgasse, between the stable and the inn, is from more recent times. However, the city plan from 1768 and the masonry on Brauhausgasse suggest that there was a small building here earlier, so that the property could not be entered directly from Brauhausgasse.

Hall construction

As can be seen in the plan from 1768, an outbuilding on the east side closed off the courtyard opposite the alley that once ran along there. Parts of the masonry of this second adjoining building were integrated into a hall built in 1903 and demolished in 2011. Flat wall templates divided this two-storey, plastered building, with a flat, originally slate-covered gable roof, into seven wall fields. It is much deeper than the previous building and encompassed the area of ​​the former alley. The actual hall was upstairs. It opened to the courtyard with large arched windows that were clogged up to the point of demolition. The hall could be entered from a side staircase leading to the courtyard. The main staircase was on the north side facing the main street. The actual hall had side rooms on both the north and east sides. On the north side there was a corridor, a room with a counter and a sideboard behind it before the conversion to a projection room for a cinema . On the east side were the cloakroom, a guest room and then a vestibule that led to the toilets. On the south side of the hall was the deep and wide stage area, flanked by two adjoining rooms, one of which had an entrance from the courtyard. The magnificent furnishings included stuccoed pilasters , a wooden coffered ceiling with decorative applications and stucco surrounds the stage.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ List of monuments Land Brandenburg, Elbe-Elster district; As of December 31, 2007 ( Memento of the original from December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 163 kB) 
2. ↑ Heike Lehmann: The Rautenstock shines again. Lausitzer Rundschau from October 28, 2013, accessed on February 17, 2016

literature

• Assessment of the monument: Gasthof Rautenstock. Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation and State Archaeological Museum.
• Home book of the city of Doberlug-Kirchhain. Gustav Tegtmeyer (Rector VHS Kirchhain 1927–1945), read through in 1994 and expanded.
• Andreas Hanslok "The Rautenstock Inn - A Little Cultural History" in: Der Speicher, Issue 11 (2008): pp. 72–80.

Web links

Commons : Rautenstock  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 36 ′ 39 "  N , 13 ° 32 ′ 59.6"  E