Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus
The Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus in Überlingen is a former patrician house above the old town of Überlingen with elements of the late Gothic and Florentine early renaissance . It is considered to be one of the oldest Renaissance buildings in Germany and is one of the most important cultural monuments and sights in the city. Since 1913, the building that has shaped the cityscape has housed the municipal museum, which is one of the oldest and largest museums of cultural history in the Lake Constance region .
history
After the doctor and pharmacist Andreas Reichlin von Meldegg received citizenship in the imperial city of Überlingen in 1456 and married into an important patrician family, in December 1459 he acquired three “hofstatt” (around 1100 m²) on the “Lütschenberg” ( Luzienberg ) there With the likely inclusion of an older building , he had a representative, three-part mansion with a hanging garden built in the immediate vicinity of the care courtyard of the Wald monastery and the Johanniterkommende . The year 1462 affixed to the eaves of the main building speaks in favor of at least the completion of the shell, because according to dendrochronological studies, the wood for the roof truss was felled in the years 1461 to 1463. Various stonemason marks on the house indicate local workers who erected the building. The builder died in 1477 and bequeathed the imposing house to his son Klemens Reichlin von Meldegg.
How influential the patrician family Reichlin von Meldegg was in the last third of the 15th century in Überlingen is shown next to some buildings in the city that bear the family coat of arms and the stay of Emperor Friedrich III. in the patrician house (his motto A.EIOU , F 1485 on a column indicates this, and Andreas Reichlin von Meldegg was his personal physician ), especially on the facade of the extension of the Überlingen town hall . It was created in the years 1485–93 when Klemens Reichlin von Meldegg was mayor of the imperial city. The design of the town hall with rusticated ashlar is clearly based on that of the Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus. In the 16th century, members of the family held high city offices.
The building on the Luzienberg remained in the possession of the Reichlin von Meldegg family until 1684, before Franz Wolf Reichlin Freiherr von Meldegg sold it out of impoverishment together with the Billafingen rulership to the noble family Roth von Schreckenstein zu Immendingen , but he reserved the patronage rights of the Luzienkapelle , which is still owned by Reichlin von Meldegg today. After eight years of ownership of Roth von Schreckenstein, the Fürstenberg Landschreiber and Obervogt zu Trochtelfingen , Dr. Andreas von Buol and his wife Maria von Echbegg opened the former patrician palace in Überlingen in 1692. In the following years they had it rebuilt in the baroque style. From 1711 it was owned by the Buols heirs until several changes of ownership followed from the end of the 18th century. From 1819 to 1908 the building was used as a brewery and restaurant and was run down in almost a century. With the aim of creating a suitable home for the municipal collections, the city acquired the now very dilapidated Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus on Krummen Berg in November 1908 for 85,000 marks.
Lucien Chapel
At the time of construction of the main building, the Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus was given an eastern extension, in which the square house chapel was housed, the Gothic vault of which is supported by a single column. It was consecrated in 1468 to St. Lucius of Chur . For a few years the chapel had a flat roof, because the spruce wood of the roof was only felled in the winter of 1470/71 and then built into a double roof structure. The Reichlin of Meldegg donated towards the end of the 1480s still an eternal exhibition as well as a parsonage for Lucy chapel whose Pfrundhaus was housed in a building opposite the mansion (Krumme mountain road 29). In 1602, Johann V , Bishop of Chur , donated some of the relics of St. Lucius to the chapel. After a donation, it received a new high altar in 1626, which is consecrated to Lucius, the Virgin Mary and the Apostles Andrew and Matthew . It received the baroque furnishings that are preserved today in the first third of the 18th century.
architecture
The three-part building complex of the Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus stands on a prominent hill above the old town of Überlingen and, with its battlements and scaled gables, towers over the entire area.
The main house is a large box building that extends over three floors on a slightly trapezoidal floor plan . Above it rises a large gable roof with a collar beam roof, both gable sides of which are provided with beveled battlements that can be seen from afar. On the exposed east facade there are several round arch niches with double blind arches , six of which are open with windows of different sizes. Together with the battlements, they serve as a purely representative design.
Attached to the main building at right angles is a wing facing south and west . The southern part of the wing extends under a pent roof along the courtyard to the garden and is crowned on the ridge of the roof on the west and north side by a conspicuous crenellated design, which gives it a defensive appearance, with the south gable showing a stepped gable. On the street side, the west wing jumps back about two meters from the line of the main house and consists of a somewhat elongated, two-storey gate , the eastern gate opening of which was used as the main portal until 1695. To the east of the main house is the two-storey building of the Luzienkapelle , the facade of which merges seamlessly into that of the main house. Only through the different window design (two differently sized pointed arch windows and three small rectangular windows ) does the street facade of the house chapel visually stand out from that of the main building.
Rusticated facade
The street facade of the Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus is completely made of rusticated masonry, which consists of individually hewn ashlar stones and is considered a further development of the medieval basement . The offset of the stone blocks in the runner-truss connection creates a rhythm that is only interrupted by the wall openings in the windows and doors. In the past, repair work was often necessary (most recently from 1982 to 1992), as the soft natural stone , made from locally available molasse sandstone , is highly susceptible to weathering. The very complex and expensive execution of the ashlar masonry for the time speaks for a significant wealth of the Reichlin von Meldegg.
In contrast to the street facade, all the other facades of the building wings are plastered , only the southeast corners of the main building and chapel building show corner blocks . This corner design was received several times in Überlingen at the end of the 15th century. The Franziskanertor (from 1494), the house of Clemens Reichlin von Meldegg (1495) and the Gasthaus Krone (around 1500) show this typical corner design. The late Gothic Ölberg chapel on St. Nicholas Cathedral, built in 1493, also has rustication on the base .
With its unusually designed main facade at the time of construction, the garden laid out towards the lake and the free-standing construction method that was also unusual at the time (other patrician houses in Überlingen and the region were built in inconspicuous streets) of a town house, the Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus is considered to be one of the first architectural evidence of profane Florentine architecture at the end of the 15th century and the smooth transition from the late Gothic to the early Renaissance in Germany, before the important buildings of the Fugger in Augsburg or the city residence in Landshut were built.
Idol
A direct model for the design of the Reichlin-von-Meldegg house with rusticated masonry was probably the house of the patrician society Zur Katz ( Katzgasse 3 ) in Constance, which was built as early as 1424-29, but still has a medieval-looking, irregular rustication . Andreas Reichlin von Meldegg was a member there until he was naturalized in Überlingen.
The appearance and layout of the house were probably influenced by the Palazzo Piccolomini in Pienza , Tuscany , which was built by Pope Pius II and was in turn inspired by the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence . Andreas Reichlin von Meldegg spent several years as a student and in his function as Pius II's personal physician in northern and central Italy , where he found the architecture of the palazzi there , the humanistic outlook and the ideas and plans of Pope Pius II to be “ideal City “got to know Pienza.
The Papal Palace Piccolomini and the bourgeois Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus have some things in common (rusticated facade, construction time around 1460, orientation of the respective piano nobile in the eastern part of the house with the same number of rooms, private natorium, garden and free-standing location). But the differences between the two buildings are also clear, because the Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus contains some elements typical of the late Gothic period (including the pointed arch windows of the house chapel, an oriel and the battlements and stepped gables) and the classic gable roof for the region with the collar beam roof truss typical of late medieval Überlingen. Furthermore, the floor structure, the floor plan of the buildings and the lack of arched windows and pilasters on the Überlinger Haus differ .
Reichlin von Meldegg obviously followed a motto of the early Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti (one of his students, Bernardo Rossellino , was the architect Pienzas): “The property of a prince will be built on a particularly worthy place. The location on a hill, from which one can see the sea, the hills and the wide area under one's eyes, will give it dignity. ” Except for the view of the sea , where Lake Constance serves as a substitute, this statement is also clearly true towards the Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus.
Baroque
Towards the end of the 17th / beginning of the 18th century, the house was given a baroque interior under the direction of the architect Christian Thumb , with some rooms being given a stucco ceiling in the style of the Wessobrunn school , the late Gothic bay window on the street facade being removed, the large ground floor hall being divided and a baroque staircase were added. The south wing, previously used as a kitchen and servants' quarters, with half-timbered upper floors and an open hall to the courtyard, was also fundamentally renovated. The half-timbering and the hall were replaced or closed by masonry . This was followed by a splendidly furnished 8 × 13.8 meter ballroom ( large baroque hall ) with a stuccoed ceiling. The hall, used today for various events, extends behind a total of six window axes with a gallery on two floors. The window frames can still be seen on the southern outer facade today, showing the original window situation from the time before the hall was set up. As a replacement for the servants' apartments in the old south wing, the street-side gate was extended to the west and added a second entrance gate. The previous main entrance at the gate building has meanwhile been relocated to the facade of the main building and a column- adorned portal porch with a blown gable was added to it. The family coats of arms of the house owners at the time, von Buol and Echbegg, are affixed to the middle part.
garden
The property has a spacious geometric garden on the south side , from which one has a wide view over the old town of Überlingen to the Minster St. Nikolaus and Lake Constance. Initially laid out as an herb garden and vineyard , it was mainly used for commercial purposes. As city views from the 17th century ( siege picture from 1634 and Merian 1644) show, the garden was built on on its south side by another wing of the building and was enclosed by a circular wall. In the course of the baroque realignment of the property from 1695, the garden was also carefully redesigned into a baroque pleasure garden , in which the wing had to give way and the garden was decorated with two small pavilions with an onion roof , one of which is still preserved today.
The garden has been open to the public since it was used as a museum and shows historical Überlingen fountain figures and columns as well as sculptures from the 16th to 19th centuries under chestnut trees , while the adjacent courtyard of the west wing has numerous old grave crosses and several fragments of Jewish tombstones from the 13th century . and 14th centuries, which are among the oldest in Baden-Württemberg . After the Jewish pogroms of 1332 and 1349, they were used as building material (minster, city fortifications and building houses). In this farm there is also a huge, from Hagnau originating Torkel from 1697, of interest to the former imperial city of viticulture represents. The garden is also used for events.
Municipal Museum
 West view of the museum |
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| Data | |
|---|---|
| place | Überlingen 
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| Art |
Cultural history / local history museum
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| opening | 1871 and May 3, 1913 |
| operator |
City of Überlingen
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| Website | |
| ISIL | DE-MUS-134712 |
Since 1871, the municipal collections have been presented to the public as a "cultural historical natural history cabinet " in the former armory on the lake. Initially it consisted mainly of remnants of the collection donated by the parish priest Franz Sales Wocheler , historical everyday objects, Überlingen cultural assets and various art objects. From 1886 the cabinet was housed together with the Leopold-Sophien-Bibliothek in the stone house on Franziskanerstraße. Since the stone house was too small for the extensive collections and many objects had to be stored in boxes, the construction or at least the renovation of a municipal collection building was pushed ahead. The achievement of the city of Constance, which in 1870 converted the former guild house “Zum Rosgarten” into a museum , was considered exemplary . However, none of the buildings owned by Überlingen at the time seemed suitable until the owner of the former Reichlin-von-Meldegg patrician house offered his dilapidated building to the city for sale.
History since 1908
The city acquired the building, which was already an important monument in Überlingen and used as a brewery, in November 1908 for 85,000 marks. Since an opening planned for 1911 was not possible due to the very poor condition of the property, the urgently needed renovation and restoration work on and in the building followed by 1913 , with the preservation of the historical building elements , especially with the support of the state preservation authorities was the top priority.
The cost of the construction work, which u. a. The demolition of the economic building adjacent to the west , the garden and bowling alley including the drinking hall, the reconstruction of the old passage, the restoration of the baroque stucco ceilings and the uncovering of the old building fabric, amounted to around 106,000 marks.
In order to reinforce the character of the planned local museum , the Überlingen municipal council has meanwhile called on the population to donate or borrow old items. Many objects came together, even a descendant of Reichlin von Meldegg from Hanover took part. By art historian Max Wingenroth and restorer Victor Mezger a detailed space program, which ordered the collections and each of the 30 showrooms gave a name originated (u. A. Altjungfernstübchen, Badisches rooms, sculptor rooms, Jägerstübchen, Reichlin-Of-Meldegg room, Pfahlbautensaal ) and with the each item was equipped. The garden was also included in this program and redesigned.
On May 3, 1913, the “Municipal Collections in the Reichlin von Meldegghaus” were finally opened. In the decades to come, the municipal collections were able to acquire numerous other objects relating to the history of the city and art , some of them through donations or purchases. These include ancient Egyptian clay statuettes , late Baroque nativity scenes , various paintings and watercolors , a collection of military rifles and a large, stuffed Alaskan elk head with colossal antlers that still hangs in the entrance hall today.
A fire in December 1936 completely destroyed the Menzinger room , which had been furnished a few years earlier, and damaged large parts of the second floor. After the fire damage was repaired, the museum was able to reopen two years later, before the most valuable exhibits were evacuated in the Second World War . Towards the end of the war, when the French troops marched in on April 25, 1945, three neighboring buildings of the museum were set on fire after some German soldiers shot at the French tanks from Rosenobelschanze , opposite the museum. The west wing of the Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus was severely damaged in the fire in the neighboring houses.
Post-war exhibition in 1945
As early as autumn 1945, under the direction of Walter Kaesbach and Werner Gothein, a nationally significant post-war exhibition , which in the past period of National Socialism was despised, Modern Art , entitled German Art of Our Time . Most of the 156 exhibits came from the studios of artists living in the Lake Constance region. These included works by Max Ackermann , Willi Baumeister , Julius Bissier and Erich Heckel . The conception of future special exhibitions in the immediately following years was not pursued any further, despite the great success of the post-war exhibition. A planned, privately organized exhibition by French Impressionists failed due to the resistance of the museum management at the time, especially that of the curator Emil Stadelhofer .
Reorganization 1947/48
With the aim of creating a meaningful and chronological order, the museum was comprehensively reorganized in 1947/48 by the Heidelberg art historian Georg Poensgen , who now lived in Überlingen . The first special exhibition according to these regulations took place in 1948. It was organized by a conservative group of artists from Überlingen and showed corresponding works. From now on, there have been special exhibitions on various topics that have recently changed annually.
A selection of past special exhibitions:
- Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer , 1951
- Lake Constance in words and pictures , 1952
- 1200 years of Überlingen , 1970
- Henry Moore . Graphics 1931-74 , 1974
- Otto Dix . Landscapes , 1984
- Johann Sebastian Dirr (1766-1830) , 1987
- Theology and theologians from the Lake Constance region in manuscripts and prints , 1999
- Herbert von Karajan - Siegfried Lauterwasser , 2008
- Romantic discoveries. Robert and Clara Schumann , 2010
- The Secret of the Heidenhöhlen , 2012
- Mysticism on Lake Constance from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age , 2015
- 1914–1918 - From both sides: War experiences in the Touraine and on northern Lake Constance , 2016
Permanent exhibitions
The permanent exhibitions are located in thirty rooms of the Reichlin-Von-Meldegg-Haus. As with the opening of the museum in 1913, each room has a name that refers to the objects and furnishings located there (including the Badisches Zimmer, peasant kitchen, peasant bedroom, Biedermeier room, Gothic room, patrician room, votive picture room, loom room )
- In the city history hall there are watercolors, oil paintings , sculptures , engravings, documents , sculptures and other objects, numerous objects that deal with the history of Überlingen from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.
- The star picture room shows u. a. four star images from the 17th century, ivory carvings and ancient objects from natural science and medicine . Among them are herbaria of the Überlingen Latin schoolmaster and botanist Hieronymus Harder , which are among the earliest of their kind.
- In the Reichlin-Von-Meldegg-Zimmer you can see the ornatorium of the Luzienkapelle as well as portraits from the 18th to the 20th century of some members of the former patrician family.
- In the arts and crafts room different is arts and crafts on display, including works by Anton son .
- The small baroque hall shows precious sculptures and sculptures from the baroque and rococo periods , etc. a. with works by Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer, Johann Georg Dirr and Johann Georg Wieland . The room also contains the only surviving ceiling painting of the baroque stucco ceilings in the house.
- On the third floor there is a customs department with representations of the sword dance , the old Überlingen costume with a wheel hood , the Hansel and the four- league . Adjacent to this department is a large collection of dolls' houses.
Since a renovation and redesign in 2013, in addition to the previous permanent exhibitions, there is a cabinet of curiosities with rarities from the West and East and the Überlingen area. City on the lake with objects from 6000 years of art history on the ground floor and the armory on the upper floor of the Luzienkapelle.
literature
- City of Überlingen (ed.): Überlingen. Image of a city. Looking back on 1200 years of history in Überlingen. 770-1970 . Konrad, Weißenhorn 1970.
- Guntram Brummer: Museum in the patrician yard of the Reichlin von Meldegg, Überlingen / Bodensee, with a dollhouse exhibition . Überlingen 1987.
- Mathias Piana: The Reichlin-Meldegg-Haus in Überlingen. New findings on building history , in: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings. Volume 121, 2003, pp. 1-39, ISSN 0342-2070 . ( Digitized version )
- Marion Harder-Merkelbach, Michael Brunner (ed.): 1100 years of art and architecture in Überlingen (850–1950). Book accompanying the exhibition at the Städtische Galerie Überlingen. Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2005, ISBN 3-86568-032-1 .
- Marion Harder-Merkelbach: The Reichlin-von-Meldegghaus. A mansion in the city based on the papal model. In: 1100 years of art and architecture in Überlingen. Petersberg 2005.
- Alois Schneider, Regional Council Stuttgart, State Office for Monument Preservation, City of Überlingen (ed.): Archaeological City Register Baden-Württemberg Volume 34 Überlingen . Regional Council Stuttgart State Office for Monument Preservation 2008, ISBN 978-3-927714-92-2
- Michael Brunner, Peter Graubach (Eds.): Städtisches Museum Überlingen (on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the reopening of the Städtisches Museum in Überlingen) , Weissbooks.w, Frankfurt 2013, ISBN 978-3-86337-040-4
Web links
- Museum website
- Information about the building and the museum at leo-bw.de
- Pictures of the building at Foto Marburg
Individual evidence
- ↑ Museum information on tourismus-bw.de
- ↑ Mike Durlacher: Advent calendar of the Überlingen personalities: Andreas Reichlin von Meldegg In: Südkurier from December 1, 2017
- ↑ Overview of the Reichlin von Meldegg family on privat.genealogy.net - Klemens Reichlin von Meldegg was (with interruptions) mayor from 1484 to 1500
- ^ Eva-Maria Bast: Haus von historical Vormat In: Südkurier from August 26, 2005
- ↑ Marion Harder-Merkelbach: A world innovator in Überlingen In Südkurier from October 19, 2006
- ^ Leon Battista Alberti: Ten books on architecture. Darmstadt 1975, ISBN 3-534-07171-9 , p. 226.
- ↑ Information on the ballroom at museum-ueberlingen.de
- ↑ Garden information
- ↑ Information on the Jewish gravestones on alemannia-judaica.de
- ↑ Julia Friedrich, Andreas Prinzing (ed.): "This is how you simply started, without a lot of words": Exhibition and collection policy in the first years after the Second World War. Museum Ludwig Cologne, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-034285-7
- ↑ Page of the exhibitions on museum-ueberlingen.de
- ↑ The permanent exhibitions at museum-ueberlingen.de
- ^ Eva-Maria Bast: Städtisches Museum celebrates anniversary In: Südkurier from March 23, 2013
- ↑ Sylvia Floetemeyer: Armory Museum is open again after decades In: Südkurier from April 13, 2014