Red House (Monschau)

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Red House (view from Laufenstrasse)
Bird's Eye View of the Red House (2017)

The Red House in Monschau , North Rhine-Westphalia , is a former headquarters of the Scheibler family and is now accessible as a museum, which in particular presents the bourgeois living culture at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The large patrician house was probably built between 1752 and 1768 by the cloth manufacturer Johann Heinrich Scheibler . It is called the Red House because of its facade color .

The building: construction and architecture

The Red House from the Rur. On the side of the Rur there used to be a wool sink in the basement. A water wheel was temporarily installed here.

The Red House was both the residential and the central commercial building of the Scheibler cloth-laying dynasty. It used to replace the existing factory buildings on the property. The building consists of two halves: the residential building (left) is called “Zum golden Helm”, the right half (“Zum Pelikan”) was used as an office building and production facility. A helmet and a pelican are shown above the entrance doors. The mighty building with three main storeys, two gable storeys and the attic storey used as a storage facility stands at the confluence of the Laufenbach into the Rur. Compared to the significantly lower half-timbered houses around it, the Red House looked unusually powerful and monumental at the time it was built. It is referred to as a kind of "early skyscraper".

It is a half-timbered building with a brick floor. This brick facade was extremely unusual in Monschau, which is characterized by half-timbered buildings, but it was well considered: "The greater precision of the brick masonry had to be preferred in a building that unfolded its architectural style in the clarity and delicacy of the surface structure." The plinth, the windows - and door frames and the corner pilasters are kept in Aachen bluestone , as is typical for the region . The window frames in the attic storeys are made of wood, but have been painted in the shade of bluestone. With a Rocaille decorated keystones door and window jambs bekrönen. Elegant banisters and the carved doors already refer to the lavishly designed interior.

The architecture, the building materials and the proportions give the building “a very balanced and elegant character.” The architect or builder is not passed down. From an architectural and historical point of view, the Red House represents a synthesis of a city palace, bourgeois residential architecture and manufacturing buildings. The Red House lacks rich décor, despite its representative claim. The art historian Paul Schoenen regards the lack of it and the factual clarity of the building as an expression of self-confident bourgeois architecture. He discovered certain references to town houses from the Bergisches Land, from which the client came, but also to the Monschau town houses. Ultimately, however, there are no clear role models.

The client: Johann Heinrich Scheibler (1705–1765) had a strong influence on the architecture and the execution of the building. But he did not live to see the completion.

Schoenen therefore suspects that the Red House was a relatively independent design at the client's request. The architecture is "so little influenced by the academic architecture of the late baroque that this town house can only be measured by its own standards." It is assumed that the strong-willed Johann Heinrich Scheibler had considerable influence on the form and architecture of the new building, the anonymous one The architects gave clear guidelines and left him only with the detailed work. "The client has emphatically determined the layout and shape of the Red House." According to this, the idiosyncratic and very independent architecture of the Red House would not least be a testimony to the character and will of its client. With the Red House, which was built for the enormous sum of 90,000 thalers at the time, Scheibler wanted to demonstrate "his industry, his success, his self-proclaimed indispensability and prosperity." The Red House is thus a "unique Rhenish monument" and is known as one of the greatest architecture of a late baroque town house in the Rhineland ”.

The wool was washed in the cellar of the Red House.

The valuable wool was stored in the spacious mansard roof. It got through a shaft into the cellar, where it was washed. In the 1830s a water wheel was installed on the edge of the river to drive machines for roughing and shearing the woolen cloth, but hardly used due to legal disputes and mostly low water levels.

There are comparable cloth-laying residences with a similar construction task and function both in Monschau (Elbershof 1778, Troistorff House 1783) and in other cities in the cloth- making region - some of them with far larger dimensions and designed by the most important master builders in the region. Particularly noteworthy: the property of the cloth publisher Johann Arnold von Clermont in Vaals (1761 by Joseph Moretti ), in Eupen the Tuchmacherhof Rehrmann-Fey (1721 by Laurenz Mefferdatis ), the Tuchmacherhof de Grand Ry (by Johann Joseph Couven , today seat of the government of the German-speaking community) or in Verviers the property of the cloth publisher Pierre-Henri de Thier (1804 to 1806, today Center de la Laine et de la Mode) - and just outside the region the Dijonval cloth factory in Sedan (1755).

Most of these drapery properties were built as symmetrical, three-winged structures, with a courtyard known from baroque palace architecture or "Cour de honneur", the Rehrmann building in Eupen with a closed inner courtyard. In this supraregional comparison it becomes clear once again that the architecture of the compact Red House is relatively independent. It is also particularly noteworthy in terms of the history of tradition that it is not complete inside, but comparatively well preserved (due to the strong family interest in the house and the early efforts at museumization). The upper-class living culture of that time is only present in this lively form in the Red House.

The economic basis: pre-industrial cloth production

This is what home work, on which Scheibler's production system was based, should have looked something like. The weaver at the large loom in the small room, in the foreground the woman is spinning, on the right supplies are being brought in, on the left bales of cloth are already being made. Illustration from JE Gailer: "New Orbis Pictus for the youth." (1835)

The builder Johann Heinrich Scheibler (1705–1765), who took over the management of his father-in-law's cloth factory at the age of 18, initially produced single-colored cloth dyed in one piece like the other fine cloth producers in the region. But it soon became clear to him that he could only conquer larger markets with particularly fashionable fabrics, that was then with patterned fabrics. He then began to dye the finest Spanish merino wool before further processing and to process it into variously patterned fabrics with bright, almost garish colors. When it came to the coloration, which played a central role, the water in Monschau, which was very low in lime, made wonderfully bright colors possible. He tracked down the latest rococo trends , developed particularly "flamed" and very light and fine cloths and established sales relationships throughout Europe and agencies in the Mediterranean, from where the Levant trade to North Africa and Asia Minor was carried out. A fabric swatch book is presented in the office, showing samples of the Monschau draperies from the period 1735 to 1810. Another sample book, which was created on the occasion of a trade exhibition in 1813, shows fabric samples from the Scheibler company from different time frames.

Johann Heinrich Scheibler earned an almost princely fortune with the cloth production and the cloth trade, which allowed him to tackle the complex construction of the Red House. However, it was not undisputed in Monschau. Above all, the long-established residents, the Catholic bourgeoisie, arable farmers, and small producers of rough cloth made life difficult for him - the new Protestant who had made immeasurable wealth before their eyes in a short time. In these disputes Scheibler confidently pointed out his achievements: “I (...) feed more than 4000 people from my Fabrique alone and am (...) the one who has made the Monjoyer cloth into the reputation of throughout Europe and I would like to say millions of money in the Monjoyerland and the neighborhood. "

The beneficial effect of his company for the region was undisputed for Scheibler: “Truly a desirable establishment in a country like the cold and barren Monjoy, where very few people can support themselves from the not at all considerable arable farming and where in the past there was such a lack of money As now there is an abundance of it in it, also every person who would have to go begging without the factories, even five and six year old children who are able to feed themselves from all kinds of factory work. "

Cloth shearers - figure of the cloth makers' fountain in Monschau.

In the publishing system of pre-industrial cloth production in the region, most of the work steps were not carried out in a central production building , but in home work. The manufacturer took on the washing and dyeing of the wool in his own company, but he had spinning and weaving on his behalf and with precise information from the rural population in the villages in the immediate vicinity.

The production of the flamed cloth for Scheibler was particularly complicated. A yarn of different colored wool had to be spun according to precise specifications. The production of elaborate patterns in the cloth, which required the separate control of each individual thread during weaving, was even more complicated. In the time before the invention of the jacquard loom , which later enabled the automated individual control of each individual warp thread, a second person was required in addition to the actual weaver, who took care of the movement of the shuttle and the weft thread, “mostly a child (...) who sat on top of the loom and had to pull the warp threads on and off exactly according to the pattern before each weft ”. However, the poor rural population in the Eifel and Limburger Land was usually happy to be able to deal with the money-making cloth production in winter, when there was hardly anything else to earn. However, the small farmhouse parlors were not built for the large looms, which reached up to the low ceiling and were up to four square meters larger than the double bed - and could also take up the best space by the window. The division of labor was often such that the man weaved, the women spun and set up the chain and the children reeled.

The final treatment was again carried out centrally under the supervision of the entrepreneur. The careful and labor-intensive shearing of the cloth with heavy cloth scissors, which was repeated several times, played a special role in the soft, almost velvety surface. The coarse cloth sold by the long-established cloth makers was not sheared. The fine cloth manufacturers, however, attached great importance to a good final treatment. They had to recruit trained clippers from abroad. The shearers who were brought in turned out to be very self-confident and conflict-ready workers who fought many a dispute with Scheibler.

The stairs with clothmaker motifs

Red House Staircase.jpg

A cantilevered staircase in the foyer, which gives the Red House an almost castle-like ambience, is decorated in 21 cartouches and shows all the essential steps in cloth production from washing the wool, winding, spinning , weaving , shearing and roughening the cloth to removing the cloth finished cloth - depicted in the style of the baroque putti .

There are also no direct models for the staircase motifs for fabric production. Apparently Scheibler - despite all the baroque ornamentation - gave the artisans clear guidelines, because the depictions show precisely the basic processes of cloth production in Scheibler's time and - this is evidence of the direct influence of the client - also certain innovations he introduced himself: for example dyeing the wool instead of the whole cloth. In comparison with other picture cycles from the period of cloth production, further specifics of the Monschau depiction are recognizable, which overrule the working method in the Scheiblerische company, for example the use of a hammer mill. After comparing such picture cycles, Volkskunderlin Kerkhoff-Hader comes to the conclusion: "The production phases seem to be conceived as a whole for the special situation of the Scheibler company." Since the artist had to reckon with the fact that his expert client would assess the result competently and critically, one can assume that the representation was based very precisely on "the real production conditions". At the same time, however, the realistic documentation is broken up and "embellished" by the idyllic depiction with putti and richly ornamented decorative frames.

The great artistic achievement of this carving is the reduction of the complex manufacturing process to simple, woodcut-like allegories on the one hand, and the realistic documentation of working methods and techniques of the time on the other. The staircase is unique in this very specific combination of rococo and realism .

On the inside of the staircase, the seasons, times of day and elements are represented in allegories in a similar form. Another staircase, which is not open to the public, shows depictions of the four seasons, the twelve months, the fall of man and death.

  • Dyeing the wool

  • Spinning the yarn

  • Warp warps

  • Weaving on a hand loom

  • Fulling of the cloth in a hammer mill

  • Roughening the cloth

  • Shear the cloth with heavy cloth scissors

  • Transport of the finished cloth bales

The interior

The furnishings in the Aachen-Liège Baroque, Louis-Seize and Empire styles have been partially preserved. The living rooms are furnished in "an approximation of the original furnishings of the house" down to the last detail with contemporary furniture. In the master's room , a precious canvas wallpaper in an illusionistic manner gives the impression of a picture cabinet with 73 framed paintings. The copyists even took into account the picture hangings and the shadows of the frames. The 'paintings' show motifs from mythology, everyday scenes in the style of genre painting , still lifes , animal and landscape pictures in the style of the time, including copies by Titian and Rembrandt van Rijn . In the entrance room with the stairs, too, wallpaper simulates a marble wall. The dining room with Louis-Seize furniture and a festive table conveys - like all rooms - a very realistic impression of contemporary living culture. In addition to the fireplace, which also served as a stove, the kitchen shows the brass and copper kettles that were common at the time. Salons with Aachen-Liège writing cupboards, showcases and seating, a ballroom with valuable tapestries and bedrooms with beds, paintings, cradles and wash bowls convey the world of the Scheibler dynasty.

  • Study

  • dining room

  • kitchen

  • Blue salon

  • Empire room

Younger story

In 1875 the Scheibler family lost ownership of the house. In 1909 the Cologne industrialist Carl Johann Heinrich Scheibler brought parts of the Red House back into family ownership and refurbished it. “Scheibler was able to put together closed residential ensembles (...) through sometimes costly buybacks from family property and purchases from the art trade, through fortunate chance acquisitions, family estates or gifts. With this mixture of original furniture of the time and historically modeled interiors, the splendor and splendor folds of the Scheibler 'cloth maker dynasty' in the late 18th century should come back to life. "

In 1931 his son Hans Carl Scheibler made the building of the “Goldener Helm” accessible in part as the Scheibler Museum. In 1963 he gave the family property to the Scheibler-Museum Rotes Haus Foundation , which was founded with significant support and participation from the Rhineland Regional Council. In 1941 the house became the subject of several paintings by August von Brandis .

The Red House is now largely accessible as a museum. It is part of the wool route that links the cultural heritage of the drapery region in the three-country region around Aachen, today's Euregio Meuse-Rhine .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roland Günter : Visiting our era. Industrial culture in North Rhine-Westphalia. Essen 2001, p. 146.
  2. ↑ Schoenen, Paul: The Red House in Monschau. Cologne 1968, p. 34.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Zahn: The Red House in Monschau. (Rheinische Kunststätten 76). 1993, p. 10.
  4. ↑ Schoenen, p. 36.
  5. ↑ Schoenen, p. 56.
  6. ↑ Schoenen, p. 39.
  7. ↑ Schoenen, p. 56.
  8. ↑ Wilfried Hansmann , Das Rote Haus in Monschau, in: Foundation Scheibler-Museum Rotes Haus Monschau (ed.): The Red House in Monschau, Foundation Scheibler-Museum Rotes Haus Monschau (ed.): The Red House in Monschau, Cologne 1994 , P. 7.
  9. ↑ Wolfgang Zahn: The Red House in Monschau. (Rheinische Kunststätten 76). 1993, p. 19f.
  10. ^ Offermann, Toni / Woldt, Liesbeth: The commercial use of the Red House for cloth manufacture in the 19th century, in: Das Monschauer Land. Yearbook 1986, p. 61ff.
  11. ↑ All objects mentioned are briefly presented on the website of the wool route . See also: Schmidt, Martin: Tuchmanufakturen im Raum Aachen, on the function of the buildings and a comparison of the building history. Early modern work buildings as a mirror of a form of business between publishing house and centralized production, in: Diedrich Ebeling (ed.): Aufbruch in ein neue Zeit. Commerce, state and entrepreneurs in the Rhineland in the 18th century. Cologne 2000, pp. 129-164.
  12. ↑ See http://www.erih.net/de/ankerpunkte/detail.html?user_erihobjects_pi2%5BshowUid%5D=16044&cHash=7d0fb5e8c3
  13. ↑ According to Barkhausen, p. 42.
  14. ↑ According to Barkhausen, p. 43.
  15. ↑ Barkhausen, p. 36.
  16. ↑ Barkhausen, p. 80 ff.
  17. ↑ Kerkhoff-Hader, Bärbel: Die Tuchmacherreliefs in the Red House in Monschau, in: Rheinisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde 27, 1987/88, pp. 153–182, here p. 180.
  18. ↑ Hansmann, p. 56.
  19. ^ Foundation Scheibler-Museum Rotes Haus Monschau (ed.): The Red House in Monschau. A tour , Brauweiler 2002, p. 8.
  20. ^ Zahn 1993; John, Hartmut (ed.) / Bahdady, Anne, (texts): The desire to live. The Red House in Monschau, Cologne 1998; Scheibler Museum Rotes Haus Monschau Foundation 2002
  21. ↑ John / Baghdady, p. 12

literature

  • Barkhausen, Ernst: The cloth industry in Montjoie. Your rise and fall. Aachen 1925
  • John, Hartmut (ed.) / Bahdady, Anne (texts): The desire to live. The Red House in Monschau , Cologne 1998
  • Mainzer, Udo: The Red House in Monschau. (Rheinische Kunststätten 76), Cologne 2012
  • Offermann, Toni / Woldt, Liesbeth: The commercial use of the Red House for cloth manufacture in the 19th century , in: Das Monschauer Land. 1986 Yearbook, pp. 56-66.
  • Schoenen, Paul: The Red House in Monschau . (With photographs by Hermann Weisweiler). Cologne 1968
  • Schmidt, Martin: Cloth manufacturers in the Aachen area. Early modern work buildings as a mirror of a form of business between publishing house and centralized production , in: Diedrich Ebeling (ed.): Aufbruch in ein neue Zeit. Commerce, state and entrepreneurs in the Rhineland in the 18th century. Cologne 2000, pp. 129-164.
  • Stender, Detlef: Wüllenweber in home work and industry. Cloth production , in: Harzheim, Gabriele / Krause, Markus / Stender, Detlef: Commercial and industrial culture in the Eifel. Tours to monuments, landscapes and museums. Cologne 2001, pp. 150–177.
  • Scheibler-Museum Rotes Haus Monschau Foundation (ed.): The Red House in Monschau , Cologne 1994
  • Scheibler Museum Foundation Red House Monschau (ed.): The Red House in Monschau. A tour , Brauweiler 2002
  • Wolfgang Zahn: The Red House in Monschau . (Rheinische Kunststätten 76), Cologne 1993

Web links

Commons : Red House  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 33 '17.06 "  N , 6 ° 14' 27.06"  E