Sport (Eduard Bargheer)

The glass mosaic Sport by the visual artist Eduard Bargheer was made from 1962 to 1963 in the August Wagner workshops in Berlin , attached to the north wall of a small gymnasium belonging to the then Lower Saxony Stadium in Hanover in a mortar bed on the aerated concrete wall and inaugurated there on June 25, 1963 . Plans for the demolition of the gymnasium on the occasion of the renovation of the stadium called the continued existence of the glass mosaic into question. After the glass mosaic was placed under monument protection in 2003 , it was demolished between 2005 and 2006 before the gymnasium was demolished and was given a new place on the stadium forecourt at the south entrance (Ferdinand-Wilhelm-Fricke-Weg) on a newly created angular retaining wall . On 27 April 2006, took the mayor of Hanover Herbert Schmalstieg time before the in Germany held 2006 FIFA World Cup the inauguration of the glass mosaic Sport in its new location before. The glass mosaic has a glass surface of almost 200 m² and is one of the most important works of building-related art in Germany.

Bargheer's glass mosaic Sport was made in 1962 in the August Wagner workshops. It is located in Hanover next to the south entrance of the HDI-Arena . The lower right edge of the photo is covered with graffiti that used to fill the entire base. For the fiftieth anniversary of the glass mosaic in 2013, Hannover 96 removed the graffiti.

prehistory

On September 26, 1954, the Lower Saxony Stadium was inaugurated in Hanover, which at the time was the second largest stadium in Germany after the Olympic Stadium in Berlin with a maximum of 86,656 seats . Outside the east stand was a sports hall supported by 2.80 m high columns, under which the entrance and main entrance to the stadium were located. Those approaching looked at the almost 30 × 7 meter outer wall of the gym, which was intended for a work of art that was to be dedicated to athletic activity in the Olympic spirit.

Partial view of certain of Hannover mosaic of Fernand Léger , which at the entrance of the National Museum in the French town Biot was installed.

The intended artist was Fernand Léger , who had shown his life's work in two exhibitions at the Kestnergesellschaft in Hanover in 1949 and 1954 . At the beginning of March 1955, Fernand Léger and his assistant Bauquier came to Hanover to get to know the local conditions. After his return to Paris , he presented various designs for a ceramic mosaic that was to contain a combination of a mosaic background and inserted ceramic parts . These drafts did not meet with unanimous approval in Hanover. When Fernand Léger suddenly died on August 17, 1955, the decision-makers in Hanover feared that the project would no longer be feasible.

On December 28, 1955, the assistant Bauquier wrote to the responsible Hanover architect Heinz Goesmann on behalf of Nadia Léger, the widow and heiress of Fernand Léger, that it was possible to carry out the ceramic mosaic posthumously . The decision-makers in Hanover did not accept this offer, however, because they had concerns about placing such a large order that the designing artist could no longer take control himself. Then Nadia Léger decided to use the ceramic mosaic designed for Hanover for the construction of the Musée national Fernand-Léger in Biot . The architect in charge even matched the external dimensions and the facade structure of the museum building to the appearance of the gym at the Lower Saxony Stadium in Hanover. Since the inauguration in May 1960, the ceramic mosaic originally designed by Fernand Léger for Hanover has shone on the front side of the museum.

In the summer of 1960, Hanover's chief city director Karl Wiechert visited the Musée national Fernand-Léger and inspected the ceramic mosaic. Contrary to his earlier concerns, he was now convinced that no better proposal could be made for the gym wall than the ceramic mosaic proposed by Fernand Léger. Now the city of Hanover was interested in realizing one of the not yet used designs by Fernand Léger. As the market value of the works by Fernand Léger was now risen considerably, the widow Nadia Léger required for the completion of the ceramic mosaic in France a million new francs , representing about 813,000 German marks corresponded. The city of Hanover was only willing to pay DM 300,000 to a maximum of DM 350,000 for the design rights and the execution of the ceramic mosaic, since the production of the ceramic mosaic in Germany would have cost DM 600,000 less than in France. Nadia Léger declined this offer.

Creation of the sport glass mosaic

The Hanoverian chocolate manufacturer and art patron Bernhard Sprengel owned works by the Hamburg artist Eduard Bargheer in his art collection and valued him as an independent representative of German contemporary art who had not given up the reference to figuration. Bernhard Sprengel also knew that Eduard Bargheer had created various large glass mosaics since 1956, which showed his ability to complete the large-format sports glass mosaic required in Hanover . He traveled to Hamburg in January 1962 to discuss the project with Eduard Bargheer and to win him over. After Bargheer's approval, Bernhard Sprengel presented his proposal to the decision-makers in Hanover and received their approval.

Eduard Bargheer then worked on the designs for his glass mosaic in Hanover, which should be dedicated to sporting activities in the Olympic spirit. Bargheer's basic idea consisted of an arched arrangement of three groups of athletes: in the left third a ball player , a cyclist and two wrestlers , in the middle third a football player with a goalkeeper reduced in perspective at the top left and with the second goalkeeper at the bottom right, and various runners in the right third . When designing the images, Bargheer oriented himself on ancient sports depictions on Greek vases and reliefs and on Etruscan frescoes in Tarquinia in order to work out the characteristic postures of the athletes on his glass mosaic. In the case of the glass mosaic, he insisted on the stones being laid irregularly with joints of different widths in order to achieve the highest level of liveliness. The figures are not set in life size, but a third larger so that they appear life size to the distant viewer.

After Eduard Bargheer had completed his draft cardboard on a scale of 1: 5, the draft for the working cardboard was enlarged on a scale of 1: 1. From September 1962 to mid-March 1963, the August Wagner workshops in Berlin, together with Eduard Bargheer, were busy assembling the mosaics from colored glass stones and preparing them for assembly . The 22 boxes with around six hundred mosaic sections glued to paper arrived in Hanover on April 23, 1963. The seven-meter-high and 30-meter-long north wall of the gym next to the Lower Saxony Stadium, which was supported by 2.80 m high columns , was intended for the glass mosaic . On the left edge of the north wall, a strip of two meters width for the view of the orange-red remained brickwork from brick -free, next to the 7 meter high glass mosaic in the width of 28 m was installed. An additional 40 cm wide vertical strip of the glass mosaic was led around the right edge of the building and attached to the side wall of the gymnasium facing the Lower Saxony Stadium. Assembly began on May 2, 1963 from the erected scaffolding and lasted until June 20, 1963. The segments prepared in the workshop were inserted into the damp mortar of the wall by three Wagner company employees. Then the front layers of carrier paper of all mosaic sections could be removed and the grouting and final cleaning of the mosaic parts could be carried out. The inauguration of the glass mosaic took place on the afternoon of June 25, 1963.

On July 4, 1963, the August Wagner United Workshops in Berlin sent the final invoice, which, including transport costs and taxes, amounted to DM 157,832. According to an internal calculation, around 16,000 DM came from the material and around 115,000 DM from the wage costs for a total of 7150 working hours. Eduard Bargheer received an additional work fee of DM 39,958.

Eduard Bargheer donated the 1962 glass mosaic Sportler to the municipal gallery KUBUS in Hanover . The mosaic framed by an iron profile shows a section from the sport glass mosaic and is a partial laying measuring 160.5 × 71.5 cm. As part of a reorganization of the Hanover art holdings carried out from 1979 onwards, it came to the Sprengel Museum Hanover , where it is located in the depot . A second part of the glass mosaic sport was on the outer wall of the August Wagner United Workshops in Berlin. It was destroyed in 1972 when the factory building was demolished.

Monument protection for the glass mosaic sport

When planning the conversion of the Lower Saxony Stadium into a modern AWD arena , there were considerations of demolishing the gym at the Lower Saxony Stadium. These plans challenged the continued existence of the glass mosaic on the wall of the gymnasium since 1998. The head of the preservation of monuments of the city of Hanover, Jörg Maaß, then campaigned for the Lower Saxony State Office for the Preservation of Monuments to put the sport glass mosaic under monument protection . On November 19, 2002, the Lower Saxony State Office for the Preservation of Monuments presented a report that made it possible to place the glass mosaic under monument protection. The owner of the AWD-Arena, Hannover 96 Arena GmbH & Co. KG, and the city of Hanover's monument preservation department agreed to remove the mosaic from its original location on the wall of the gym and place it at the south entrance of the AWD-Arena.

Implementation of the sport glass mosaic at the south entrance of the AWD-Arena

The planning and implementation of the relocation was carried out by the Hanover architects Schulze & Partner . It ensured that an angular retaining wall made of reinforced exposed concrete was erected as a support for the mosaic on the newly created space at the south entrance of the AWD Arena . The relocation and restoration of the mosaic were part of the construction project for the new construction of the Hannover 96 sports and business park under the direction of the Baum group , which took on the financing. Hans-Jürgen Vogel from the engineering office Eilers & Vogel in Hanover took over the technical conception of the relocation and stability of the reinforced concrete slab . For the relocation of the glass mosaic, he won over the specialist company Restauratorenteam GmbH Böddeker & Schlichting, Paderborn and Hamburg , which specializes in the implementation of monument preservation and building restoration measures.

In July 2005, work scaffolding was set up on the north side of the gym. The restoration team examined what the glass mosaic was like, measured it and photographed it for documentation. The entire visible surface of the glass mosaic was then given a fabric-reinforced front protection so that the individual glass blocks retained their firm hold during the subsequent work and remained undamaged on the visible surface.

Fortunately, the mortar bed of the glass mosaic on the outer aerated concrete wall of the gym wall was only connected with iron anchors, so that there was an air space between the wall and the mosaic, which made it easier to remove the glass mosaic. On the other hand, the carrier layer of the glass mosaic, which consisted of a mortar bed coated with synthetic resin , was provided with a wire mesh in the mortar base , which made it difficult to cut the glass mosaic together with its carrier layer into mosaic sections. In addition, the glass mosaic stones were so firmly attached to the mortar bed that they could not be removed undamaged from the resin-modified mortar bed. Therefore it was only possible to cut out the individual mosaic sections together with their mortar bed with a strong cutting disc. Over 600 mosaic sections were cut out, marked, temporarily stored and prepared for later assembly. After the glass mosaic had been removed, the gymnasium was demolished.

After completion of the angled retaining wall made of reinforced fair-faced concrete, it was provided with a weatherproof, planned work frame. Then all the mosaic sections were set up and precisely aligned and fixed with a frost-resistant concrete adhesive. The laser technology used ensured that it was perpendicular and even across the entire surface . Then the securing fabric on the front of the mosaic sections could be removed. Then the joints as well as the old network of joints of the glass mosaic were provided with a new mortar. After the removal of mortar residues, the glass mosaic was cleaned with the hot steam technique. The completion of the work was the retouching and glazing of the separating cuts closed by the mortar. The glass stones, which were halved by cutting the glass mosaic, were optically reassembled using painted color retouches .

On April 27, 2006, the mayor of Hanover, Herbert Schmalstieg, celebrated the inauguration of the sport glass mosaic at its new location in good time before the 2006 soccer World Cup in Germany, which was also held in Hanover .

Later it turned out that the glass mosaic Sport is not protected from graffiti . The lower right edge of the glass mosaic was covered by graffiti in 2013, which filled the entire base. Just in time for the fiftieth anniversary, Hannover 96 removed the graffiti for its anniversary celebrations.

Quotes

The Essen architect Gerd Lichtenhahn judged in August 1963:

For me, the mosaic radiates a serious serenity of movement, as happy and serious as real sport wants to be understood. ... Only true artistry can assemble such amorphous mosaic particles into such expressive limbs and faces. Here the abstract has become representational and the representational has become abstract.

In 2007 Roland Jaeger wrote in his monograph about Eduard Bargheer's mosaic work:

Artistically ... the work belongs more to the fifties than the sixties. This also applies to Bargheer's work, because the more recent experiences of his artist trips to North Africa between 1960 and 1962 have not found their way into this. Rather, in this mosaic Bargheer once again expressed, on a large scale, the style of design that he had developed in the course of the 1950s. He remained figurative without being naturalistic, at the same time he stylized without losing himself in formal arbitrariness. The balance between objectivity and abstraction he advocated has proven to be more timeless, or, to put it better, to last longer than some non-figural works that appeared more modern at the time, but which in retrospect looks comparatively arbitrary. Regardless of his position, which has meanwhile become art-historical, Bargheer's mosaic therefore exudes an astonishing freshness of artistic conception today, which does not only come from the colors. After all, it expresses an idealistic carelessness with regard to the function of sport, which, in view of the increasing trivialization and commercialization of all areas of life, including sport, is once again inspiring and downright progressive.

literature

Roland Jaeger: Painting in glass and stone - Eduard Bargheer's mosaic work. ConferencePoint Verlag, Hamburg 2007. Pages 85 to 146.
Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolwe: 50 years old. The sports mosaic by Eduard Bargheer at the AWD-Arena . In: Christian Becker / Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolwe (Red.): Yearbook 2011/2012 from the Lower Saxony Institute for Sports History eV (NISH) . Self-published, Hoya 2012, pages 239–250. ISBN 978-3-932423-37-6

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Proven in the inventory of Dietmar Elger / Ulrich Krempel (eds): Sprengel Museum Hannover. Painting and sculpture. 2 Vol. Hannover 2003. Volume 2, page 51, no. 106.

↑ Source: gum: Stadium renovation threatens ceramic mosaic. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung of December 18, 1998.

↑ Homepage ( Memento of the original from July 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the Hannover 96 Arena GmbH & Co. @1@ 2
↑ Homepage ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the Hanover architecture office Schulze & Partner@1@ 2
↑ Homepage of the Baum group of companies .
↑ Homepage of the engineering office Eilers & Vogel .
↑ Restauratorenteam GmbH Böddeker & Schlichting: Datasheet Translocation Monumental Mosaic “SPORT” ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 117 kB)@1@ 2

↑ Pictures for the relocation of the glass mosaic "Sport". ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2
↑ The quote was taken from here: Roland Jaeger: Painting in glass and stone - Eduard Bargheer's mosaic work. ConferencePoint Verlag, Hamburg 2007. Page 134.
↑ Homepage of Roland Jaeger ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2011 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. @1@ 2
↑ Quoted from Roland Jaeger: Painting in glass and stone - Eduard Bargheer's mosaic work. ConferencePoint Verlag, Hamburg 2007. Page 132.
↑ It is advisable to use the reading room in the Pattensen magazine, Lüderser Weg 2, 30982 Pattensen, as the archive material is located there.
↑ Review by Rüdiger Joppien.

[1] Proven in the inventory of Dietmar Elger / Ulrich Krempel (eds): Sprengel Museum Hannover. Painting and sculpture. 2 Vol. Hannover 2003. Volume 2, page 51, no. 106.

[2] Source: gum: Stadium renovation threatens ceramic mosaic. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung of December 18, 1998.