Beach chair
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A beach chair is special seating and relaxation furniture for the beach. It consists of a two-part wooden frame with wickerwork. Its upper element forms a semicircular arched, covered seating niche. Thanks to its lining with weatherproof fabric, it protects against wind, sun, rain and sand drift when you are on the beach. Extendable foot boxes, awnings and folding tables offer the user some comfort.
description
The standard model of a beach chair is a two-seater and has changed its shape and design only insignificantly since around 1910. It is about 160 centimeters high, 120 centimeters wide, 70 to 80 kilograms and consists of four basic elements: The trestle , which forms the base, is usually made of pine or spruce , sometimes also from birch plywood or plywood , African iroko or Asian Teak , and treated against the elements. The two side parts are screwed to the stand , each with carrying handles on the outside. The hood , as the back part that merges into a roof is called, is hung in two to three metal loops on the back of the frame, so it remains movable and can be adjusted backwards in four or five locks . The side parts and hood have a wooden frame filled with wickerwork . 95 percent of the beach chairs are woven from plastic strips; if natural material was used, this is usually lacquered cane made of bamboo or rattan imported from Asia . In very rare cases a basket is still traditionally made from willow .
The all-weather seat is lined with impregnated awning fabric or PVC film , the seat is filled with foam or coconut mat . The equipment of the basic model includes extendable and padded foot boxes, one or two side tables suspended on wire brackets that snap into a milled groove, armrests and a folding sun awning on the roof edge . Almost all models also feature a cross-stretched cord in the upper transition from the backrest to the hood; it is used to hang towels or textiles . The wickerwork is usually white or natural, but other, often sunny or bright colors are also used. Colorful is the lining, striped fabric patterns are popular, as on seasonal fashions back cross designs . In addition, rental baskets have wooden grids with which the seating niches are closed when not in use and which enable the user to leave his backberry pulp on the beach when absent or overnight.
Beach chairs of other sizes, from one-seater to five-seater, and with additional equipment, such as a fold-out seat and integrated lockable compartment, footrests with storage space, large, removable tables, swivel base with ball bearing , sewn side pockets , which are also called reading bags , are also produced but mostly go back to special orders. With the mixture of "decadence and north German pragmatism" they are said to be, they are enjoying increasing popularity as garden or patio furniture in Germany, they are often equipped with castors and protective covers. For this use and at a corresponding price, the manufacturers also produce so-called luxury versions with built-in heating , bar , refrigerator or music system .
A distinction is made primarily between a Baltic shape with rounded, curved side parts and a curved hood and a North Sea shape with straight sides and angular-looking top. As a rule, both types of construction are semi-recumbent , which can be adjusted backwards up to an angle of 55 degrees. North Sea baskets are sometimes also available as recumbent models that can be lowered by up to 90 degrees. A further development is the Sylt basket , the hood of which can be moved continuously using a mechanically complex spring mechanism . Since the Baltic Sea basket is considered a classic shape and looks more pleasing, it is more widespread, but both forms can be found on the beaches of the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Beach chairs made in the GDR are less common and have achieved cult status . They are not braided; rather, their hoods are made of bent phenolic resin and their side panels are made of chipboard , which, in a play on words , earned them the name type plate . Of these, by applying PGH construction in Rehna produced Rehnaer that are completely separable, particularly sophisticated. Because of their origin, they are mainly found on the beaches of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
history
The manufacture of woven wicker armchairs with a raised back and sides curved forward in a semicircle has been handed down in the European basket-making craft since the end of the 16th century. Written evidence of the covered chairs can be found in the guild regulations of Hamburg (1595), Lübeck (1611), Bremen (1648) and Cologne (1773). The furniture primarily served to protect against drafts in large and cold living rooms and corridors. Their use is known in town houses and farmhouses in the Netherlands and Germany, and in the 18th century also in castles in England , Scotland and Ireland .
Depictions of covered chairs can be found in some paintings by the Dutch painters Willem van Herp (1614–1677) and Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678), for example in the peasant floorboards with satyr and traveler or satyr with peasant or in the picture How the ancients sung The boys chirp , which shows the Flemish bourgeoisie dining and making music. In these domestic scenes of the 17th century, mostly older women sit in the sheltered baskets. The painting Grandfather in a Wicker Chair by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751–1829) from 1811 also depicts a semi-closed wicker armchair with a wooden base and a plaited structure.
It is not known whether covered chairs were used outside of houses before 1870; the literature only refers to the great similarity with the beach chairs that became popular in Dutch and German seaside resorts at the end of the 19th century .
Beach and bathing inventory
The first German seaside resorts emerged towards the end of the 18th century, on the Baltic Sea in 1793 with the founding of Heiligendamm and on the North Sea in 1797 with the opening of a seaside resort on Norderney . The development of the seaside resorts brought with it a bathing culture that had a medical background and was subject to certain regulations for observance of morality . Taking these developments into account, the ideas of beach facilities such as bathing huts made of wood, straw or clay framework - locally also called air snapper - and especially bathing carts were adopted from English seaside resorts . With the social change from the middle of the 19th century, the coastal towns became increasingly important for tourism , and stays and promenades on the beach developed their own culture. In addition to the beach huts, beach tents were also used to protect against sun and wind, both in sizes that could accommodate entire families and in smaller versions, box-like or round, for two to three people. Simple benches or beach chairs provided seating.
It is unclear when and where the first covered chairs were used as beach inventory. The entry in a pattern book published in 1871 by the basket maker Ernst Karl Nikolaus Freese is considered the earliest written document about a beach chair. There, in addition to a sample drawing, a “beach chair with a canopy made of willow and rattan, painted with oil paint” is described: “The roof is covered with strong canvas and soaked in oil so that it offers sufficient protection against wind and rain. The vertical height of the roof is 180, width 65 and depth above the backrest 62. "
In a protocol of the Royal Finance Directorate in Hanover there is an entry under the date September 25, 1873, according to which 800 Reichstaler are required for the maintenance of beach and bathing equipment on Norderney : in addition to the bathing carriages and deck boards, beach chairs are also listed. A document from the Dutch State Archives from 1875, which documents an order for 36 one-seaters and 36 two-seaters from craftsmen on Norderney , is also about accounting . Also known is the recommendation of a Berlin spa doctor from 1878, who advised spa guests to use baskets, "as they stand on Norderney and in Scheveningen."
The appearance of the Kiepen by the sea found an echo in representations and travel reports, an unknown author describes the amusement possibilities of the spa guests in an edition of the journal Gartenlaube from 1881 after a stay at the sea on Norderney :
"Men and women promenade around the toilet in a colorful variety or sit in the wonderfully woven beach chairs protected from the wind and sun."
This essay is illustrated with a graphic by the painter Franz Schreyer, which shows some of the named wicker armchairs in front of the dunes of Norderney, below the villas Knyphausen and Fresena . Arthur Langhammer used the same motif for a wood engraving, which was also published in Edmund Hoefer's book Coastal Trips on the North and Baltic Seas in 1881. The use of this seating on the North Sea is also documented with a depiction of the beach in front of Scheveningen in South Holland, dated 1878, and a photograph of the Herrenstrands of Sylt from before 1880 .
Josef Weinberger: Donkey siesta on the beach at Scheveningen , 1878
Franz Schreyer: Beach at low tide on Norderney , 1880
Arthur Langhammer: Beach on Norderney , 1881
A letter from Theodor Fontane to his wife Emilie during a bathing stay on Norderney is another early testimony to the use :
“I went from the Kurhaus to the beach and so dawned from bank to bank. When I was at the main station, where there are many hundreds of basket huts where you can enjoy the sea air, I felt grabbed from behind, and the little Jewish painter professor Michael stood in front of me. [...] He dragged me to his wicker hut, where I was introduced to the professor [...]. "
Bartelmann's beach chair
Regardless of the forerunners, the Rostock court basket maker Wilhelm Bartelmann (1845–1930) is widely regarded as the inventor of the beach chair. In this context, the story of its origins has been passed down, according to which in the spring of 1882 an elderly lady named Elfriede von Maltzahn, suffering from rheumatism, wanted a protective seat on the beach so that she could enjoy a summer stay in Warnemünde despite illness . The master then created a single-seater, initially called a beach chair , made of wicker and cane, which he covered with a gray awning fabric. In shape it was similar to the beach chairs in the North Sea; it is believed that he was inspired by Ernst Freese's drawings for basket makers . In the opinion of the publicist Horst Prignitz , Bartelmann was nevertheless “rightly awarded” the invention , as he continued to develop the armchairs for the subsequent orders that were soon to come. So he built the two-seater within a short time and provided the furniture with details such as awnings, footrests and side tables. The prototype was created , which spread to the Baltic and North Sea within a few years.
The economic success is, however, due to the business idea of his wife Elisabeth Bartelmann (1848 - unknown), who immediately recognized that beach gazebos are difficult to sell as seasonal items . In 1880 she met the basket maker Johann Schaft in Graal and encouraged him to further improve the beach seats that were shown to her. As early as the summer of 1883, she offered the first baskets for rent near the lighthouse in Warnemünde , advertised them in the Allgemeine Rostocker Anzeiger and opened a new line of business. Demand rose quickly, and by the turn of the century Elisabeth Bartelmann set up rentals in six other Baltic Sea resorts - in Graal and Müritz , Dierhagen , Rerik , and Kühlungsborn - Arendsee and Brunshaupten - with the help of her children . The basket weaving workshop received orders from interested parties all over the German Baltic Sea coast, and around 1900 the company also supplied numerous North Sea baths, as can be seen from the business documents. Although the business expanded, Bartelmann rejected the designation manufacturer and continued to see himself as a craftsman . His workshop existed in Rostock until 1942, it was destroyed in the war and never started up again.
Two former journeymen of Bartelmann established important beach chair factories, Johann Falck also in Rostock in 1895 and Franz Schaft from 1907 in Kröpelin . In 1897, Falck created the first semi-recliner , a two-seater wicker hut, one half of which could be folded back 45 degrees from the rear wall. In 1910, the two-part reclining basket with trestle and lowerable hood was created, also in the Falck workshop, based on the basic principle of which the classic is woven to the present day. Franz Schaft was also a resourceful developer; he came up with the idea of the rotatable chair, which with a ball bearing in the base could easily be adjusted according to the weather conditions. But in practice this creation proved unsuitable, the fine sea sand settled on the swivel castors, so that the mechanism failed very quickly.
Growing popularity
The increase in tourism on the North and Baltic Seas led to the growing popularity of holiday furniture and its appearance spread beyond the German seaside resorts to the Dutch and Flemish coasts. In Warnemünde in 1892, ten years after Bartelmann's invention, around one hundred baskets were counted; around 1900 the number rose to 550, which belonged to three landlords. In 1935, 16 local providers rented around 3,000 of these box seats, the total between Boltenhagen and Dierhagen was 7,500. For comparison: in 2012 there were ten beach chair rentals in Warnemünde with an offer of 1200 baskets.
Until the 1920s, staying on the beach was a privilege of the wealthy bourgeoisie . The shade was only used in high-buttoned clothing to protect against the effects of the weather and, in particular, the sun, undressing and sunbathing on the beach was considered improper, tanned skin was a characteristic of the lower classes . Bathing in the sea - separated by gender - was only planned in designated places, away from the arbours. Morals were relaxed after the November Revolution of 1918. The improvements in working conditions achieved, such as the collectively regulated entitlement to vacation leave , now made it possible for parts of the workforce to take vacation by the sea. The customs changed and it was "finally allowed in the mostly prudish seaside resorts to sunbathe in a beach chair and from there to go into the water for a swim."
With the boom in tourism, a number of beach furniture workshops and manufacturers emerged, particularly on the Baltic coast . The industry was very creative and applied for a number of patents . In 1905 in Lübeck, Adolf Moritz presented a seat basket that could also be used as a suitcase by attaching doors. Theodor Krech and Samuel Zwalina from Meiningen in 1906 offered a collapsible unique specimen , the exact arrangement and use of a large number of tenons, joints, levers, hinges and foldable rods are described in detail in instructions and provided with drawings. The invention of Lübeck's Wilhelm Schulze, who submitted his patent specification in 1911, is described as spectacular: “In an upright position, the object serves as a beach chair as usual. If you want to use the basket as a boat, all you have to do is flip it over and bring it to the water. ”None of these ideas were successful.
Beach chair as a suitcase by Adolf Moritz, 1905
Foldable beach chair by Krech and Zwalina, 1906
Beach chair for boat use by Wilhelm Schulze, 1911
The standard model has also been improved with details of the patents submitted, for example galvanized handles and improvements to the locking and adjustment mechanisms. In many cases there were disputes about the authorship and as a result there were litigation before various courts that lasted for years.
The beach chair industry remained a growth sector until 1939 , even if inflation and mass unemployment brought with it slumps in some years. During National Socialism , the regime promoted vacation on the German coasts, the beach units offered the program Kraft durch Freude an ideal backdrop for coordinated and monitored leisure activities. During the Second World War, however, the basket makers were involved in the production of goods essential to the war effort, for example many companies were commissioned to weave ammunition baskets.
In the post-war period and in divided Germany, the holiday resorts on the seashore in the east and in the west were soon put back into operation. The holiday service of the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) regulated the distribution of the quarters in the GDR, the beach places were completely occupied year after year. In particular, the period of the economic miracle from the 1960s onwards gave people in the FRG the opportunity to take mass vacations, which were enjoyed by the sea. So here too the sun chairs were limited and had to be pre-ordered for months. The beach chair remained a "beach furniture that unites all of Germany and is equally popular on both sides of the iron curtain ."
Beach chair
Since the beginning of the summer season 2016 in various locations in the North and one is sleeping beach chair available, which is suitable for overnight stays at the beach. It is 1.30 meters wide and 2.40 meters long and offers space for two adults. The weatherproof tarpaulin with windows can be completely closed and allows you to spend the night on the beach protected from wind and raindrops.
Production and rental
Even in the 21st century, beach chairs are an important economic factor on the German coasts. Several thousand are produced and sold annually, not just to the seaside resorts, but to a large extent inland, where they have become increasingly fashionable for furnishing terraces and gardens since the 1990s. The rental of over 100,000 basket arbors is a steady source of income in the seasonal business , which benefits both beach chair renters and the households of the health resorts.
Manufacturing
The beach chair factories and workshops usually produce their goods by hand, so that some call themselves manufacturers . Even if various work processes are automated or industrially prefabricated individual parts are used, the main work remains braiding, which cannot be done by machines. Wickerwork is used, as it ensures pleasant ventilation of the basket with good wind and weather protection.
The furniture goes through seven stations in the manufacturing process :
- In the joinery , frame parts and small parts for side tables and footrests are sawed, milled, drilled, planed, sanded and stapled or grooved;
- In the diving shop , the wooden parts are glazed and weatherproof impregnated, sometimes also painted;
- Galvanized sheets for rails, fittings and suspensions are punched and drilled in the locksmith's shop;
- In the braiding , which is the main department with its work intensity, the frame parts are braided. Plastic straps in particular have been used since the late 1960s; a basket takes around 500 meters;
- In the upholstery shop , the awning fabrics are cut and the seats and footrests are upholstered and the side panels are covered with fabric;
- then the assembly takes place
- and the final inspection .
It takes eight to ten hours to make a standard basket. The factories produce in advance in winter, as the majority of orders are scheduled for delivery in March or April of each year. The large beach chair factories produce around 3000 baskets a year.
Beach chair producers
Up until the Second World War there were, in addition to the large workshops, due to the growing demand for beach furniture, there were also a large number of smaller businesses and wickerwork. After 1945 two factories in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and six factories in the west, five in Schleswig-Holstein and one in Lower Saxony, produced the still popular wicker chairs. A list from 1996 names ten beach chair manufacturers, six in Schleswig-Holstein, two in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and one each in Lower Saxony and Hamburg.
Many of the well-known beach chair factories are traditional family businesses whose roots go back to the pioneers in the industry. Your company chronologies partly act like a network that is due to the upheavals in German history.
Wilhelm Bartelmann (1845–1930), Rostock, basket maker, 1870 to 1942
From 1882 Bartelmann manufactured beach chairs. After his death, his eldest son Albert Bartelmann continued the workshop in Rostock until it was destroyed in the war in 1942. From the beach chair rental of his wife Elisabeth Bartelmann, a business enterprise developed that has been family-owned as the Bartelmann residential and commercial building in Kühlungsborn-West since 1903 , with an interruption between 1986 and 1991 when it was incorporated into the state trade organization (HO) as public property was. In 1995 the family also opened a hotel under the name Zum Strandkorb .
Carl Eggers (1888–1964), Mölln , basket maker, since 1948
Eggers ran a family business in Volsrade near Dömitz that had existed since 1772 and was expropriated in 1947 under Soviet occupation . He fled to the west and settled in Mölln. There he founded a new wickerwork shop in 1948; the company has been making beach chairs since 1949. The background to this is the confiscation of 200 beach chairs in the seaside resort of Travemünde by British occupation troops , who had them transported to Bad Harzburg . But nobody there knew what to do with the furniture and the English eventually sold it to Eggers. This is said to have sold some back to Travemünde and another to Scharbeutz, but kept a wicker chair as a model for its own production. After the death of Carl Eggers, the grandson Peter Eggers took over the factory; it has been run as a family business since 2005 as Eggers Strandkorbfabrik oHG .
Johann Falck (1870–1953), Rostock, beach chair factory, 1895 to 1976
Falck was a journeyman with Wilhelm Bartelmann before founding his own company, developed the semi -recliner in 1897 , the two-seater sunbed in 1910 and a basket with a curtain in the 1920s was closed and served as a changing room. Around 1925 the factory employed 100 to 120 workers and was considered the largest beach chair factory of its time. After the Second World War, the founder's son, Albert Falck (1903–1981), continued production to a limited extent. In 1976 the workshop closed due to a lack of production materials. A specialty shop for rattan furniture, wicker and gift items remained in the family business in Rostock.
Carl Martin Harder (1904–1994), Heiligenhafen , beach chair manufacturer, since 1959
Before 1925, Harder was a journeyman in Johann Falck's factory, then he founded a basket manufacture next to his parents' house in Wolgast . In 1933, due to the construction of the Peene Bridge , he had to relocate his business to Heringsdorf on Usedom. During the Second World War, Harder developed a beach chair made of emergency materials such as wood, pressed cardboard, synthetic plates and zinc sheets. After the war, it was initially able to resume production in 1948, but in 1953 it was completely expropriated. In 1956 Hader left the GDR, first settled in Büchen and from 1959 in Heiligenhafen. There he continued to manufacture beach chairs in an abandoned furniture factory. The manufactory had up to 15 employees at times, but usually less than ten. In 1976 the son Dieter Hader took over the factory, who in turn passed it on to his son Thorsten Hader in 2012.
The beach chair factory in Heringsdorf was continued from 1953 to 1989 as VEB Korb- und Wachtwaren . From 1992 to 2008 it traded under the name Korb GmbH Seebad Heringsdorf , and since 2009 as korbwerk .
korbwerk - Korb GmbH , Heringsdorf, beach chair manufacture , since 1992
The company goes back to the basket weaving workshop founded by Carl Martin Harder in 1925 and was transferred to VEB Korb- und Wachtwaren from 1953 to 1989 . In 1992 the company was bought by former employees Mathias Fromholz and Magrit Dittberner from the trust assets and continued to run. In 2008, the company filed for bankruptcy , but the closure was averted a year later with a new business concept. The manufactory has specialized in custom-made products.
PGH Bau , Rehna , from the mid-1960s to 1989
The GDR's production cooperative for handicrafts (PGH) developed the Rehna beach chair, a special plate-type beach chair that is both easy to transport and space-saving due to its relatively easy dismantling. This invention should also go back to Johann Falck.
Franz Schaft (1869–1959), Kröpelin , basket maker, 1897 until after 1918
Schaft was a journeyman with Wilhelm Bartelmann in Rostock until 1907 and was dismissed there due to his participation in a May Day celebration of the woodworkers' association . The ironmonger and beach chair rental company Bertold Lawrenz, who founded his business in Kröpelin in 1897, hired Schaft. Together, the men brought the Berthold Lawrenz basket factory to some degree; at times around a hundred workers were employed. Shaft asserted the authorship of some inventions that were only partially attributed to him. After the First World War , the company ran into financial difficulties and had to close. Franz Schaft continued to work as a basket maker in Kröpelin until his death.
Paul Schardt (1910–1985), Rantum , beach chair manufacturer, since 1947
Schardt came from Bavaria to Sylt after the Second World War and built his beach chair factory there. In the 1950s he developed the Sylt basket , a continuously adjustable North Sea basket . After his death, his stepson Willy Trautmann took over the business.
VEB Korb- und Flechtwaren , Heringsdorf , 1953 to 1989
The East German state-owned enterprise emerged from Carl Martin Harder's expropriated basket weaving. Due to the persistent shortage of materials, the factory developed the type of board made of phenolic resin and plywood from the beach chair he designed from emergency materials during the Second World War . The company, now operated as a carpenter's shop, produced up to 5,000 beach chairs a year, around 2,000 of which were for export, and employed an average of 250 people, at peak times up to 500. In 1992, the company was taken over by former employees Mathias Fromholz and Magrit Dittberner from the Trust assets bought and continued as Korb GmbH Seebad Heringsdorf .
Beach chair rentals
The long-term success of the classic can be seen in the fact that it can be rented as beach furniture and is therefore bought in large quantities by rental companies. Elisabeth Bartelmann founded the first beach chair rental company in Warnemünde in 1883, because she realized that local and seasonal products would be difficult to sell. Within a few years, the business idea spread to the Baltic and North Sea. Since the end of the 19th century, the municipalities, spa or bathing administrations have been regulating rentals in many places. They assign seats, issue licenses and charge fees. In some places, the spa administrations organize the rental themselves. A system of organization was introduced, mostly the baskets are clearly marked with the initials or abbreviations of the landlord and numbered.
The number of arbours standing on German beaches is estimated at 100,000 to 130,000, which are looked after and rented out by several hundred beach chair attendants. The seasonal business runs from April to October and starts with spring cleaning and bringing the chairs to the beach. This work accomplished today mostly executor , some places are due to the nature of the terrain or conservation reasons still horse-drawn carts used. The distribution system is organized differently from region to region. While private companies are in competition with each other on the North Sea in particular , there are municipalities on the Baltic Sea in which rental is organized on a cooperative basis and the annual income is divided among each other according to the respective basket inventory. After the collection in autumn, the maintenance and the recording of the stocks, the necessary new orders for the next season go out. The average shelf life of a rental basket is given as five to ten years. Repair work takes place in winter, and some basket keepers are expected to qualify as basket weavers.
Culture
The cultural characterizations of the antiquated permanent seat from the imperial era or the reading room in the sand are complex. When viewed as an object, it is a picture and symbol of German history, an idea from the Romantic era , realized in the early days and widespread in mass tourism . Yet it is a rare motif in art . Its cultural benefit is seen in the view from the inside out, in the relaxing view of the sea and horizon - or, more matter-of-factly, by those who try to read a newspaper or put on sun protection on the windy North or Baltic Sea coast : “First the Beach chair makes the newspaper and the cream compatible with the beach. "
German phenomenon
Beach chairs are a German phenomenon and an integral part of beach culture. In the Dutch seaside resorts, where they were still present in large numbers at the turn of the 20th century, their mass appearance was replaced by deck chairs after the Second World War. They are also rarely found on the English, Danish or Polish coasts, on whose beaches there are similar weather conditions, and also on the sections of the Polish Baltic coast that belonged to the German Reich until 1945 . There is also no translation into other languages for the word beach chair , the German name has been adopted in English and French . Possible explanations for this national preference are already sought in the Romantic era, around a hundred years before the invention of leisure furniture. The longing for the infinite, the merging of sensuality and knowledge , laid in this epoch should find its pacification through the view into the vastness from the "well-protected interior" of the wickerwork at the flood edge.
The beach bunker, built into sand castles raised to form protective walls and clearly labeled with flagpoles, but also in the tradition of a German fence and demarcation mentality and as "the coastal equivalent of the German allotment garden " can be viewed critically . The walling with simultaneous clear signaling goes back to the Weimar Republic , when vacationers began to document their political convictions with flags on beach chairs, and, according to the historian Frank Bajohr , reflects a gradual change in form as a visual occupation of public space . As early as 1920, when the NSDAP was still an insignificant party in Munich, a vacationer on the island of Juist described the symbolism in advance of anti-Semitic riots in the seaside resorts: “Flags flutter on the beach, black, white, red and black and white. There are castles there, hundreds of them, and the swastika is walled up on the moat and the flags waft high in the air. "
The beach culture of the fortress has outlasted several political systems for many decades, but a clear decline has been recorded since the 1990s. The “German monster” turned into a beach sofa with the attributes of dolce far niente , the sweet art of idleness. Usage habits have also changed in line with holiday activities; Beach chairs are mainly rented by the day and only rarely by the week or for an entire vacation period. But sand castles, just as they blow in the wind, become a metaphor for transience.
In some places on the Baltic Sea beach of Świnoujście (Swinoujscie), wicker beach chairs are set up in summer, although Poles actually value the fact that Germany ends at the Oder-Neisse border . The route kilometers of the Usedomer Bäderbahn are still set on Swinoujscie.
Literature and art
The woven cult objects are not an overriding motif in either literature or painting . Nevertheless, they are among the props of the public beach stays of artists , actors and intellectuals . Pictures of the writer resting or reading in this same piece of furniture are best known from Thomas Mann , who liked to work in what he called the little houses . He is said to have developed large parts of the novel Joseph and his brothers in the summers from 1930 to 1932 on the beach of the former East Prussian seaside resort of Nidden . A special situation arose when the author, living in American exile , stayed for some time on the Dutch North Sea in August 1939 . With an essay written there, he conveyed his impressive appreciation:
“My workplace, the most wonderful I know, is lonely. But if it were also livelier, the isolating roar of the surf, the protective side walls of the beach chair, this familiar and peculiarly sheltered little house, would not cause any disturbance. Beloved, incomparably satisfying and appropriate situation, which my life legally brings about again and again! [...] There is no more suitable place for my project. […] In terms of the situation, an old, I would almost like to say: innate connection of ideas, is realized for me; - the spiritual unity of two elementary experiences, one of which is the other's parable: the sea and the epic. "
Thomas Mann, who grew up in Lübeck , had been familiar with beach furniture since he was a child from the nearby seaside resort of Travemünde . In his novel Buddenbrooks , published in 1901, he included it in the description of the place:
“Tony climbed gingerly through the tall, sharp reeds that stood on the edge of the bare beach. The row of wooden beach pavilions with their cone-shaped roofs lay in front of them and gave a clear view of the wicker beach chairs, which were closer to the water. "
The writer, who was living in Munich when he wrote the novel, describes the events on the beach from his personal memory. He overlooks the fact that the beach chair was not yet invented in 1845, the year in which the scene was created. The 2008 feature film Buddenbrooks by Heinrich Breloer takes the described walk - including the beach chairs in the background - which was included in the list of film errors .
In an essay published in 1922, Kurt Tucholsky paid a little literary attention to the storage basket for bathers . In the description of the spring beach cleaning for the "opening of the Baltic Sea", it is considered an integral part of the beach equipment:
“Strong fists grab the fabric covers with which the forests are covered in winter, pull on them and tear them down; the cheering youth cleans the beach and piles up fresh sand as litter for the expected spa guests. [...] It means that washed up beachfront planks have to be put together to form a family pool, beach chairs are mended [.] "
Also the visual artists , who often and gladly stayed at the sea, who painted the sea in many forms and who, according to tradition, appreciated the advantages of wicker armchairs, rarely included the omnipresent inventory in their works. An exception was Max Liebermann , who is said to have brilliantly understood how to capture the atmosphere of the sea and vacation. Above all his beach scenes from Noordwijk aan Zee , created around 1910, with their stylistic proximity to French Impressionism, with their “open moods , convey the orientation towards the object”.
Pictures, paintings and graphics, of beach chairs are also by Erich Büttner , Ivo Hauptmann , Erich Heckel , Wassily Kandinsky , Leo von König , Elena Luksch-Makowsky , Peter Palffy , Karl Schmidt-Rottluff , A. Paul Weber and Marianne von Werefkin known.
As a motif in the film
Beaches and their amenities are popular locations in the film. In particular, German UFA film productions found suitable locations on the Baltic Sea. However, the most famous film scene with a beach chair in the center comes from a Hollywood movie: In Some's Like It Hot ( Some Like It Hot ) by American director Billy Wilder 's 1959 sits Tony Curtis as Joe on the beach in San Diego in a wicker chair and mimes the heir to a millionaire dynasty to impress Sugar , embodied by Marilyn Monroe . One explanation for how this anachronism ended up on the beach in California is seen in the fact that Billy Wilder was an enthusiastic Baltic holidaymaker on Hiddensee before his emigration in 1933 .
The silent film How the cinema takes its revenge from 1912, directed by Gustav Trautschold, is considered a special document . On the one hand, it is one of the early films that make use of film in film , on the other hand, it is called the only work in film history that had a beach chair as a location. The content is the portrayal of an opponent of cinematography , Professor Moralski, who gives fiery speeches against the immorality of the cinema . A film producer takes revenge with the means of film. While an actress seduces the married Moralski in a seat basket, the professor's affair is documented. The producer then presents the sub-film made in this way as a particularly deterring example of corrupting trash films at the anti-cinema congress.
As early as 1912, the film took up the motif of sex in a beach chair , which is still common to the present day and which is also often used in porn films . As a love arbor, the basket was already depicted on postcards at the beginning of the 20th century and its use was advertised both as a romantic nest for rendezvous and as a lounger for shepherds . Correspondingly, it was considered a storm-free booth on the beach for young people of various generations and was sung about with frivolous hit lyrics, for example in 1993 by the duo Andy and Bernd : "When the beach chairs wobble, my child, yes, it's not always the wind."
But the view from the sun box is also inspiring in the film industry . This is how a filmmaker put it, based on her profession , that the side parts of the all-weather basket bundle and concentrate the view:
“It has a format when viewed from a beach chair! A frame. Sit in a beach chair and see the world: a vacation film. The view, not a static postcard, but a moving seascape! But the lateral limitation is important for this. The reduction to a section. A film image. "
G8 summit in a beach chair
When the G8 summit met in Heiligendamm in June 2007, the marketing department of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had the special idea of giving the heads of government of the eight participating economic nations and the President of the European Commission a beach chair specially made for this purpose for a final photo To make available. These photographs, taken on June 8, 2007, have gained some international fame. The photographed beach chair is a good two meters high and placed around a corner almost six meters long; the traditional Korb GmbH was commissioned to manufacture it. For the production, in which all employees of the company were involved and which lasted three weeks, you needed two kilometers of braided tape, one cubic meter of wood and 35 square meters of blue and white cloth. The sun awning was printed with the respective national flags.
After the end of the event, the beach chair was exhibited to the public for a few months in various places, so that interested parties and tourists could have their photos taken in this well-known backdrop. Among other things, he stood in Berlin in front of the Chancellery , at the Brandenburg Gate and on the Day of German Unity on October 3, 2007 in Schwerin. In November 2007 it was auctioned for the benefit of the Ein Herz für Kinder campaign and was bought by Reinfried Pohl , the founder of Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG (DVAG), for a price of one million euros. Since 2008 he has been used for further fundraising.
literature
- Bärbel Hedinger (Ed.): Season on the beach. Bathing life on the North and Baltic Seas, 200 years . Exhibition catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Altona Museum from April 16 to August 31, 1986, Koehler Verlag, Herford 1986, ISBN 3-7822-0390-9 .
- Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum-Verlag, Husum 1996, ISBN 978-3-88042-767-9 .
- Thomas Immisch, Christian Langer (ed.): The beach chair: A world success from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Hinstorff-Verlag, Rostock 2008, ISBN 978-3-356-01279-8 .
- Olaf Matthes, Bardo Metzger (ed.): Wilhelm Bartelmann . In: Bergedorfer Personenlexikon . Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-935987-03-X , p. 20 f.
- Horst Prignitz: From bathing carts to beach chairs. On the history of bathing on the Baltic coast . Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1977.
- Kai Krüger: Beach chairs - and no competition . In: Die Zeit , No. 27/1971
Web links
- The story of the beach chair
- Marketing Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: Brand ambassadors with a long tradition
- kalenderblatt.de: First beach chair
- Beach chair anno 1882 - history & pictures
- Address book Rostock 1910 page 3
- Rostock address book 1924 page 37
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas Immisch, Christian Langer (ed.): The beach chair: A world success from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Rostock 2008, p. 40.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 80.
- ↑ a b Thomas Immisch, Christian Langer (Ed.): The beach chair: A world success from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Rostock 2008, p. 10.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 26.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 23.
- ↑ Horst Prignitz: From bathing carts to beach chairs. On the history of bathing on the Baltic coast . Leipzig 1977, p. 150.
- ↑ Bärbel Hedinger (ed.): Season on the beach. Bathing life on the North and Baltic Seas . Herford 1986, p. 131.
- ^ Ernst Freese: Drawings for basket makers and wicker furniture manufacturers. 800 illustrations on 18 panels with explanatory texts containing the exact dimensions . 3. Edition. Ernst Homann Verlag, Kiel 1871, quoted from: Moritz Holfelder: Das Buch vom Strandkorb . Husum 1996, p. 34.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 34.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 33.
- ↑ Norderney. A study from the German North Sea coast . In: The Gazebo . Issue 39, 1881, pp. 644–647, here p. 646 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
- ^ Theodor Fontane: Fontane's letters in two volumes , published by the National Research and Memorial Centers for Classical Literature in Weimar. Berlin / Weimar 1980, Volume 2, p. 70; quoted from: Bärbel Hedinger: Saison am Strand. Bathing life on the North and Baltic Seas, 200 years . Herford 1986, p. 131.
- ↑ MERIAN Ostseeküste from Flensburg to Lübeck, p. 141, issue 3 March 1979 / C 4701 EX
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 40.
- ↑ Horst Prignitz: From bathing carts to beach chairs. On the history of bathing on the Baltic coast . Leipzig 1977, p. 149.
- ↑ Thomas Immisch, Christian Langer (ed.): The beach chair: A world success from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Rostock 2008, p. 35.
- ↑ Beach chair history & history . bartelmann.com; Retrieved September 19, 2012.
- ↑ Horst Prignitz: From bathing carts to beach chairs . Leipzig 1977, p. 152 f.
- ↑ Horst Prignitz: From bathing carts to beach chairs . Leipzig 1977, p. 154.
- ↑ Minutes of the meeting of the local advisory council Seebad Warnemünde on April 10, 2012 ( memento of the original from December 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 56.
- ^ Patent specification by Wilhelm Schulze from January 14, 1911; quoted from: Moritz Holfelder: Das Buch vom Strandkorb . Husum 1996, p. 53.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 62.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 70.
- ↑ Beach sleep. In: ostsee-schleswig-holstein.de. 2016, accessed June 2, 2018 .
- ↑ Thomas Immisch, Christian Langer (ed.): The beach chair: A world success from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Rostock 2008, p. 89.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 79.
- ↑ Kai Krüger: Beach chairs - and no competition . In: Die Zeit , No. 27/1971.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 163.
- ↑ Thomas Immisch, Christian Langer (ed.): The beach chair: A world success from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Rostock 2008, p. 92; History of the Bartelmann family. bartelmann.com; Retrieved September 22, 2012.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 42 ff.
- ↑ About us. ( Memento of the original from February 10, 2012 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. strandkorb-eggers.de; Retrieved September 22, 2012.
- ↑ Horst Prignitz: From bathing carts to beach chairs. On the history of bathing on the Baltic coast . Leipzig 1977, p. 154; Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 42 ff.
- ↑ a b About us . johann-falck.de; Retrieved September 22, 2012.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, pp. 53, 62, 66 f.
- ↑ Beach chairs “made in Heiligenhafen” . Fehmarnsches Tageblatt , May 10, 2010.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 97 f.
- ↑ press release. No. 153/10. Ministry of Economics, Construction and Tourism of the State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , May 19, 2010, accessed on November 7, 2015 .
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 100 f.
- ↑ Horst Prignitz: From bathing carts to beach chairs. On the history of bathing on the Baltic coast . Leipzig 1977, p. 154; Kroepelin.de: Beach chairs from Kröpelin , accessed on September 22, 2011.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 151 f.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, pp. 69, 97 f.
- ↑ Bärbel Hedinger (ed.): Season on the beach. Bathing life on the North and Baltic Seas . Herford 1986, p. 132.
- ↑ Weatherproof and storm-tested . Tagesspiegel, August 3, 2007; Retrieved September 23, 2012.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 126.
- ↑ Thomas Immisch, Christian Langer (ed.): The beach chair: A world success from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Rostock 2008, p. 8.
- ↑ Roger Boyes: The Bath Towel Syndrome for Advanced Use ; in: Thomas Immisch, Christian Langer (Hrsg.): The beach chair: A world success from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Rostock 2008, p. 12.
- ^ Frank Bajohr: "Our hotel is free of Jews". Everyday anti-Semitism in bathing and health resorts in the 19th and 20th centuries . Lecture from November 7, 2006 in the study center Karl-Marx-Haus in Trier, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung , Trier 2007, ISBN 978-3-89892-616-4 , p. 14 afes.de (PDF)
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 141.
- ↑ Thomas Mann: Anna Karenina . Introduction to the American edition of Leo Tolstoy's novel, 1939; quoted here from: Moritz Holfelder: Das Buch vom Strandkorb . Husum 1996, p. 107.
- ↑ Thomas Mann: The Buddenbrooks. The decline of a family . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin / Weimar 1990, ISBN 3-351-01734-0 , p. 118.
- ↑ Roland Harweg: Fiction and double reality. Studies on the double existence of novel and short story locations using the example of the early work - especially Buddenbrooks - by Thomas Mann . Lit Verlag, Berlin u. a. 2012, ISBN 978-3-643-11660-4 , p. 174 limited preview in the Google book search.
- ^ Buddenbrooks . the seers; Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^ Kurt Tucholsky: Complete edition of texts and letters. Volume 5: Texts 1921-1922 . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-498-06534-3 , p. 340. First printing: Weltbühne , Volume 18, No. 19, May 11, 1922, I, p. 481-483.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 110.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, pp. 111-115; Thomas Immisch, Christian Langer (ed.): The beach chair: A world success from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Rostock 2008, pp. 67-78. Bärbel Hedinger (Ed.): Season on the beach. Bathing life on the North and Baltic Seas . Herford 1986, pp. 161-163.
- ↑ Some like it hot. Film frames. cinema.de; Retrieved September 21, 2012.
- ↑ Thomas Immisch, Christian Langer (ed.): The beach chair: A world success from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Rostock 2008, p. 64.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 146.
- ↑ Silent Film Archive . ( Memento of the original from April 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. stummfilm.at; Retrieved September 22, 2012.
- ^ Moritz Holfelder: The book of the beach chair . Husum 1996, p. 144.
- ↑ Beach chairs. Storm-free stalls by the sea ; in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, article from August 13, 2003 , accessed on September 22, 2012.
- ↑ here quoted from: Moritz Holfelder: Das Buch vom Strandkorb . Husum 1996, p. 5.
- ↑ Thomas Immisch, Christian Langer (ed.): The beach chair: A world success from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Rostock 2008, p. 62.
- ↑ Beach chair donation tour 2008 ( Memento of the original from August 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 20, 2012.
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