Technical administration building of Hoechst AG
The technical administration building of Hoechst AG is an expressionist office building by the architect Peter Behrens on the site of the former Hoechst AG in Frankfurt-Höchst . It was built between 1920 and 1924. Since the merger of Hoechst AG with other companies and the associated abandonment of the traditional company name, the operator of today's Höchst industrial park has been calling it Peter-Behrens-Bau . A part of the building achieved worldwide fame in a stylized form as the company logo tower and bridge of Hoechst AG (1947–1997).
The listed building complex is divided into two three-storey administrative wings and a representative entrance area with the striking tower and the bridge that connects the building with the former main office . It is only accessible to the public on certain dates as it is located on the cordoned-off area of the Höchst industrial park. Because of its importance for industrial culture , it is part of the Rhine-Main industrial culture route .
The building was declared Monument of the Year in Frankfurt am Main by the Frankfurt Monument Advisory Board in September 2008 .
history
1920 to 1924 - planning and construction
In June 1920, the board of directors of Farbwerke Hoechst under General Director Adolf Haeuser decided to merge the technical departments that had been scattered throughout the Höchst plant in a representative new building on Alte Mainzer Landstrasse (today Brüningstrasse ) in the west of the then still independent town of Höchst am Main . The facade of the new administration building should be at least 150 meters long. For this purpose, a plot of land opposite the main office at that time , the management building built in 1892, was selected. On August 21, the request was sent to the Berlin architect Peter Behrens , who immediately created the first drafts, so that the contract for the new technical office building for the Farbwerke was signed on September 14 . Meister, Lucius & Brüning in Höchst am Main . On December 31, 1920 the building department of the Farbwerke applied for a license, and in January the demolition of the older buildings on the building site began. The shell was largely completed by the end of 1921, after which further expansion of the building was delayed. Above all, the lack of building material in the inflationary years and the occupation of the Höchst plant by French troops on May 5, 1923, caused the construction work to come to a complete standstill for a time. It was not continued until April 1924 after the introduction of the Rentenmark . The grand opening of the monumental office building took place on June 6, 1924.
1925 to 1945 - IG Farben
However, the new building soon lost its importance because on November 12, 1925, the color works merged with other chemical companies to form IG Farbenindustrie AG . In 1930, the administration of what was then the fourth largest company in the world moved into the new IG-Farben building built by Hans Poelzig in Frankfurt's Westend . The Höchst plant increasingly lost importance in the following years. In the 1930s there were therefore numerous renovations inside the building. The side aisles of the large exhibition hall on the ground floor were converted into the plant's switchboard and storage rooms. The large meeting rooms on the first and second floors, the so-called marble hall , were divided into three offices each.
The Second World War left the Höchst plant largely undamaged. Only on June 29, 1940, some high-explosive bombs hit the site during an air raid , one of which devastated the lecture hall in the north of the building. It was restored in a simplified form during the war and renovated in 1951 in the style of the 1950s.
After the Second World War
In June 1952, IG Farben was released from Allied control. The company went into liquidation and was split up into eleven successor companies, including Farbwerke Hoechst AG . In 1954 the adjacent Brüningstrasse was closed to public traffic.
In 1965, all buildings in the Höchst plant were given new names according to a uniform scheme. Since then, the Behrensbau has been referred to as building C 770 , the board building opposite as D 706 . The Behrensbau became the seat of the personnel department.
Infraserv
In 1994 Hoechst AG began to be converted into a holding company. Since January 1, 1998, Behrensbau has belonged to Infraserv GmbH & Co. Höchst KG , which, as the operating company of the Höchst industrial park, was spun off from Hoechst AG. In 1998 a comprehensive restoration of the Behrens building began. The facade was cleaned and repaired, all windows and all building services were renewed. While the offices have largely been adapted to modern requirements, the floors, corridors, galleries and courtyards are largely in their original condition. In 2002 the restoration was largely completed. In 2005, the lecture hall was modernized and the marble hall on the second floor renovated, whereby the original building fabric, which had disappeared behind the wooden paneling, was largely exposed. The exhibition hall, which has been heavily modified by renovations, was renovated in 2007 and restored to its original state as far as possible.
Today the Behrensbau is the seat of the management of Infraserv Höchst and the Hoechster pension fund . The building is not open to the public, but can be viewed regularly as part of special guided tours.
Building description
Basics
The building can be assigned to brick expressionism, which can be seen in the exterior and interior architecture as well as in the details. Central motifs are the colors, which indicate the client, and crystal motifs, which can be recognized as ornaments in the lighting such as windows and lamps. The paintings by the De Stijl group are also quoted in the stained glass windows . Peter Behrens, who at the time of construction already had a lot of experience in industrial and administrative buildings, wanted to show in his work the great importance of handicrafts and work after the First World War. To do this, he had many components such as door handles, railings or individual windows manufactured by hand.
Facade design
For cost reasons and in contrast to the historical management building opposite , the technical administration building was completely made of brick . Behrens avoided a monotonous facade of the 185-meter-long building complex by using different colored bricks and dividing the elongated building into three construction phases.
The two office wings, which due to the course of the street converge at an obtuse angle in an entrance structure, were given a rampart-like base that tapers towards the top. The windows in the base are square and relatively small. On the two floors above, he grouped the high windows one below the other by creating a fluting from recessed lighter masonry. This vertical dominance is broken by individual horizontal friezes made of light brickwork. The top floors are set back and have parabolic windows as a defining element that are reminiscent of Gothic pointed arches.
Bridge, tower and middle section
Bridge and tower are the two defining elements of the overall complex. The middle section contains the main entrance and the main staircase of the building. The facade is similar to that of the administration wing, but is more vertical. While these end with parabolic windows, there is a third narrow window column in the middle part. The tower dominates this middle section again. In the upper area there are the sound openings of the glockenspiel and a clock. Despite the existing bells, the carillon was never completed due to cost reasons. Originally it was supposed to signal the shift change to the workers of the inking plants with sounds from Richard Wagner's Lohengrin . A brick arched bridge spans across Brüningstrasse from the tower to the management building, which was built in 1892, and takes up the parabolic motif of the upper office window.
Tower of the Behrensbau with the characteristic clock
architectural detail on the bridge
The main entrance in the representative central building is very reserved. The three doors are in the recessed window columns. Above the entrance are two lions carved in stone, which represent the company coat of arms of Meister, Lucius & Brüning , the company from which the color works emerged.
Interior design
Entrance, main hall, exhibition and staircase
Compared to a cruciform basilica , the main hall forms the nave, which is connected to the entrance via a transept. The transept, i.e. the corridor from the three entrance doors into the hall, is very low and dark and thus forms a contrast to the imposing main hall.
The hall takes up the entire height of the central structure and is illuminated by large windows in the ceiling. The height of around 15 meters is optically stretched by several architectural aids. The corridors running around the individual floors become lower towards the top and the windows become narrower. The only ornament in this hall is the bare masonry of the columns that frame the octagonal ceiling windows at the top and taper towards the bottom. An alternating color scheme counteracts the solidity of the very wide masonry at the top: the bottom clinker bricks are green, followed by blue, red, purple, orange and finally yellow.
Opposite the entrance in the transept is the former exhibition room in which the color works presented their color products. It was designed as a three-aisled hall, the seven-meter-high ceiling of which was supported by six columns, and was illuminated by large, colored glass windows on three sides. This architecture, like the large windows for adequate lighting, has changed many times over the years. As early as the 1930s, the room was redesigned into a memorial for employees who died in World War I. In 1938 the side aisles were separated and divided into several rooms by concrete ceilings, which initially served as the plant's telephone switchboard and since the 1960s as storage and conference rooms. The statue of a worker who rolls up his sleeves, created by Richard Scheibe , was the only original piece of equipment left in the exhibition hall.
vertical view into the entrance hall
Exhibition room with the worker statue
From June to December 2007 the hall was restored true to the original, windows and walls reconstructed according to old templates . The strong colors of the new bricks stand out clearly from the original bricks in the entrance hall, which have faded over the decades, and thus give an impression of Behren's original plans.
The main stairs are at the ends of the nave. They run over mezzanines to the balustrades of the main hall up to the third floor. The main staircase now also has an elevator that extends to the fourth floor. The windows on the mezzanines facing the inner courtyard are painted in color.
Lecture hall and marble hall
The lecture hall of the Behrensbau is located on the first floor, above the exhibition space. The original hall was designed according to the overall concept and had extensive wood paneling. After it burned out in World War II, it was rebuilt in the 1950s in the style of that time.
View from below of the tiers of the lecture hall
Looking down from the tiers of the classroom
Opposite, above the entrance, was the so-called marble hall. It owes its name to the travertine wall cladding , which is reminiscent of marble . A special feature was the chandelier, which was also designed by Behrens. An exit to the bridge connected the room directly with the board building opposite. As part of a redesign, the marble hall was divided into three individual offices, whereby the chandelier also disappeared.
Office wings and courtyard
The office wings adjoin the central building. They are located around an inner courtyard, the facades of which are faced with white clinker bricks, so that the incident light is reflected as much as possible into the surrounding corridors. The corridors to the offices are simpler than the representative main hall. The dominant material is wood. In the office wings there are two smaller side staircases at the end of the east wing and in the middle of the west wing, there is a paternoster lift in each of the two stairwells and a freight elevator in the west wing. The north-west wing of the Behrensbau originally housed open-plan offices for the drawing rooms of the technical departments. The halls were later divided into numerous individual rooms.
View of the inner courtyard
Wood-paneled interior corridor in the office wing
Clinkered inner corridor around the entrance hall
literature
- Bernhard Buderath (Ed.): Converted light. The administration building of Hoechst AG . Prestel, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-7913-1059-3 .
- Infraserv GmbH & Co. Höchst KG (ed.): The Behrensbau in the Höchst industrial park . Frankfurt am Main 2005.
- Monika Vogt: Lust and love are the wings to great deeds. Encounters with historical sites of enjoyment in Hessen . 2009, p. 108 f .
Web links
- Operator's website with picture gallery
- Series of four authorized photos on the FAZ
- State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Hoechst AG - Technical Administration Building In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hessen
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brand Lexicon - Logos
- ↑ The most beautiful of the year in Frankfurter Rundschau on September 26, 2008
- ↑ A unique hall in the Höchster Kreisblatt from September 26, 2008
- ↑ Intoxication of work. In: Frankfurter Rundschau of December 13, 2007
Coordinates: 50 ° 5 ′ 41 ″ N , 8 ° 32 ′ 4 ″ E