Villa Blumenhalde

The Villa Blumenhalde is a classicist building in Aarau , Switzerland . It is on the Küttigerstrasse on the southern slope of the Hungerberg, north of the Chain Bridge . The listed building was built in 1817/18 according to plans by Heinrich Zschokke and has been home to the Aarau Center for Democracy since 2009 .

history

The politician and writer Heinrich Zschokke from Magdeburg , who had settled in Aarau in 1802, bought a plot of land on Hungerberg in 1817 and had a country house built on it according to his own plans - in his own words "somewhat in Italian style". The name Blumenhalde also goes back to him. After 16 months of construction, the house was ready to move into in August 1818. Zschokke lived there with his wife Nany Rüsperli, his twelve boys and his only daughter until his death in 1848. Subsequently, Alfred Oehler-Wassmer (1883–1974), owner of the steel works Oehler & Cie, Aargau, and school friend lived here for a time Robert Zschokke. The local civil parish Aarau acquired the house in 1959. From 1990 the didactic for teachers of the district school was located here , and in 2009 the Aarau Center for Democracy, an interdisciplinary research facility financed by the University of Zurich and the City of Aarau, moved in.

Building

The building faces the old town on the opposite bank of the Aare and documents the living ideas of the leading classes at the beginning of the 19th century. A two-story middle wing is flanked by two narrow, also two-story side wings. The south facade has a four-axis central projection , which is closed by a triangular gable with a bezel . At the rear there is an extension with a glazed inner courtyard from 1989/90. In the garden there are sculptures by Sol LeWitt and Irma Russo .

literature

Michael Stettler: The art monuments of the canton of Aargau. Volume I (districts of Aarau, Kulm, Zofingen) . Ed .: Society for Swiss Art History . Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 1948, p. 131-132 .

details

Web links

47.39825 8.04025Coordinates: 47 ° 23 '53.7 " N , 8 ° 2' 24.9" E ; CH1903: 645,418 / 249888

[1] The American conceptual artist Sol LeWitt (1928-2007)

[2] About the artist Irma Russo (1899-1984) in the Aargauer Zeitung