Villa Gans (Oberursel)
The Villa Gans was an under monument protection standing former upper-class apartment building in Oberursel , Königsteiner Straße 29 years she was a training center of the DGB youth and stood empty since 2004. Because of the planned conversion into a hotel, there have been conflicts with the Hessian State Office for Monument Preservation for years . Because of the dilapidated fabric of the villa and the various serious structural defects, so much of the original fabric had to be removed in close coordination with the monument authorities as part of the renovation work that the building lost its monument status in 2014.
construction
Ludwig Wilhelm Gans (born August 6, 1869 in Frankfurt am Main , 1946 in Copenhagen ), the grandson of Cassella co-founder Ludwig Aaron Gans , had a chemical factory built in Oberursel from 1911 to 1912, the "Pharmaceutical Institute LW Gans" in Oberursel on Zimmermühlenweg. He commissioned the architect Otto Bäppler to build a representative villa outside the city near the road to Königstein. The Villa Gans was built in 1909 and 1910. The area with the field name "Kastanienhain" was overgrown with chestnuts. Elisabeth Gans, the wife of Ludwig Wilhelm Gans, had the site laid out in the style of an English landscape garden on the advice of her father, the garden architect Charles Keller . A riding arena with stables, a garage, a greenhouse and later also a residential building for the factory workers were built in the outbuildings.
The Vordertaunus was the preferred residence of wealthy Frankfurt citizens around the turn of the century. Other members of the Gans family had villas built. For example, the Frankfurt industrialist Adolf Gans in Königstein im Taunus , today the administrative headquarters of the German Pension Insurance Hesse (see: Villa Gans (Königstein) ). Even Clara Gans made in 1929 by the architect Peter Behrens , a Villa Goose at the Falkensteiner road in Kronberg im Taunus build (see Villa Goose (Kronberg) ).
From 1928 the villa was no longer used by the Gans family, who had moved to Frankfurt. The factory also ceased operations in 1931 due to the global economic crisis .
DAF training center
Ludwig Wilhelm Gans sold the villa to Deutsche Bank and Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1932 . These she sold after the seizure of power by the Nazis on 19 September 1934, the German Labor Front (DAF). The DAF named the villa of Villa Gans "Reichsschulungsburg Kestenhöhe" (Gans had converted to Protestantism, but was still considered a Jew in the National Socialist racial ideology). The DAF used the building from October 20, 1935 as a training center for its officials. The term Reichsschulungsburg (the villa has nothing to do with a castle) was also used for a number of other training centers of the DAF and NSDAP and is based on the NS-Ordensburgen , which also served as training centers.
Educational facility of the DGB youth
After the Second World War , the municipality of Oberursel renamed the house back to Villa Gans on August 14, 1945.
The State of Hesse transferred the Villa Gans to the DGB in 1953 as part of the reparation for losses suffered during the Nazi era . From 1953 to 2004 the Villa Gans was used as the “House of the Union Youth”.
Monument protection and hotel project
The park surrounding the residential building was placed under protection in 1966 as an extensive natural monument. The protection relates to the villa with the park and outbuildings, such as the greenhouse, riding arena, hunter's house and workers' house, as a whole.
After the end of its use by the union youth , the owner, IG Metall's asset company (IGEMET), wanted to convert Villa Gans into a hotel belonging to the Dorint chain . A new building in the park and a renovation of the villa were planned. For this purpose, the villa, which, not least due to massive renovation work in the 1930s and 1950s, had a variety of static and fire protection problems, was to be reconstructed true to the original using the still usable original substance. The State Office for the Preservation of Monuments raised an objection to this project. On January 28, 2011 , the Frankfurt am Main Administrative Court rejected a lawsuit against the non-granting of the building permit applied for in 2009 .
In February 2011, IGEMET filed an appeal with the Frankfurt Administrative Court. At the same time, she submitted a further building application, which provides for the exact implementation of the preliminary building permit, which was approved in March 2008. On March 7, 2012, a settlement was reached before the Hessian Administrative Court between IGEMET, the city of Oberursel and the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (represented by its president, Prof. Weiß), according to which IGEMET received the contested building application from 2009 by way of a supplementary building application changes that the project is no longer to be realized by means of reconstruction, but by means of the renovation of Villa Gans, whereby the original planning of the building application from 2009 (especially with regard to the floor plans) is retained. In the settlement, the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments declared the agreement under monument protection law, since the floor plans of the building application at issue corresponded better to the technical requirements than the preliminary building permit. In 2013, experts determined that the roof structure was not durable for structural reasons. The city of Oberursel and the State Office for Monument Protection agreed that the historic building had to be closed for reasons of public safety. A new building was no longer under monument protection, even if IGEMET wanted to make it as true to the original as possible. The previous cultural monument was removed from the state's list of monuments in April 2014. The status of the park and the outbuildings remained open. The city of Oberursel, as the lower monument protection authority, had an interview with the legal advisor and deputy head of the State Office for Monument Preservation in Hesse on this question. He explained that with the elimination of the villa as the nucleus of the material entity, the remaining parts of the building were also to a certain extent withdrawn. The state office is no longer interested in considering the remaining outbuildings from the point of view of monument preservation. In the case of parks, it is also common practice of the State Office to only award a monument property if the building on which the park is based is still there. That is no longer the case here.
In February 2014, the city of Oberursel and the investor mutually agreed that construction of the hotel would begin in a few weeks. However, the demolition of various parts of the building that began after that resulted in only a few relics of the Villa Gans remaining.
The hotel construction was completed in 2016. A new building was added to the villa and the outer shell was rebuilt in the English style. In the interior there are elements from the building's construction period with changed floor plans. Hotel operations began in July 2016.
park
The park of Villa Gans with 55 protected trees. False cypresses, sequoias, hanging beeches, pyramidal oaks, tulip trees, trumpet trees and other exotic trees are designated as natural monuments .
Theater in the park
From 1994 to 2010 the park of the villa was the venue for the open-air theater series “Theater im Park”.
literature
- Paul Ciupke, Franz-Josef Jelich: A New Beginning: Political Youth and Adult Education in West German Post-War Society , 1999, ISBN 3884747223
- Angelika Baeumerth: Oberursel am Taunus , 1991, ISIN 3-7829-0404-4, pp. 264, 289
- Angela von Gans, Monika Groening: The Gans Family 1350-1963 , Verlag Regionalkultur, Heidelberg 2006. ISBN 978-3-89735-486-9
Individual evidence
- ↑ Oberursel Villa Gans: Villa Gans flies off the list - Bad Homburg and Hochtaunus - Frankfurter Rundschau (webarchive)
- ↑ When Villa Gans was built, only the best was good enough; in: Taunuszeitung from January 26, 2010, p. 19
- ↑ File number: 4 K 783 / 10.F, see also VG press release
- ↑ Martina Jensong: Farewell to the memorial. In: Taunus newspaper Bad Homburg. April 11, 2014, accessed on March 5, 2018 (German).
- ↑ On the subject: Removed from the list. In: Taunus newspaper Bad Homburg. April 11, 2014, accessed on March 5, 2018 (German).
- ↑ Information from the head of the Lower Monument Protection Authority, Wolfgang Breese, to City Councilor Dr. Christoph Müllerleile with email from April 10, 2018.
- ↑ Four-star hotel in Villa Gans in FAZ of February 13, 2014, page 52
- ↑ FAZ of April 22, 2014, page 42
- ↑ Gothic-style glass window in FAZ from June 1, 2016, page 52
- ^ Reborn country house in FAZ of July 23, 2016, page 41
Coordinates: 50 ° 12 ′ 5.5 ″ N , 8 ° 33 ′ 43.9 ″ E