Villa Gans (Kronberg)
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The Villa Gans is a listed upper-class residential building in Kronberg im Taunus (Falkensteiner Straße 19).
history
Clara Gans , known as "Lala", had a country house built by the architect Peter Behrens on Falkensteiner Strasse on the outskirts of Kronberg from 1929 to 1931 . Clara Gans (1881–1959) was the single daughter of five daughters of the Frankfurt industrialist Adolf Gans (1842–1912), who was a brother of the Frankfurt honorary citizen Dr. Leopold Gans was.
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 there: 1910-12, the father built the Villa Gans (Königstein) , today the administrative headquarters of the German Pension Insurance Hesse , and his brother Ludwig Wilhelm Gans had a Villa Gans in 1909 by the architect Otto Bäppler Build Oberursel (see: Villa Gans (Oberursel) ).
Peter Behrens developed a total of 7 designs in different styles. Clara Gans opted for a modern flat roof construction. The building is divided into cubic structures of different heights and offered space for Clara Gans and up to 8 servants. The house stands on a 13,000 m² hillside property. Sand-lime brick from a quarry in Freyburg an der Unstrut was used for facing the facade, and quarry stones from the immediate vicinity were used for the garden walls.
The interior design was lavish and state-of-the-art. Floors and wall coverings were made of precious woods. The living room wall was covered with goat skin parchment. An electrically retractable sliding window was highlighted in contemporary writings.
Persecution of the Jews during the Nazi era
Even if Clara Gans was a Protestant denomination , she was considered a Jew in the racial ideology of the National Socialists because her parents were born Jews (before they converted to Protestantism). During the Reichskristallnacht the Villa Gans was spared attacks. However, ten days later there was an attack by National Socialists who started fire and destroyed the valuable rosewood room (the dining room) worth 30,000 Reichsmarks (in today's purchasing power 129,442 euros). The Kronberg volunteer fire brigade intervened and prevented major damage. As a result of this attack, Clara Gans emigrated to Switzerland, where she lived in Dornach near Basel until her death in 1959 . She took the valuable inventory with her. She never returned to this house.
The house was taken over by the state, restored - but not returned to its original condition - and rented to a Frankfurt industrialist.
After the Second World War
On April 22, 1945, the site was confiscated by the American military authorities. After it was approved, it was sold to a private individual in 1950 who, however, was unable to keep the property due to the high costs. From 1957 to 1967 the future composer Hans Zimmer lived in the Villa Gans.
After several attempts to sell the house failed, it stood empty from 1969 and fell into disrepair. Speculation with the aim of demolishing the house and using the property as a building plot ended when the house was listed in 1974 . After extensive renovation work, it is now used privately as a three-family house.
Grave site of the client Clara Gans
The owner found her resting place in the grave of the Adolf Gans family in Frankfurt's main cemetery .
literature
- Ingrid Berg: Villa Gans, Kronberg - a late work by Peter Behrens; in: Ingrid Berg (Ed.): Heimat Hochtaunus, 1988, ISBN 3-7829-0375-7 , pp. 411-414
- Angela von Gans, Monika Groening: The Gans family 1350 - 1963 ; Regional culture publishing house, 2006, ISBN 3-89735-486-1
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Taunus Zeitung: He sets the Tagesschau | Taunus Newspaper . ( taunus-zeitung.de [accessed on April 3, 2017]).
Coordinates: 50 ° 11 '17.4 " N , 8 ° 29' 17.2" E