Villa Genienau

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Villa Genienau, street front (2014)

The Villa Genienau is a villa in Mehlem , a district of the Bad Godesberg district of Bonn , which was built in 1904/05. It is located as a solitary in the south of the district about 70 m west of the banks of the Rhine on the street Im Frankenkeller (house number 51) in the middle of a spacious river plain. The villa stands as a monument under monument protection .

history

The villa was built for the client Paul Grosser (1864–1911), a geologist , based on a design by the Cologne architect Heinrich Offergeld, who was also the site manager . The property was probably named after the client's wife, Eugenie Grosser. In response to a first building application from December 7, 1903, the building permit was initially refused on December 12, as the property was not yet in the property of the client and was the subject of a merger procedure. On December 21, 1903, Grosser submitted another building application with the notification that he wanted to build the house on a plot of land that he already owned. Building applications dated March 21 and June 14, 1904 were finally approved. The shell construction acceptance for the newly built villa took place on February 14, 1905, and the Grosser family moved in on September 8, 1905.

In the autumn of 1911, both Paul Grosser and his wife - the latter first - committed suicide one after the other . Both had remained childless. The villa came into the possession of the Privy Councilor of Commerce Rudolf Böcking (1843–1918), an ironworks owner and foundry technician, by auction by 1913 at the latest . It remained in the property of this family at least until 1938. The building was empty by 1945 at the latest. From 1948 it served as the manufacture of a doll manufacturer founded in the same year by the wholesaler Erich Dittmann (* 1901) in Bonn, the West German doll and earthenware factory . At the beginning of the year, 34 rooms in the villa were rented by the community of heirs Böcking / Fölkersamb, but from May 15 to October 8, 1948 it was confiscated by the occupying forces and during this time could only be used by Dittmann on the ground floor. After that at the latest, the company was relocated from Bonn to Bad Godesberg. The factory actually functioned as the second mainstay of the oldest German doll factory August Riedeler in Königsee, Thuringia (founded in 1872) with a similar production program until Dittmann became an entrepreneur after the currency reform . In 1952, the large open staircase at the rear of the building was demolished for the manufacture and, according to plans by architects Schmidt and Ernst van Dorp, false ceilings were installed to create production rooms. In the same year Dittmann acquired the villa from the community of heirs. Also at the time of its use as a doll factory, the side ramps leading up to the first floor were torn down on the street front.

In autumn 1960 the factory was deregistered and Dittmann's private assets were foreclosed. The villa became the property of Kreissparkasse Bonn, which sold it to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1961. In 1962 it found a new use as a warehouse for the technical relief organization and the Federal Air Protection Association . On January 20, 1991 the villa was entered in the monuments list of the city of Bonn. The Bonn Federal Property Office put it up for sale, which was initially planned for commercial use and which did not succeed for years. In 1997 the property was finally sold in private ownership. A comprehensive renovation followed, which also included restoring the outside staircase to the rear. The villa's former porter's house is now part of a neighboring campsite and is used as a residential building, while Villa Genienau itself is used as an event location.

architecture

The villa is a white-framed plastered building , which consists of a basement floor with plastered ashlar and an upper floor as well as ten axes on the street side and nine on the Rhine side . Stylistically , it can be assigned to the pictureque Italian Renaissance and is unique among the villas in Bonn and Bad Godesberg, based on the example of Greek or Roman temple buildings of antiquity with columns and beams of the Ionic order . It stands in direct view of the Drachenfels, one kilometer away, on the opposite bank of the Rhine.

Street and Rhine front

The street front is structured by two single-axis corner projections and a portico in the middle of the main floor. The windows of the corner risalites and the two adjacent axes are framed by Ionic columns. The corner projections are framed by pilasters and, like the windows between the corner projections and portico, are closed at the top by an entablature and a triangular gable. A cornice with a block frieze , merging in the corner projections into a sloping geison, forms the upper end of the facade.

The front of the Rhine is accompanied by an open columned hall , which protrudes in a three-axis central projection and continues from this on both sides with three columns each. The central projection has a triangular gable with an oculus , and a double flight of stairs leads to it (rebuilt in a reduced form). The windows - one wide in the middle and two narrow ones on the side - are made up of several parts and are arranged in line with the portico, are separated by pilasters and closed off by an entablature with a block frieze . They are particularly emphasized by palmettes - Antefixa . An iron parapet with geometrical, meander-like ornamental shapes serves as the outer boundary of the columned hall . The corner projections are uniaxial and have multi-part windows surrounded by columns as well as a triangular gable.

inside rooms

While the basement originally included the kitchen , side rooms and stables (for horses, cattle, goats and chickens), the upper floor accommodated the living rooms. The main living room is level with the central part of the portico, is 5 m high and covers 80  m² . The originally preserved furnishings include a ceiling stucco and a double-leaf, coffered and profiled door.

literature

  • Olga Sonntag : Villas on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn: 1819–1914 , Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-416-02618-7 , Volume 3, Catalog (2), pp. 97–100. (also dissertation University of Bonn, 1994)
  • Olga Sonntag: Villas on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn: 1819–1914 , Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-416-02618-7 , Volume 1, p. 292. (also dissertation University of Bonn, 1994)
  • Association for Home Care and Local History Bad Godesberg (ed.): Godesberger Heimatblätter , Issue 36/1998, Bad Godesberg 1998, ISSN  0436-1024 , pp. 159-164.
  • Hans Kleinpass: The street names of the Mehlem district, 2nd part: Elsternweg to Langenbergsweg. In: Godesberger Heimatblätter , Volume 19/1981, ISSN  0436-1024 , pp. 5-38 (here: pp. 27-30).

Web links

Commons : Villa Genienau  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ formerly Genienaustrasse
  2. ↑ List of monuments of the city of Bonn (as of March 15, 2019), p. 27, number A 2393
  3. ↑ a b c Horst Heidermann : Godesberger Industrial History III . In: Godesberger Heimatblätter: Annual issue of the Association for Home Care and Local History Bad Godesberg eV , ISSN  0436-1024 , Issue 50/2012, Association for Home Care and Local History Bad Godesberg , Bad Godesberg 2013, p. 94–145 (here: p. 139– 143).
  4. ↑ a b Good phrase for Villa Eugenie , General-Anzeiger, October 31, 1997
  5. ↑ Villa Genienau "fantastic location on the Rhine" , General-Anzeiger, October 8, 2002
  6. ↑ On the trail of the "Edi dolls" produced , General-Anzeiger, January 16, 2010


Coordinates: 50 ° 39 ′ 13.7 ″  N , 7 ° 12 ′ 10.4 ″  E