Villa Mumm

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Villa Mumm, view from the north
Villa Mumm, view from the south

The Villa Mumm is a palace-like building in Frankfurt am Main and today the seat of the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG).

Location and surroundings

The building was built between 1902 and 1904 by the “champagne baron” Hermann Mumm von Schwarzenstein and his wife Emma, ​​b. Passavant , built in Sachsenhausen on a plot of around 125,000 m² on the edge of the Frankfurt city forest . The gate and the porter's house were on Forsthausstrasse (today Kennedyallee 151). You can now access Villa Mumm via Richard-Strauss-Allee 11.

The family had acquired their new property in exchange for their parent company located on the corner of Zeil and Brönnerstrasse. Although it was very technology-friendly, it had become too loud for her there because of the many trams. The department store of a Belgian company was then built at the former family seat, later the Woolworth department store, and finally the Primark textile department store.

The park area belonging to the villa borders on Kennedyallee ( B43 ) and Richard-Strauss-Allee. In addition to the villa, there are two office buildings built in 1980 and several private houses on the site. The office buildings also belong to the BKG. The office president's offices, meeting and representative rooms and the canteen are located in the villa.

architecture

The design comes from the Danish architect Aage von Kauffmann , a friend of the family who has made a name for himself, among other things, with the construction of stately villas in Frankfurt.

The building is under the sign of historicism and borrows elements from styles of the Renaissance , Baroque and Classicism . It is a compact, symmetrical structure with three main floors. The external resemblance to the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the size of the Villa Mumm (there are six terraces alone) and its concept based on representation gave the building the nickname "Small Opera".

The villa and its park are now a cultural monument due to the Hessian Monument Protection Act .

Re-uses

From 1904 to 1926 the building was the residence of the Mumm von Schwarzenstein family . As a result of the First World War , which also led to the loss of the family's possessions in Champagne , the Mumms were no longer able to raise the property tax, which was drastically increased in the 1930s, despite rental income. The city of Frankfurt am Main bought the property in 1938 on behalf of the Wehrmacht, Army Group Command 2. On September 14, 1938, their servants moved into the villa.

Wehrmacht offices were housed here between 1938 and 1945. This built a bunker under the garden, which was also used by the neighborhood and is still preserved today. The building was damaged but not destroyed in World War II. In 1945 it was confiscated by the American military administration .

As part of Frankfurt's application to become the federal capital in 1949, Villa Mumm was intended to be the seat of the Federal President . Since Bonn won the race, the Oberpostdirektion and the Gehlen Organization ( Federal Intelligence Service ) moved in in 1949 .

In 1955 the building was taken over by the Institute for Applied Geodesy (IfAG), which in 1997 was transferred to the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy. In 1991, a fundamental, complex and listed building was carried out , during which the original room floor plans that were built up after the subsequent use were restored.

literature

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Walter Lachner: Villa Mumm, Publications of the Frankfurter Bürgerstiftung, Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2014
  2. ^ According to the certificate in the cornerstone of the villa, printed by Lachner: Villa Mumm

Coordinates: 50 ° 5 ′ 22.4 "  N , 8 ° 39 ′ 51.6"  E