Villa Oppenheim (Berlin)

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Villa Oppenheim
Villa Oppenheim Berlin Charlottenburg 002.jpg
Data
place Berlin, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district
architect Christian Heidecke
Client Margarethe and Otto Oppenheim
Architectural style Neo-renaissance
Construction year 1881-1882
Coordinates 52 ° 30 '58.9 "  N , 13 ° 17' 51.2"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '58.9 "  N , 13 ° 17' 51.2"  E

The Villa Oppenheim , also Villa Sorgenfrei , in the Berliner Castle Street in the district of Charlottenburg is a villa in the style of Neo-Renaissance , in which up to 2009, a museum of contemporary art was. Since 2012, the villa has served as a museum of local history and history for today's Berlin districts of Charlottenburg and Wilmersdorf .

The construction

Today's Villa Oppenheim is the successor to an older building. It was built from 1881 to 1882 according to plans by the Berlin architect Christian Heidecke and originally consisted of a three-winged brick complex . Heidecke based the design on the Renaissance villas of Venice . The ground floor received tall rectangular windows with simple sandstone frames, the windows on the upper floor were flanked by pillars and had arched ends within a rectangular frame. Continuous cornices visually separate the floors from one another. The outside staircase leading from the portals of the corner projections into the garden and loggias with inserted columns on the first floor provide a further break-up of the composition . Today's color scheme - red for the walls, white for the dividing elements - emphasizes this arrangement. On the north side there was a balcony above the central portico on the upper floor and the south side was also symmetrically structured by a portico with a central projection. The roof was a trimmed mansard hipped roof . The building is a historical monument.

history

At the time when Charlottenburg was first developed, the grounds included the stables , menagerie and laurel house of the Charlottenburg Palace . At the end of the 18th century, the orangery was built and King Friedrich Wilhelm II gave the property away to the secret treasurer Rietz. After several changes of ownership, it passed into the possession of the banker Alexander Mendelssohn in 1844/1846 , who built a summer residence there for his family, to which he named "Sorgefrei" ( French : sans souci , without worry) as an allusion to one "Little Sanssouci ". In 1871 his widow, Marianne Mendelssohn (nee Seligmann, 1799–1880) inherited the property. After her death, the villa, the outbuilding and the garden fell to the couple's second eldest daughter, Margarethe (1823–1890), who was married to the chief tribunal officer Otto Georg Oppenheim (1817–1909). The old villa "Sorgefrei" was demolished to make way for a new building - today's Villa Oppenheim. Until Otto Georg Oppenheim's death in 1909, it was used as the lawyer’s retirement home and as the summer residence of the descendants, and in 1911, including the property belonging to it, was sold to the city ​​of Charlottenburg . The city administration immediately sold the building to the warriors' association, who used it as a warrior club . As early as 1913, the city of Charlottenburg bought the property back in a foreclosure auction.

The city built the Schustehruspark on the eastern part of the large Oppenheim Gardens , tore down the north wing and the outbuildings of the villa and built a school building according to plans by Hans Winterstein , which was connected to the rest of the Villa Oppenheim. The school was initially called Sophie-Charlotte-Schule, later it was renamed Oppenheim-Oberschule.

During the Second World War , the buildings served as an epidemic hospital , but school operations were resumed as early as 1945. The villa had lost its attic as a result of the Allied air raids and was given a temporary flat roof.

From 1985 to 1987 the Villa Oppenheim was restored and provided with gallery rooms on the ground floor. From 2005 to 2009 it housed the gallery for contemporary art , after which the historic building also had to be extensively renovated . Since the renovation work was completed on January 24, 2012, the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Museum has been housed in the Villa Oppenheim. Several exhibitions are open to visitors, including permanent and temporary exhibitions.

For example, a special exhibition entitled Susi, the granddaughter of house no.4, took place between January and June 2019 . It was based on the book of the same name by the Berlin elementary school teacher Birgitta Behr, whose graphic novel told the story of a Jewish girl from Berlin-Wilmersdorf who went into hiding with her parents Steffy and Ludwig Collm in October 1942 and thus escaped persecution under National Socialism . The Berliner Tagesspiegel reported several times on the exhibition, for example in March and May of that year, the Berliner Morgenpost reported, the TV show Berliner Abendschau and many others. The Süddeutsche Zeitung had previously reported on Behr's book in 2017.

literature

  • Gisela Scholtze: The Villa Oppenheim in Charlottenburg . In: Mitteilungen des Verein für die Geschichte Berlins , 93rd year, 1997, pp. 150–164 ( PDF file ).

Web links

Commons : Villa Oppenheim  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Architectural monument Villa Oppenheim, 1881–1882 by Christian Heidecke Schloßstraße 55 / Am Parking 6
  2. ^ Stephan Brandt: Berlin-Westend. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2009, ISBN 978-3-86680-458-6 , p. 78.
  3. ^ Villa Oppenheim at Berlin.de
  4. ↑ Birgitta Behr: Susi. The granddaughter of house number 4 and the time of the hidden Jewish stars . ArsEdition, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-8458-1525-1 .
  5. ↑ Susi, the granddaughter of house no. 4. Survival under National Socialism of a family persecuted as Jews in the underground. Special exhibition January 19 to June 16, 2019. In: The Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in the Villa Oppenheim. 2019, accessed August 28, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Christoph Stollowsky: Susi wants to live. How a Berlin family survived the Nazi era in hiding. In: Der Tagesspiegel. March 16, 2019, accessed August 28, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Christoph Stollowsky: exhibition at Villa Oppenheim. Susi's story is looking for a permanent home. In: Der Tagesspiegel. May 14, 2019, accessed August 28, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Carolin Brühl: The fate of the Jewish girl Susi from house no. 4. A book, a film, an exhibition. What started a stumbling block on Nikolsburger Platz in Wilmersdorf. In: Berliner Morgenpost. January 29, 2019, accessed August 28, 2020 .
  9. ↑ The story behind the stumbling block. RBB evening show. In: Website Birgitta Behr. 2016, accessed August 28, 2020 .
  10. ↑ press. In: Website Birgitta Behr. 2019, accessed August 28, 2020 .
  11. ^ Eva-Elisabeth Fischer: Graphic Novel. Stumbling block. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. March 16, 2017, accessed on August 28, 2020 : “In her graphic novel, Brigitta Behr describes a Jewish family who lived in Berlin during the Nazi era. She experienced violence and help - except for her grandmother, she managed to escape. That is told very authentically and is important for children. "