Villa Rücker

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Landhaus Rücker around 1900, view of the garden with the characteristic round arches.
The south facade of the Museum of Hamburg History is based on the Villa Rücker. The salvaged interior should find its place behind the window arches on the upper floor.

The Villa Rücker was a late Classicist country house in the Hamburg district of Hamm . It was built from 1828 to 1832 according to plans by Axel Bundsen for the businessman Johann Hinrich Rücker the Elder. J. (1780–1837) built and demolished in 1909 after several changes of ownership. Before the demolition, large parts of the interior were salvaged and acquired by the then newly founded Museum of Hamburg History , where they were to become part of the permanent exhibition as important "testimonies to bourgeois-Hanseatic living culture". Due to a lack of money, however, the plans were not implemented at the time and the holdings disappeared in the depot for decades. They were only rediscovered there in 2009 and extensively restored as part of a publicity campaign in order to take their place in the permanent exhibition in future.

Building history and residents

The village of Hamm, about five kilometers east of Hamburg city center, had been part of the Hamburg rural area since the late Middle Ages and had become the preferred summer residence of Hamburg's upper class since the 17th century. Numerous summer houses with magnificent gardens were built along today's Hammer Landstrasse in particular . Many street names here still remember the former owners. At the eastern end of Landstrasse, around the height of today 's Rauhes Haus underground station , the merchant and senator Johann Hinrich Rücker the Elder acquired Ä. (1750–1803) extensive estates that passed to his son of the same name on his death. He had an existing country house demolished there in 1828 and replaced by a classicist new building by the Danish architect Axel Bundsen . At that time Bundsen was one of the leading architects in Northern Germany, along with Christian Frederik Hansen (1756–1845), Johann August Arens (1757–1806) and Joseph Christian Lillie (1760–1827).

The country house also included an approximately 80,000 m² plot of land that stretched in a long strip from Hammer Landstrasse in the north to the banks of the Bille in the south. A French-style garden was laid out on its northern part at the end of the 18th century , while the southern part was used as pasture. After the end of the French era , the entire site was redesigned into an English landscape park with a large, winding pond. Later several pavilions and greenhouses were added as typical furnishing elements of upper-class gardens.

After Rücker died childless in 1837, the country house was sold in 1838 with a smaller plot of land to the tea broker Christian Jacob Johns (1781–1861), who lived in it with his family until his death. During this time the still impressive property was called "John's Park". In 1861 Johns' son-in-law August Heinrich Brauss (1815–1900) took over the property, had the streets of Rückersweg and Wichernsweg laid out and planned the construction of a villa colony, which, however, proved to be impracticable due to the soil conditions in the low-lying and damp marshland . (Only after 1900 was the area raised by around five meters with sand from the Boberger dunes and then built on with multi-storey apartment buildings.) Since Brauss did not want to use the country house himself, he rented it to the merchant Theodor Merck (1816–1889), whose Family lived there until it was demolished in 1909.

Acquisition and fate of the holdings in the MHG

In 1909 the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte acquired large parts of the interior design, including the wall paneling in almost all rooms - in particular wallpaper, wood and stucco work , doors, mirrors, stoves, furniture and sculptures. Founding director Otto Lauffer and the architect Fritz Schumacher planned to install the interior of the country house in the newly constructed museum building on Holstenwall . For this purpose, the house and interior fittings were documented in watercolors, photographs, wall developments and construction plans before the demolition, which make it possible to get a comprehensive picture of the spatial situation. Schumacher planned the installation of the rooms for the second floor of the museum: the room layout and south facade of the museum with the characteristic round arches therefore correspond exactly to the original villa.

After the installation in the Weimar Republic could not be realized due to lack of money, the objects were initially stored. Lauffer's successor Walter Hävernick later set other priorities and instead, after the Second World War, installed a historicizing model railway system (see Hamburg model railway ) .

It was only on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the museum's founding that the fragments of the Rücker Villa were rediscovered and in 2010 all associated objects were brought together, viewed, documented and preserved in a “living exhibition”. Around 150 people were involved in this project, which was financed entirely from donations, including museum employees and freelance restorers as well as volunteers and students from the Hildesheim University of Applied Arts . Parts of the furnishings are to be restored by 2025 and installed as part of a comprehensive museum renovation at the location planned by Otto Lauffer and Fritz Schumacher.

  • Cleaning the wooden model of the Villa Rücker

  • Students of the HAW Hildesheim dry cleaning the wallpaper from the music room

  • Surface cleaning on a pilaster from the wall cladding of the garden room

  • Interior view of the garden hall in 1908, the round arches on the left

  • Interior view of the music room, 1908

  • So-called "explosive model" of the Villa Rücker

literature

Web links

Commons : Landhaus Rücker  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Claudia Horbas (Ed.): A country house in Hamburg-Hamm. The late Classicist Villa Rücker (1831–1909) and its residents. Edition Temmen , Bremen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8378-2021-8 , p. 9.
  2. ↑ a b Museum for Hamburg History is being rebuilt - according to plans from 1913. In: welt.de. April 16, 2019, accessed April 17, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Claudia Horbas (Ed.): A country house in Hamburg-Hamm. The late Classicist Villa Rücker (1831–1909) and its residents. Edition Temmen , Bremen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8378-2021-8 , p. 68.
  4. ↑ Ulrich Schwarz: The Neighbors Classic. Danish Classicism in Northern Germany. In: shmh.de. Retrieved March 13, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Claudia Horbas (Ed.): A country house in Hamburg-Hamm. The late Classicist Villa Rücker (1831–1909) and its residents. Edition Temmen , Bremen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8378-2021-8 , pp. 39 ff. And 61 ff.
  6. ↑ Claudia Horbas (Ed.): A country house in Hamburg-Hamm. The late Classicist Villa Rücker (1831–1909) and its residents. Edition Temmen , Bremen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8378-2021-8 , p. 70.
  7. ^ Matthias Gretzschel: The rebirth of a Hamburg villa. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . April 23, 2010, accessed March 13, 2019 .

Coordinates: 53 ° 33 '13.2 "  N , 10 ° 3' 57.5"  E