Villa Riefenstahl
The Villa Riefenstahl in the Berlin district of Schmargendorf was built for the film director Leni Riefenstahl . The building is a listed building .
Location and structure
The villa at Heydenstrasse 30 is an eaves - standing two-story house with a gable roof . Originally it was connected to a garage with a pent roof in the west by a wall , creating a small, sheltered, semi-open courtyard. In the north-west one component is pulled forward slightly towards the rest of the facade facing the street, in the south-west a component facing the garden facade - here the veranda is above the living room - so that a hook-shaped floor plan is created.
Some of the villa's style elements are reminiscent of traditional houses in the foothills of the Alps : The flat incline of the roof, the wide roof overhang, the segmented arched windows on the ground floor with deep, sloping reveal , the originally intended flower boxes on the windows on the upper floor and the originally existing massive wooden lintel above the recessed one Entrance; The shutters on the windows on the garden side are also reminiscent of Alpine houses . More modern design elements can be found on the garden side: the large-scale glazing of the entrance hall, windows in landscape format and the continuous transverse band formed by windows and folding shutters on the upper floor.
The interior of Leni Riefenstahl's villa was characterized by the generous entrance hall that went all the way to the garden side with stairs to the upper floor and a large living room with high windows on the garden side with an adjoining terrace. The living room could be used as a private cinema with the help of a small adjoining room for the film projector. The client's workrooms and archive were also on the ground floor, with windows facing the street. In addition to the bathroom, bedroom, guest room and guest bathroom, a dressing room and a sewing room were planned on the upper floor. The darkroom and a rustic room were in the basement .
The garden of the villa was designed by Heinrich Wiepking-Jürgensmann . It was characterized by a not very dense tree population on a flat lawn, so that an impression was created that was open to the surroundings with reference to the neighboring properties and the nearby Grunewald .
history
In the mid-1930s, the Wertheim family of department stores was forced to sell not only their department stores, but also their property on Messel- and Max-Eyth-Straße. The property was parceled out and the Villa Wertheim on it, designed by Max Landsberg , was demolished in 1910. Several houses were built, including the villa for Riefenstahl.
The house and garden were built in 1935 and 1936. The architect Ernst Petersen , initially commissioned, had known Leni Riefenstahl for a long time; he had worked at her side in mountain films under the direction of Arnold Fanck . Riefenstahl later saw buildings by Hans Ostler in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and consulted him in the planning. Later, both architects were jointly responsible for the design, and they created the plans in close cooperation with the client. The alpine appearance of the house reflects Riefenstahl's connection with the mountains.
The outdoor facilities on the street side - like the garden designed by Heinrich Wiepking-Jürgensmann - contradicted the design statutes valid at the time of construction : There was no separate front garden, as usual, but only a driveway and a small lawn area with a few trees Street - stepping off, so that public and private land flow smoothly into one another: a barrier-free design based on the model of American suburbs. The facility was in line with the trend in Berlin urban planning in the mid-1930s; for example, the front gardens on Kurfürstendamm had been removed.
Leni Riefenstahl's new home found an echo in the media. An article appeared in the building magazine Das Schöne Heim , mentioning her name, and the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung also published a report on the house with an exterior view and pictures of the living room and terrace with guests, including Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels .
Leni Riefenstahl sold the villa shortly after the Second World War . The house and garden were carefully rebuilt several times between 1950 and 1978 - a small annex was added to the house in the east and the outbuilding was enlarged.
literature
- Ernst Petersen: The Leni Riefenstahl country house in Berlin-Dahlem . In: Das Schöne Heim , Volume 10, Issue 1, October 1938, pp. 22–23
- Frank Schmitz: Country houses in Berlin 1933–1945 . Gebrüder Mann Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-7861-2543-3 , pp. 188-194, p. 307
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 28 ′ 18.9 ″ N , 13 ° 16 ′ 49.1 ″ E