Villa Salve Hospes

Villa Salve Hospes on Lessingplatz in Braunschweig

The early classicist Villa Salve Hospes (Latin "Greetings, Guest") in Braunschweig was designed by Peter Joseph Krahe and built between 1805 and 1808. The building has been owned by the city since 1927 and is now the seat of the Kunstverein .

History of construction and use

Rear of the villa, seen from the garden

In 1805, the ducal master builder Peter Joseph Krahe was commissioned to design a landscape garden ("Krausescher Garten") and a villa on an eighteen acre property at the new August gate in Brunswick. The preferred building land on the leveled ramparts was created by razing the superfluous fortress structures. The client was the wealthy grain and hop trader Dietrich Wilhelm Krause (1773–1845). After his death, Krause's adopted daughter Johanna Helene Sand (1816–1866), who was married to the officer Hermann Hollandt (1810–1890), inherited the villa and the park, which was named " Hollandtsgarten ". The daughter Helene Hörstel (1846–1921) lived in the house from 1894 to 1921. Her son Eberhard Hörstel (1870–1932) sold the park and the villa to the city of Braunschweig in 1927 because of economic hardship.

Social focus in the 19th century

During the 19th century, Villa Salve Hospes was considered the center of social life in the city. Lists of invitations received by the Hollandt family from 1848 and 1849 to various events name leading members of the Brunswick ministerial bureaucracy, the military and the nobility. The writer Caroline Schelling (1763–1809) and the philosopher Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) found refuge in the villa. The Danish poet Hans Christian Andersen was a guest in 1831 and noted in a letter: There is a pretty garden near a gate that belongs to a private citizen and is open to everyone. On the facade of the house you can read: "Salve Hospes"! Here was a forest of flowers and large southern fruit trees that stood in large pots around the house. All flowers and fragrances!

In municipal ownership since 1927

Between 1929 and 1931, the villa housed the newly founded Research Institute for Educational Sciences before the institute director August Christian Riekel was dismissed by the National Socialists in 1931 after a campaign that had been running since autumn 1930. He is considered to be the first man to be banned from the profession . In February 1932, a parliamentary question from Heinrich Jasper prevented Adolf Hitler from receiving the professorship that had been vacated by his expulsion.

The municipal museum exhibited prehistoric items in the villa between 1932 and 1940. The German Language Archives then used the building until 1942. In 1942, the Kunstverein, newly founded in 1941 under National Socialist direction, moved into the building. After the end of the war in 1945, the “Kunstverein Braunschweig e. V. ”has received the Villa Salve Hospes from the city of Braunschweig as the exhibition space and headquarters of the management. Part of the park is used as an outdoor area by the municipal swimming pool in the southwest of the property.

Building description

Detail: grasping in the entrance area

Exterior construction

The two-story main house, built in the classical style, is flanked by single-story outbuildings. It is structured by a central risalite with a flat gable, which is preceded by a double flight of stairs. On both sides of the portal niche there are Ionic columns, above which a frieze with the inscription SALVE HOSPES is attached. At the top of the flight of stairs are two candelabra decorated with griffins .

inside rooms

Inside there is a two-storey round vestibule with a surrounding gallery. The cabinets and halls are partially decorated with stucco .

literature

• Dehio Handbook of German Art Monuments, Bremen / Lower Saxony. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1977.
• Reinhard Dorn , Jutta Brüdern: The Villa Salve Hospes in Braunschweig. (= DKV art guide , No. 235.) 2nd edition, Munich / Berlin 2000.
• Manfred Garzmann: Salve Hospes. In: Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon . Braunschweig 1992, ISBN 3-926-70114-5 , p. 199.
• Bernhard Kiekenap : Braunschweig episodes. (= Braunschweiger Werkstücke , Volume 110.) Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-937-66453-X , pp. 11–54.

Web links

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

• On the history of the villa
• Art Association Braunschweig e. V.

notes

1. ↑ Source  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.5 MB)  

Coordinates: 52 ° 15 ′ 28 "  N , 10 ° 31 ′ 30.5"  E