Villa von der Heydt (Berlin-Tiergarten)

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View of the villa from the southwest

The Villa von der Heydt is a representative building from the second half of the 19th century in the Berlin district of Tiergarten in the Mitte district . It is both one of the oldest and the only surviving detached villa in the once extensive villa development in the Tiergarten district from the 19th century. It has been a listed building since 1966 and has been used by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation since 1980 .

location

The villa is located in the Caladrelli complex north of the Landwehr Canal and at the western end of the Reichpietschufer street in Von-der-Heydt-Straße 16-18 (previously: 14/15). Directly to the east of the building's property line there has been an oriental plane tree since the end of the 19th century , which has been designated a natural monument 1-16 / B by the city of Berlin. The Bauhaus archive is to the west of the property .

building

August Freiherr von der Heydt (1801–1874) was a banker and minister in the last cabinet of the Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck before the founding of the Empire in 1871. He had the villa in an attractive location on the Landwehr Canal built as a private residence between 1860 and 1862 It was inaugurated on November 7, 1863. The architect of the house was Hermann Ende , whose office (Ende and Böckmann ) designed and built numerous villas in the diplomatic quarter of Berlin-Tiergarten and in Potsdam- Neubabelsberg . Characteristic for the Villa von der Heydt are its symmetrical design and the classicistic decorative motifs with echoes of Renaissance forms , which are exemplary for the villa style that emerged around 1860. A significantly lower upper floor lies above a high basement. The entrance on the street front (north facade) is designed as a porch with a gable . The south facade, facing the Landwehr Canal, is accentuated by a semicircular bay window ; in front of it is a spacious terrace area. The hallmark of the east facade is a portal with a gable and Ionic columns, with an open anteroom and a flight of stairs to the garden. The garden and landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné was responsible for designing the open spaces . In the villa's garden are the somewhat weathered marble busts of the natural scientist Alexander von Humboldt and the sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch . These sculptures by Karl Begas originally belonged as minor figures to monument group No. 31 on the former Berlin Siegesallee . There they added the statue of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. , Which is now kept in the Spandau Citadel, as images of famous contemporaries .

  • View of the north facade

  • Detail of the north facade

  • Partial view of the east facade

  • Busts of Humboldt and Rauch in the garden of the villa

  • Villa von der Heydt on a stamp of the Deutsche Bundespost Berlin from 1982

The use

Partial view of the south facade

In 1869 August von der Heydt retired and lived in the house until his death in 1874. His son and heir, the diplomat Eduard von der Heydt, rented the villa in 1878 to Liu Xihong , the first envoy of the German Empire to China Empire . After the Chinese embassy moved out in 1890, the von der Heydt family used the property again. The banker and art collector Karl von der Heydt ran one of the most famous Berlin salons in his house . In 1919 he sold the villa to the Allgemeine Deutsche Sportverein e. V. , behind the serious name of which hid an exclusive illegal gambling club. On March 17, 1937, the property was sold to the Bayerische Vereinsbank and acquired by the German Reich on March 10, 1938 . Until the end of the Second World War in 1945, it was the official residence of Reich Minister Hans Heinrich Lammers , head of the National Socialist Reich Chancellery . In November 1944 the villa was badly damaged by bombs, only the basement and the outer walls remained largely intact.

The remains of the building were provisionally made usable again. After the war ended, a secret distillery worked temporarily in the cellar . Since 1957 the cellar rooms were used for the production of sugar confectionery and foodstuffs, from 1959 to 1967 for the production of chocolates. The property with the remains of the house was used as the location for a spy film. In 1971 the then Federal Building Department began planning the reconstruction. The building was reconstructed between 1976 and 1980 and since then it has been the seat of the President and the headquarters of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

literature

  • Harald Kirchner: The villa von der Heydt and its residents . In: Yearbook Prussian Cultural Heritage. 17. 1980, 1981. pp. 357-368.
  • Hans-Werner Klünner: The former Von-der-Heydt-Villa and its surroundings . In: Communications from the Association for the History of Berlin. 76, 1980. pp. 121-130.

Web links

Commons : Villa von der Heydt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 24.1 ″  N , 13 ° 21 ′ 18.6 ″  E