White House (Markkleeberg)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The White House, Park Side (2017)

The White House is a castle-like building in agra-Park in Markkleeberg south of Leipzig . Built in 1896/97 as a summer residence for the newspaper publisher Paul Herfurth , it now belongs to the town of Markkleeberg and serves cultural purposes. It is a listed building .

history

In 1893 Paul Herfurth bought a large part of the meadow area formerly belonging to the Raschwitz Vorwerk and had an English-style park laid out, which became one of the largest and most beautiful private parks in Saxony, but not open to the public. At the highest point of the site he had a villa built as the family's summer residence in 1896/97. The plans for this came from the builder Gustav Hempel from neighboring Gautzsch . The model was the Petit Trianon pleasure palace in the park of the Palace of Versailles . The Herfurthsche Villa became an essential meeting point for Leipzig's cultural life.

The Herfurthsche Villa around 1910. Etching by Walter Zeising

During the Second World War it was used by the district administration. In 1945 the building became the location of the American and then the Soviet occupying power when the Herfurth family was expropriated. From 1950 it served, now under the name White House , as the administration building for the park and the GDR horticultural and agricultural exhibitions agra, which took place there from 1952 . After renovations in 1986/87, it became the ministerial accommodation for the agricultural exhibition.

After the fall of the Wall it was briefly a hotel, and in 1996 the town of Markkleeberg acquired the property. Since then, it has housed the Markkleeberg registry office. From 2005 to 2014 the music and art school "Ottmar Gerster" of the district of Leipzig used the upper floors. In 2015 internal renovations were carried out, including the installation of an elevator, a side entrance ramp for wheelchair users and the renovation of event and exhibition rooms on the first floor.

architecture

Urania sculpture

The White House is a free-standing, block-like, three-storey rectangular building in the neo-renaissance style with dimensions of around 20 × 30 meters. The plaster facade decorated in white is on the ground floor and in the corners in rusticated designed. The house has three window axes on the narrow sides and five on the long ones , the middle three of which are each combined in a risalit-like porch. The porches show four Corinthian columns on each of the upper floors . The windows on the first floor are roofed. The flat hipped roof is framed by a balustrade that rises above the protruding main cornice .

A terrace almost the width of the building adjoins the park side . From this six steps lead down to another semicircular terrace area. This is surrounded by six statues on plinths facing the house, which depict life-size Greek muses , who have lost some of their attributes over the years . The muses are Euterpe , Urania , Polyhymnia , Erato , Melpomene and Thalia . They are copies of the baroque statues made by Johann Wolfgang van der Auwera for the Veitshöchheim Palace Park . The copies were made around 1890 by the sculptor Fritz Walter Kunze for a Herfurth property in Prödel .

use

After the renovations in 2015, in addition to the registry office, the office for culture and tourism is also located on the second floor of the building.

Hall of Mirrors
Park Salon
foyer

On the first floor are the rooms foyer , Rose Room , Book Room and Parksalon . In the former, art exhibitions take place regularly, alternating three to four times a year. The park salon is used for scientific lectures on geology, earth and cultural history as well as concerts with swing , jazz and blues . The gold-plated hall of mirrors on the ground floor is reserved for concerts with classical music and festive weddings. The adjoining ballroom can be rented for private celebrations.

Web links

Commons : White House  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Saxon list of monuments, ID number 09256599
  2. ↑ Muses statues at the White House. In: website agra-Park. Retrieved December 6, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Event venues & rentable objects. In: Website of the city of Markkleeberg. Retrieved December 6, 2019 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 17 ′ 3 ″  N , 12 ° 22 ′ 41 ″  E