Weser Renaissance

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Town hall in Bremen

The architectural style known as the Weser Renaissance is a regional variant of the Nordic Renaissance . Between the beginning of the Reformation and the Thirty Years War , the Weser area experienced a construction boom, whereby the Weser , which played an essential role as a transport route for goods and ideas, only defines the north-south extension of the cultural region, which extends west to Osnabrück and east extends beyond Wolfsburg . Castles, aristocratic houses, council and town houses as well as religious buildings from the Renaissance have survived in an unusually high density because the region recovered only slowly from the effects of the Thirty Years' War and there was a lack of funds for a baroque redesign, such as that which took place in southern Germany . The Weser Renaissance was continued in the Weser Baroque .

Concept history

The term coined by Richard Klapheck around 1912 suggested that the Renaissance along the Weser was characterized by an independent style development. Max Sonnen , who took up the word creation in his book "The Weser Renaissance" in 1918, sorted the buildings according to purely formal aspects, regardless of the historical circumstances in which they were built, in order to derive a stylistic development history from them. The idea of ​​a regional renaissance in the sense of an autonomous cultural phenomenon was based on nationalistic ideas since the end of the 19th century, in which the provincial also had its place as identity-creating (see German special Gothic , Rhenish or Saxon Romanesque).

In 1964 Jürgen Soenke and the photographer Herbert Kreft also presented an inventory of the Renaissance buildings under the title “The Weser Renaissance”. The closing words say: “This architecture is rooted in the landscape in which it stands. It is popular because the people who created it [...] came from the people. The Weser Renaissance is simply a folk art. ”For Soenke, the common features concealed an autochthonous (down-to-earth) style development. The work, which appeared in six editions until 1986, helped the art-historical term to a popularity that went far beyond specialist circles and became a kind of popular trademark.

The term Weser Renaissance owes international attention to Henry-Russell Hitchcock , who works with him in his "German Renaissance Architecture" from 1981, but emphasizes less the regional peculiarities, but rather shows the larger developmental contexts. More recently, the idea of ​​a cultural spatial identity that did not exist in the early modern period has been criticized by the research work at the Weser Renaissance Museum at Brake Castle , which was founded in 1986 . In doing so, the focus was primarily on those responsible for cultural transfers, such as architectural templates, external builders and building owners operating across the region, as well as the models of court culture that are binding throughout Europe.

Development history

The conversion of a medieval castle into a representative palace is characteristic of aristocratic building activity in the 16th century , with two-wing structures initially being built. The closed complex with clashing wings and stair towers in the courtyard corner became the preferred lordly design in the Weser region in the course of the 16th century, which was soon adopted by the lower nobility. The characteristic Zwerchhäuser ( Middle High German 'twerh' = transverse) with so-called Welsch gables (Welsch = Italian) were particularly suitable as symbols of rule, as they were already evident in castles like those in Detmold , Celle or Bückeburg , which were surrounded by high ramparts Afar came into their own. In addition to the four-wing complex, there were also three-wing locks, be it geometrically strictly closed like the Wewelsburg or open towards the farm yard , like Schwöbber . Two-wing systems and single-wing buildings are also part of the repertoire of palace architecture along the Weser.

Not only the lower nobility orientated themselves to the courtly models; Even bourgeois builders made use of the new forms to document their growing social influence. Town halls, such as in Celle and Lemgo , were provided with gables or stand cores on the eaves side (also called Ausluchten or Utluchten), sometimes also covered with a complete Renaissance facade, as happened in Bremen . From Nienburg via Minden , Hameln and Höxter to Hannoversch Münden and Einbeck , splendid town houses were built, which are usually characterized by their large hallway doors.

The church building also called for new architectural solutions. With the prominent position of the pulpit and the chairs placed directly opposite it, the central meaning of the spoken word was also visible in the interior design. The castle chapels of Celle and Bückeburg are examples of this obvious arrangement, as are the important town churches of Wolfenbüttel and Bückeburg . The Protestant art of the Weser region experienced a high point under the Schaumburg prince Ernst, who at the beginning of the 17th century had the Stadthagen mausoleum and the tomb created by Adriaen de Vries erected, a structure reminiscent of the Florentine Renaissance. At the same time, the goldsmith Antonius Eisenhoit created the altar furnishings for the Catholic prince-bishop Dietrich von Fürstenberg and the sculptor Heinrich Gröninger created his monumental tomb in the cathedral in Paderborn .

Economic basics

As early as the Middle Ages, the Weser served as a transport route for building materials, namely construction timber from the Weser Uplands , sandstone slabs as flooring from the Solling and the easy-to-work Oberkirchen sandstone, which was exported via Bremen (hence also called Bremer Stein ) to the Netherlands and the Baltic States . In addition, due to poor harvests in the Mediterranean region, the export of grain flourished from 1550, while at the same time restructuring in agriculture in favor of aristocratic large farms through the appropriation of former church or peasant property. The property consolidation was made possible by an increase in assets of the north-west German nobility through military service in the Dutch wars of religion or in the ruler's administrative service. As transshipment centers, the towns along the Weser in particular participated in this economic boom, which triggered a corresponding construction boom among the nobility and the bourgeoisie.

Stylistic development

Jörg Unkair, who was appointed from Tübingen as the builder of the princely palaces of Neuhaus, Stadthagen and Detmold, is representative of the first stage of development from 1530. Characteristic of his architectural design is the use of simple, large geometric shapes with semicircular, so-called “Welschen” gables based on the example of Venetian Renaissance architecture, such as the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli , in combination with traditional late Gothic elements. The motif of the semicircular gable found a decisive spread and popularization in the fan rosettes of the middle-class half-timbered buildings of the Weser cities. In the second phase of development, from 1560 onwards, the Dutch influence dominated, recognizable above all on the rollwerk gable. The most ambitious project of this phase, the lordly castle in Hannoversch Münden, remained unfinished. The two leading builders of the time were Cord Tönnis in Detmold and Hermann Wulff in Lemgo. The third phase of development from 1590, to which the Pied Piper House and the Wedding House in Hameln as well as the neighboring Hämelschenburg belong, is dominated by a pronounced style of decoration with ribbons made from notched ashlars. The beginning of the Thirty Years War put an end to the architectural development from 1620.

Cities of the Weser Renaissance

Münden town hall
Museum line Minden

Well-known buildings of the Weser Renaissance

Hämelschenburg Castle
Fürstenberg Castle seen from the Weser Valley

Discontinued buildings in Kassel.

Gasthaus zur Pinne (Wildemannsgasse 21)

House Linker (Brüderstraße 23)

Landgrave stables.

Municipal armory.

Builder of the Weser Renaissance

Stadthagen Castle

Up until the Thirty Years' War over 30 master builders built in the Weser Renaissance style.

Picture gallery

See also

literature

  • G. Ulrich Großmann : Renaissance along the Weser. Art and culture in north-west Germany between the Reformation and the Thirty Years War. Cologne 1989. ISBN 3-7701-2226-7 .
  • G. Ulrich Großmann: Renaissance in the Weser area. (Writings of the Weser Renaissance Museum Schloss Brake, 1 and 2), Munich / Berlin 1989.
  • Herbert Kreft, Jürgen Soenke : The Weser Renaissance. 6th revised edition, Hameln 1986. ISBN 3-8271-9030-4 .
  • Max Sonnen: The Weser Renaissance. The building development at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries on the upper and middle Weser and the adjacent parts of the country. Munster 1918; 3rd edition 1923 ( digitized version )
  • Elisabeth Kuster-Wendenburg (text) and Albert Gerdes (photos): The Bremen Stone and the Weser Renaissance . MARUM_RCOM library, Bremen 2002. Free PDF 1.9 MB at marum.de.
  • Gabriele Brasse: Street of the Weser Renaissance. An art travel guide. Hameln 1991.
  • José Kastler, Vera Lüpkes (Ed.): The Weser. A river in Europe. Exhibition catalog Weser Renaissance Museum, Brake Castle, Holzminden 2000.
  • Vera Lüpkes, Heiner Borggrefe (Hrsg.): Nobility in the Weser area around 1600. Exhibition catalog Weserrenaissance-Museum Schloß Brake, Munich, Berlin 1996.
  • Anne Schunicht-Rawe, Vera Lüpkes (Ed.): Manual of the Renaissance. Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria. Cologne 2002.
  • Michael Bischoff, Rolf Schönlau: Weser & Renaissance. Paths through a cultural region. Holzminden 2007. ISBN 978-3-931656-29-4 .
  • Michael Bischoff, Hillert Ibbeken (Hrsg.): Schlösser der Weserrenaissance. Stuttgart, London 2008. ISBN 978-3-936681-23-9 .

Web links

Commons : Weser Renaissance  - album with pictures, videos and audio files