| Villa Wolf | |
|---|---|
 View from the street towards the main entrance (1930's) | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Type | Villa |
| Architectural style | Modernist |
| Location | Gubin, Poland |
| Coordinates | 51°57′23.9″N 14°43′18.3″E / 51.956639°N 14.721750°E |
| Construction started | 1925 |
| Completed | 1926 |
| Demolished | 1945 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect(s) | Ludwig Mies van der Rohe |
Villa Wolf was an architecturally significant building in Gubin, Poland, designed by the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It is also known as Haus Wolf.[1][2] Built between 1925 and 1926 for Erich and Elisabeth Wilke Wolf, it was one of the pioneering prototypes of modern architecture in Europe, and is considered the first modern work of Mies van der Rohe.[1][3][4][2][5] It stood between two gardens parallel to the Lusatian Neisse river at Teichbornstraße 13 in today's Gubin, which at that time still belonged to Guben, but is now located in the Polish part of Lower Lusatia. It was destroyed during World War II in 1945 and there are plans to reconstruct it.[3][6]
History
The building was commissioned in 1925 by the cloth and textile manufacturer Erich Wolf (1883-1958).[7][8] He increased his wealth by marrying Elisabeth Wilke (1894-1987), who in turn had inherited a hat factory, in 1922.[8] He had chosen an elevation in Guben as the building site, from which one had an overview of the industrial plants running along the Neisse. The narrow hillside plot ran along Teichbornstraße (today ulica Krolewska) and Grüne Wiese (today ulica Piastowska). At that time the plot included a small steep hill on which a vineyard was planted.
With the advance of the Red Army in World War II the family fled in 1945.[9] They left everything behind, the building burnt down and was not rebuilt.[7] The remaining building materials were used for the reconstruction of buildings in Gubin. In the 1960s, the land was supposedly leveled. On the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1977, it was greened and integrated into the newly created Waszkiewicz Park.
From 2001 onwards, on the initiative of the Internationale Bauausstellung Fürst-Pückler-Land under the direction of Lars Scharnholz of the Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU), the foundations were excavated and then measured and documented by the Museum of Modern Art.[10] Further investigations with ground-penetrating radar are planned in order to determine the structure of the building in more detail. In 2006, a "Mies-Memory-Box" in Gubin provided information about the building with historical photographs as well as shard remains from the Wolf's porcelain collection.[7] It was subsequently shown in Wroclaw, Berlin, Dessau and Stuttgart.[11] Today marks on the ground in the park are reminders of the villa.
Following the idea of the city planner Florian Mausbach, a German-Polish initiative is striving to reconstruct the building.[3][12][7] The Government of Poland signaled its support in 2019.[13]
Architecture
The plans for the building envisaged a simple cubic, red-black clad clinker brick building with an asymmetrical design of flat cuboids of different sizes.[14] The house had around over 1000 m2.[4] The facade and interior walls were clad with flat ashlars. The front of the house was oriented to the west, the entrance was on the east side. The building had a "treasure chamber" to house the Wolf collection of art and paintings as well as a sculpture collection.[9] The open interiors were laid out to interplay with the nature outside.[1] Spacious terraces took up the feeling of space, which was to become a characteristic of the architect's later buildings as "floating space". However, Mies van der Rohe designed not only the building shell, but also objects for the interior decoration.
Tradition has it that the Mrs. Wolf did not take up all the architect's suggestions. She planted vines along the facade to soften the sharp architectural appearance of the building.
Mies van der Rohe gifted the original pencil drawings and sketches to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.[15] The museum also has a scale model created in 2001 that was shown in various exhibitions.[16]
Images
-
View from the street shortly after completion -
Patio -
View from the river towards the terraced gardens -
Interior towards patio -
one of the rooms
See also
References
- ^ a b c "Die "Mies-Memory-Box"" [The "Mies-Memory-Box"]. Deutschlandfunk (in German). 2006-07-29. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
- ^ a b "Wieder Kuben in Guben" [Cubes again in Guben]. Blog-Netzwerk für Forschung und Kultur, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz (in German). 2016-03-08. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
- ^ a b c "Guben-Gubin zum Wiederaufbau der einstigen Villa Wolf am Neißeufer" [Guben-Gubin on the reconstruction of the former Villa Wolf on the banks of the Neisse]. Guben Online (in German). 2016-02-16. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
- ^ a b "Die Lausitz und Mies van der Rohe: Streit um Erbepflege der Gubiner Villa Wolf" [Lusatia and Mies van der Rohe: Dispute about the inheritance of the Gubin Villa Wolf]. Lausitzer Rundschau (in German). Cottbus/Berlin/Guben. 2017-10-23. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
- ^ Wojtowicz, Wojciech (2018-06-01). "Willa Wolfa w Gubinie do rekonstrukcji?" [Wolf's villa in Gubin to be reconstructed?]. Urbnews.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2020-07-22.
- ^ Bielinis-Kopeć, Barbara (2014-05-27). "Lubuski Wojewódzki Konserwator Zabytków - Inicjatywa odbudowy willi Wolfa w Gubinie projektu Miesa van der Rohe" [The initiative to rebuild Wolf's villa in Gubin, designed by Mies van der Rohe]. Lubuski Wojewódzki Konserwator Zabytków (in Polish). Retrieved 2020-07-22.
- ^ a b c d Wiesmann, Gerrit (March 31, 2016). "A Push to Rebuild a Modernist Gem by Mies" – via NYTimes.com.
- ^ a b "Naemi-Wilke-Stift Guben - Modell der Mies-van-der-Rohe-Villa Wolf an das Naemi-Wilke-Stift übergeben".
- ^ a b Rundschau, Lausitzer (July 2, 2003). "Meine Mutter hatte auch so dunkle Augen wie das Mädchen auf der Bühne". lr-online.de.
- ^ "Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA) Fürst-Pückler-Land 2000 - 2010 - IBA 2010 - IBA-Projekte". www.iba-see2010.de.
- ^ Rundschau, Lausitzer (May 18, 2006). "Eröffnung in Gubin: Mies-Memory-Box". lr-online.de.
- ^ Berg, Ronald (March 14, 2016). "Ausstellung zum Gubiner Haus Wolf: Die Funktion folgt der Form" – via taz.de.
- ^ Rundschau, Lausitzer (August 24, 2019). "Unterstützung von Polens höchster Denkmalpflegerin: Villa Wolf in Gubin soll Teil von Architekturroute werden". lr-online.de.
- ^ MOZ, Harriet Stürmer. "Guben-Gubin: Große Pläne für zerstörte Villa Wolf | svz.de". svz.
- ^ "The Collection | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art.
- ^ "Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Wolf House, Gubin, Germany, Landscape model. 1925–1927 (model 2001) | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art.
Bibliography
- Scharnholz, Lars, ed. (2002). The Wolf House Project. Studies & Design. Cottbus: Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA). ISBN 3-9806704-6-5.
- Schmidt, Leo, ed. (2001). The Wolf House Project. Traces/Spuren/Ślady. Cottbus: Brandenburgische Technische Universität. ISBN 3-9807583-3-8.
External links
Media related to Villa Wolf (Guben) at Wikimedia Commons
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