Villa Wolf was an architecturally significant building in
Gubin, Poland
Gubin (german: Guben) is a town in Krosno Odrzańskie County, Lubusz Voivodeship, in western Poland. It is the administrative seat of the rural Gmina Gubin, though not part of it.
Gubin is on the right bank of the Lusatian Neisse river, at the b ...
, designed by the German
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It is also known as ''Haus Wolf''.
The property was developed in
Guben
Guben ( Polish and Sorbian: ''Gubin'') is a town on the Lusatian Neisse river in Lower Lusatia, in the state of Brandenburg, Germany. Located in the Spree-Neiße district, Guben has a population of 20,049. Along with Frankfurt (Oder) and G� ...
, Germany, between 1925 and 1926two decades before the
Oder–Neisse line
The Oder–Neisse line (german: Oder-Neiße-Grenze, pl, granica na Odrze i Nysie Łużyckiej) is the basis of most of the international border between Germany and Poland from 1990. It runs mainly along the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers a ...
divided the city to create Gubinfor Erich and Elisabeth Wolf. It was one of the pioneering prototypes of
modern architecture
Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that for ...
in Europe, and is considered the first modern work of Mies van der Rohe.
It stood between two gardens parallel to the
Lusatian Neisse
The Lusatian Neisse (german: Lausitzer Neiße; pl, Nysa Łużycka; cs, Lužická Nisa; Upper Sorbian: ''Łužiska Nysa''; Lower Sorbian: ''Łužyska Nysa''), or Western Neisse, is a river in northern Central Europe.[Guben
Guben ( Polish and Sorbian: ''Gubin'') is a town on the Lusatian Neisse river in Lower Lusatia, in the state of Brandenburg, Germany. Located in the Spree-Neiße district, Guben has a population of 20,049. Along with Frankfurt (Oder) and G� ...]
, but is now located in the Polish part of
Lower Lusatia
Lower Lusatia (; ; ; szl, Dolnŏ Łużyca; ; ) is a historical region in Central Europe, stretching from the southeast of the German state of Brandenburg to the southwest of Lubusz Voivodeship in Poland. Like adjacent Upper Lusatia in the sou ...
. It was destroyed during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
in 1945 and there are plans to reconstruct it.
History
The building was commissioned in 1925 by the cloth and textile manufacturer Erich Wolf (1883–1958).
He increased his wealth by marrying Elisabeth Wilke (1894–1987), who in turn had inherited a
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
factory, in 1922.
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.
[http://www.carlosdemalchi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DEMALCHI_AR10342.pdf ] The narrow hillside plot ran along Teichbornstraße (today ulica Krolewska) and Grüne Wiese (today ulica Piastowska).
With the advance of the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
in World War II the family fled in 1945.
They left everything behind, the building burnt down and was not rebuilt.
The remaining building materials were used for the reconstruction of buildings in Gubin. In the 1960s, the land was apparently leveled. The area was greened and integrated into the newly created Waszkiewicz Park in 1977.
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
The Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus–Senftenberg (german: link=no, Brandenburgische Technische Universität, BTU) was founded in 1991 and is a technical university in Brandenburg, Germany with campuses in Cottbus and Senftenberg. ...
(BTU), the
foundations were excavated and then measured and documented by the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
. Further investigations with
ground-penetrating radar
Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a Geophysics, geophysical method that uses radar pulses to Geophysical imaging, image the subsurface. It is a non-intrusive method of surveying the sub-surface to investigate underground utilities such as concrete, ...
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.
It was subsequently shown in
Wroclaw,
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
,
Dessau and
Stuttgart. 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.
The
Government of Poland
The Government of Poland takes the form of a unitary parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the President is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government. However, its form of government has also been iden ...
signaled its support in 2019.
Architecture
The plans for the building envisaged a simple
cubic, red-black clad
clinker brick
Clinker bricks are partially-vitrified bricks used in the construction of buildings.
Clinker bricks are produced when wet clay bricks are exposed to excessive heat during the firing process, sintering the surface of the brick and forming a shin ...
building with an asymmetrical design of flat cuboids of different sizes. The house had around over 1000 m
2.
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.
The open interiors were laid out to interplay with the nature outside.
Spacious terraces took up the feeling of space, which was to become a characteristic of the architect's later buildings of openness and flow.
However, Mies van der Rohe designed not only the building shell, but also objects for the interior decoration.
After completion the facades were bare.
Vine
A vine (Latin ''vīnea'' "grapevine", "vineyard", from ''vīnum'' "wine") is any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent (that is, climbing) stems, lianas or runners. The word ''vine'' can also refer to such stems or runners themsel ...
s were planted afterwards along it.
Mies van der Rohe donated the original pencil drawings and sketches to the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York. The museum also has a
scale model created in 2001 that was shown in various exhibitions.
Images
File:Villa Wolf Guben 05.jpg, View from the street shortly after completion
File:Villa Wolf Guben 01.jpg, Patio
File:Villa Wolf Guben 06.jpg, View from the river towards the terraced gardens
File:Villa Wolf Guben Interieur 01.jpg, Interior towards patio
File:Villa Wolf Guben Interieur 02.jpg, one of the rooms
See also
*
Haus Lange and Haus Esters
Haus Lange and Haus Esters are two residential houses designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in Krefeld, Germany, for German industrialists Hermann Lange and Josef Esters. They were built between 1928 and 1930 in the Bauhaus style. The houses have ...
in
Krefeld
Krefeld ( , ; li, Krieëvel ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, i ...
*
Villa Tugendhat
Villa Tugendhat is an architecturally significant building in Brno, Czech Republic. It is one of the pioneering prototypes of modern architecture in Europe, and was designed by the German architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. It w ...
in
Brno
*
Villa Cavrois
Villa Cavrois in Croix is a large modernist mansion built in 1932 by French architect Robert Mallet-Stevens for Paul Cavrois, an industrialist from Roubaix active in the textile industry.
Context and genesis of the Project
Paul Cavrois (1890- ...
in
Croix
Croix (French for "cross") may refer to:
Belgium
* Croix-lez-Rouveroy, a village in municipality of Estinnes in the province of Hainaut
France
* Croix, Nord, in the Nord department
* Croix, Territoire de Belfort, in the Territoire de Belfort depa ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
* Blakwood, M. (Director). (1985). Mies
otion Picture
* Cohen, J.-L. (1996). Mies Van der Rohe. London: E & FN Spon.
* Davies, C. (2006). ''Wolf House''. In C. Davies, ''Key Houses of the Twentieth Century- Plans, Sections and Elevations'' (pp. 58–59). London: Laurence King Publisher.
* Franz Schulze, i. a. (1989). ''Mies Van der Rohe, A Critical Biography''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
External links
Website for the reconstruction of Villa WolfWolf Villa Poster (PDF)a
Carlos DeMalchi blog3D Model of the villa
{{Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Houses completed in 1926
International Style (architecture)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe buildings
Modernist architecture in Poland
Functionalist architecture
Villas in Poland
Buildings and structures in Poland destroyed during World War II