Inhaltsverzeichnis
History
The foundation walls of the oldest building in the street are thought to date back to the 14th century, whilst the inscription over the entrance gives the date of completion of the new property as 1588. It is the only building in Böttcherstrasse where there is evidence of it being used by barrel-makers, although it was not built in the style of a craftsman’s house. With its high lobby on the ground floor and multiple low warehouse floors reaching up into the gable, it is a prime example of a Hanseatic merchant’s house. In 1785, the heir of the widow Esich sold the property to the barrel-maker Albert Stuke, from whom, in turn, it was purchased in 1814 by the cooperCoopers (Kimker) produced vessels with only one closed end, i.e., buckets and tubs, and were strictly separated from the barrel-makers and cask-makers (Fassmacher and Tonnenmacher) in terms of guild status. Johann Jürgen Pennmeyer. Ludwig Roselius had this information regarding the house researchedThe research was initiated by a Mr Schütte, an administrative employee, and documented in a dossier and numerous copies of the charters. Unfortunately, these papers have not survived. We know of this process only from the invoice, which is kept in the archive. by the Bremen State Archive, documented by the Bremen sculptor Rudolf Gangloff in the form of a sandstone plaque (Fig. 2) and installed in a clearly visible position on the long side of the house in 1928, where it remains to the present day. He added himself with the date 1904 at the end of this succession of owners, probably wanting to compensate for the fact that he did not belong to the “tagenbaren” (born and bred) Bremen merchant families. In addition, he claimed that Böttcherstrasse No. 6 “is perhaps the oldest house in Bremen”.Ludwig Roselius, Reden und Schriften, Bremen 1932, p. 65.
What the plaque fails to mention is that the descendants of the cooper Pennmeyer, the widow Rebecka Pennmeyer and her niece Anna Buschmann (Fig. 3), convinced Ludwig Roselius to purchase the building as early as 1902. Stylised as a kind of founding legend of Böttcherstrasse, Roselius published this act of sale several times in writing[ii] and also had it dramatically acted out for an almost two-hour radio report from 1932, which reproduced a tour of the recently completed Böttcherstrasse. You can hear an excerpt here (Audio 1).
Ludwig Roselius first used this building located at the heart of the street as the head office of his business Roselius & Co., from which Kaffee HAG (Kaffee Handels Aktien Gesellschaft) emerged in 1906. He also made the house available to the Low German Association and often held meetings here with the regulars of the “Niedersachsenrunde von 1900” (Lower Saxony Round Table of 1900).
In 1928, the old Bremen merchant’s house was expanded to accommodate Ludwig Roselius’ extensive private art collection. In the process, it received its distinctive stepped gable and was renamed Roselius House. The building was destroyed except for its façade during the major Allied attack on Bremen city centre on 7th October 1944 (Fig. 4). The remainders of the walls had to be completely pulled down in 1947 due to the risk of collapse. Using old masonry from the similarly demolished Kornhaus in Langenstrasse, the family rebuilt Roselius House by 1954 with the help of Kaffee HAG as a largely faithful replica of the pre-war state based on plans and photographic documentation. As such, the house is actually the youngest in today’s Böttcherstrasse in terms of its building fabric. The interior was also largely restored to its pre-war state. The art collection had thankfully been evacuated in time. Thus, Roselius House with its collection of medieval to early modern art remains part of the Böttcherstrasse Museum today.
- cooperCoopers (Kimker) produced vessels with only one closed end, i.e., buckets and tubs, and were strictly separated from the barrel-makers and cask-makers (Fassmacher and Tonnenmacher) in terms of guild status.
- researchedThe research was initiated by a Mr Schütte, an administrative employee, and documented in a dossier and numerous copies of the charters. Unfortunately, these papers have not survived. We know of this process only from the invoice, which is kept in the archive.
- “is perhaps the oldest house in Bremen”.Ludwig Roselius, Reden und Schriften, Bremen 1932, p. 65.
The façade
The building’s original appearance can only be reconstructed to some extent. Only the eaves side is clearly visible on Heinbach’s large plan of 1734 (Fig. 5) due to the angled perspective. It shows three full storeys in four axes. A portal can be seen on the far left – a passage into the yard at the rear. As the only large gabled house at the kink in Böttcherstrasse, it does not have a gable obelisk, so it is rather plainer in design.
The building survived into the 20th century in this form. Figure 6 shows the house around 1900. The gable façade is divided into a high lobby on the ground floor and two further full storeys as well as three storeys in the roof. The storeys are separated by simply profiled stringcourses. The three-axis lobby floor is divided in the usual way on the left by a large window, while two smaller windows one above the other on the right indicate a ceiling entry into the high lobby floor.The detail is incorrect in the drawing by Rudolf Stein, Das Bremer Bürgerhaus, Tübingen 1970, p. 56 Fig. 41.
- while two smaller windows one above the other on the right indicate a ceiling entry into the high lobby floor.The detail is incorrect in the drawing by Rudolf Stein, Das Bremer Bürgerhaus, Tübingen 1970, p. 56 Fig. 41.
Figure 7 shows the building following its first conversion by Ludwig Roselius in 1908/09.The construction measures got under way in 1906. Ernst Müller-Scheesel wrote this in: Albert Theile (publ.): Die Böttcherstraße in Bremen, Idee und Gestaltung (Schriften der Böttcherstraße in Bremen) Vol. 1, Bremen 1930, p. 33 The ground floor is dominated by a round-arched portal made of sandstone (Fig. 8), which is decorated with the ornamental forms typical of the Weser Renaissance style: bossages with chip-carving effect alternating with areas of scrollwork on the broad lateral pilasters and the graceful portal arch. The two round-arched arcadesCf. Stein 1970, Panel 25. Later and more elaborate designs of these decorative elements could also be found on the buildings at Schlachte 20 and Schnoor 37, which sadly no longer exist (Stein 1970, Panel 34). of the Stadtwaage (Weigh House) in the neighbouring Langenstrasse, which were built shortly before, are decorated in a similar manner. In the spandrels of the round arch are 1Information from Rudolf Stein: Romanische, gotische und Renaissance-Baukunst in Bremen, Bremen 1962, p. 396 on the left, an outstretched arm with a handled vessel for the alderman Jacob Bobart (1530–1600) and, on the right, a wreath of flowers for Women Bobart, née Esich. On the narrow cornice ending at the top, we find the following inscription: “WOL GODT VORTROWET DE HEFT VOLGEBOWET 1588” (Who trusts in God has built well 1588). In the axis of the portal, wooden doors once opened above it on four floors, from which the warehouse storeys were filled with goods. A smaller wooden doorway directly above the portal also led to the lobby. It can still be seen with bars across it in Figure 8. It was turned into a window during the 1908/09 conversion. Symmetrically aligned to the wooden doors, there are also one double and one single window each in the upper floors. The number reduces correspondingly in the upper roof floors. A crane beam, surmounted by a massive roof, enabled the transport of goods. The gable was crowned by a spear-like projecting pillar with a sphere finial (Fig. 7). Additional ornamentation includes the wrought-iron wall ties regularly distributed over the façade and the bossages with chip-carving effect attached to the corners of the house, while the gable is finished off by a plainly profiled gableboard.
The façade was originally covered with a thin layer of plaster (Fig. 6). During the first renovation in 1908/09, Roselius decided on a brickwork look and had the plaster removed. He returned the subsequently enlarged window into the lobby to its likely original size and introduced small-scale leaded glazing into all windows except the two to the right of the portal.
- 1908/09.The construction measures got under way in 1906. Ernst Müller-Scheesel wrote this in: Albert Theile (publ.): Die Böttcherstraße in Bremen, Idee und Gestaltung (Schriften der Böttcherstraße in Bremen) Vol. 1, Bremen 1930, p. 33
- round-arched arcadesCf. Stein 1970, Panel 25. Later and more elaborate designs of these decorative elements could also be found on the buildings at Schlachte 20 and Schnoor 37, which sadly no longer exist (Stein 1970, Panel 34).
- 1Information from Rudolf Stein: Romanische, gotische und Renaissance-Baukunst in Bremen, Bremen 1962, p. 396
In 1927/28, Roselius had the building converted to house his art collection and established as a museum by his brother-in-law, the artist Ernst Müller-Scheessel. The construction measures did not only concern the interior of the property – the exterior was also supposed to be restored to its supposed Gothic origins. “However, Roselius noticed from the marks on the walls that the gable had been extended in Gothic forms at an earlier date. Roselius [...] had the Gothic stepped gable restored to its original form in the late 1920s.”Manuscript of a newspaper article by Alfred Faust celebrating the 80th birthday of Ludwig Roselius (Böttcherstrasse archive, Alfred Faust’s personal file) The architect commissioned by Roselius, Carl Eeg, removed the gableboard and extended the facing mouldings outwards, with them being integrated into an angled post at every second floor. He filled the spandrel areas underneath with bricks. The posts were crowned with small metal spears with flags. The sphere which crowned the gable was replaced with a sculpture made of stone holding a ferula. This produced a vividly designed gable full of character. From an art history perspective, however, the restoration is to be viewed as a construct. House No. 6 was a simple 16th century town house with sparse ornamentation. It had certainly never had a stepped gable. Renaissance buildings with stepped gables were more elaborately structured vertically and horizontally, such as the Pundsack House on the market square. Stepped gables were rather rare on Gothic buildings in Bremen and even then only found on particularly elaborately structured houses such as the Speckhann House on the market square, which was demolished in 1860. Eeg may have been influenced in his design of the Roselius House by the west gable of the Schütting, which he himself had previously renovated. This 15th century Flanders-influenced gable features a closely stepped gable.
The reconstruction after World War II was based on this condition, with the figure crowning the gable and the iron spears on the gable steps being omitted. Thanks to the reuse of the old masonry, the façade makes an authentic impression today and is perceived by many visitors as being original. The old room layout was also restored during the interior finishing work in order to give the preserved collection items back the ambience intended by Roselius and Müller-Scheessel.
- “However, Roselius noticed from the marks on the walls that the gable had been extended in Gothic forms at an earlier date. Roselius [...] had the Gothic stepped gable restored to its original form in the late 1920s.”Manuscript of a newspaper article by Alfred Faust celebrating the 80th birthday of Ludwig Roselius (Böttcherstrasse archive, Alfred Faust’s personal file)
Literatur
- Friedrich Winkler, Otto Plambeck: Das Roselius-Haus in Bremen, Schriften der Böttcherstraße Bd. 3, Bremen (Angelsachsen-Verlag) 1930 (mit Fotos und Grundrissen des Vorkriegszustandes)
- Werner Kloos: Die Museen der Böttcherstraße in Bremen, Kulturgeschichtliche Museen in Deutschland, hrsg. von Gerhard Wietek. Bd. X. Hamburg 1969
- Ernst Wolfgang Mick: Das Roselius-Haus in der Böttcherstraße – Bremen, Begleitheft für den Besuch, Bremen 19751-19794 (Selbstverlag)
- Rainer Stamm: Das Museum im Roselius-Haus, Denkmal, Sammlermuseum, Wunderkammer, in: Hans Tallasch (Hg.): Projekt Böttcherstraße, Delmenhorst 2002, S. 300-311