cherry tree in the city.
again i have some pictures of a wiesbaden walk, i wanted to capture even more blossoms and spring vibes because quite frankly, this city is a true spring beauty. every year around this time it amazes me anew. one would surmise that living here would make the people a lot more friendlier and thankful for what they have, but unfortunately it often doesn't feel like they appreciate wiesbaden enough for what it is. instead they seem like they take it for granted or they are snobby about it, putting it on a much too high pedestal which creates problems for more creative approaches in the cityscape. sometimes new buildings have to comply to already established standards as to 'fit into the image', which often means that when you've got the chance to create something outstanding it will not go through, because the upper control levels ( and a lot of citizens ) view it as a disfigurement to the historical and cozy wilhelminian structures. while the amount of these wilhelminian houses and their intactness is something incredibly unique and also quite beautiful to behold, other parts of the city are dusty and outmoded and quite boring. so, whenever there's talk of rejuvenating and revitalizing these parts responsible parties never take the unconventional way to make it into something remarkable, something daring. they choose to remodel buildings into generic and almost clinical contemporary dwellings with no real personality and pizzazz. sometimes i feel like a bursting of already established conventions might also break the snobbery and the stiffness that the people of this city sometimes exhibit. these buildings might blend in well with the protected historical buildings, but they rarely create an interesting juxtaposition that brings up some much needed discourse. that's why i love it so much when i discover or walk upon something special, something that makes your brain go 'whoa' and lets the fibers inside your body vibrate. there's value in differences and discrepancies, because then it never gets boring, right?
yeah, that's why, despite finding this city beautiful in a very classical way, i am sometimes a little bored with the lack of bravery when it comes to contemporary projects in this city. there are some ugly parts even amidst most of the beauty, parts that indeed are eyesores because they are so uninspired and bland. why not try to remodel these parts into something exciting amidst all the beauty instead of another soulless addition that 'blends' into existing structures?
anyway, this post actually doesn't really focus on the aforementioned problem, but instead zooms in onto the romantic and historic parts mostly, because who can resist these, despite a craving for culture clashes? not me, that's for sure.
first, some blooming splendor.
so absolutely delicate!
the museum wiesbaden ( short muwi ). it's basically the city's main museum ( built from 1913 to 1915 by theodor fischer ), having an oeuvre that reaches from history of art to natural history, to contemporary exhibitions and also geological exhibitions. it's actually really nice, i've been there recently ( okay, in october last year, lol ) and it was rather interesting and inviting! i had a few not so nice experiences there prior to that visit, so i was pleased to have seen it changed over the years. also, it's been renovated not too long ago and is now quite radiant again. probably one of the most majestic buildings here in wiesbaden, amongst the spa hotel, the state theatre and the biebrich palace and others ;)
this little vehicle is a driving coffee bar! it fit really well into the scenery, with almost naked johann wolfgang von goethe mooching about in the background 😅 scenes like this are currently unthinkable, but i hear they want to open the museum on may 12th, so that might be a thing again, soon? i'd really like to try out some coffee here.
bloomy blossoms blossoming blooms 🌸
these cherry trees in the park 'warmer damm' are absolutely glorious EVERY year!
and also the scillas are part of that delight.
uhm, yup, here's the aareal bank building again, this time with a blooming white magnolia!
this broken ball that hides another ball not far away from the state theatre is a work from the artist france rotar and called 'leben' ( life ) from 1981. it's a really complex sculpture that has so many ways to interprete it! at this time in life i'd see it as an effigy of earth being shattered down to its core ( due to the corona virus epidemic, maybe? ). but even when the virus was not a constant and everyday reality, this sculpture has made me think a lot. i also thought of it as a nut somehow, a nut that got cracked to reveal the actual delicacy inside. and when you think about it... at its core life is as hard as a nut can be, but if you crack open the hard shells sometimes there can be something vulnerably beautiful. something fresh and delicious and sweet and savoury but at the same time very ephemeral.. so, understandably this sculpture is one of my favourites in the city. it's a metaphor for so many things and i feel like no matter who looks at it hard and long enough, they all can find something in it, a worldly wisdom, a personal revelation. i think that's what a good sculpture or art in general is supposed to do with people contemplating an object. it's supposed to let them feel something, realize something, no matter what form of conclusion it will be.
so, i'd really like to know, when you look at this sculpture, what does it feel like to you, what do you relate to it, what is your conclusion?
many people that visited me in wiesbaden told me that they feel like the city seems very french, and i have to agree! it's full of these stately homes that you can find all over the place in france, a mixture of mill stone houses, ironwork balconies and that sorta very chic attitude that only can stem from the french concept of beauty. incidentally, the city's architects WERE inspired by french architecture, as the nearby city of mainz, having quite a history with france ( republic of mainz ), rubbed off a bit on wiesbaden, too. also, wiesbaden's been a rich city from very early on after it had been discovered as a health resort, so it HAD to look chichi and sophisticated for all the rich people visiting it. the fact that the city only got marginally destroyed in the world wars was helpful to the preservation of these buildings as well, and wiesbaden is mostly kept pristine ever since ( with a few modifications along the way, of course, things never age without change ).
oh, i love these old doors.
such a typically 'french' balcony!
ironwork like this is highly formidable to me, to bend and heat up iron in such a way must require a lot of skills and proficiency ( and vision ).
majestic magnolia tree in front of a very late biedermeier house from around 1865.
the entrance of the same house and a wooden annex contributes to the overall biedermeier feeling. it feels cozy and withdrawn.
the size of that magnolia tree was really impressive!
this dream in yellow/orange is from 1902 and was the work of the architecture office werz & huber. one of the architects, friedrich werz used this house as his home! he was pretty into art nouveau and thus decided to use various elements of that style, though most of the house seems rather untypical and more obligated to the classical archetypes you can find everywhere. the roof situation is especially notable here, it's kind of in a pagoda style. a flower frieze that moves below the roof around the house is what is basically the only thing still left of the art nouveau elements ( the windows are said to have had beautiful coloured & stained glass installed, but they are lost to the modern times ).
a close-up of the frieze. the design is from a pretty famous art nouveau artist, hans christiansen, who was one of the founders of the darmstadt artist's colony, a breeding ground for lots of things art nouveau.
found a random grape eating bird on a fencing.
though we have an unusual amount of historicized architecture, we also have the occasional odd outlier! hello bauhaus sweetheart! it's the hoffmann house from 1927 from an architect called johann wilhelm lehr. he was a founder of wiesbaden's neues bauen scene. he built the house for franz hoffmann, a director-general from the city of essen. there's only two more bauhaus-inspired houses from that early moment in time in wiesbaden, a house planned by mies van der rohe in 1923 ( haus ryder ) and another one from 1932 by marcel breuer (!), haus harnischmacher ( though the original hasn't survived the time, but i'm not so super sad about it, because marcel breuer built a new one on top of the old one in the 1950ies - and it's the ONLY marcel breuer house in GERMANY ). so it is quite a rarity and a very precious one! the front looks rather functional from the front street, but the backyard side is incredibly open with 5 (!) storeys! here's a picture to show you what i mean. gosh, i wish i could live in there. the valley view down to wiesbaden must be INCREDIBLE. lehr created a few more buildings in wiesbaden, that i want to revisit and show to you eventually.
i love the bright coral coloured canopy, though i'm pretty sure it's not the original colour ( the bauhaus concept didn't envisage colours on the outside, but actually demanded that colours go inside the interior of the house ).
the house looks a little derelict from certain angles, as seen here by slightly washed out white facades. whoever lives here should probably take a liiiiittle bit more care of this jewel ^^; ( and i say that because i'm jealous that SOMEONE lives there, but ME. )
after discovering the bauhaus gem i returned back to the inner city to stroll homeward. and encountered this slightly bedazzled looking beauty 🐱
and some more blossoms of course. primroses to be exact. i love how there's such a wide variety of them ❤
passed by a contemporary building that reminded me of the bauhaus villa in its coloration. also interesting: the dark glass balcony railings. i can't find more info on this building, but it's super apparent that bauhaus was a big inspiration behind it, right? i mean, don't all contemporary buildings have that in common these days? it's like they are revived replications of the real deal from 100 years ago. with adjustments of course that fit the need of the present-day people.
and for the final picture, some coltsfoot blossoms!
i hope you enjoyed this tiny venture out into wiesbaden streets again.
don't forget to answer my question in the middle of the post!
until next time ❤
Comments