rheinmain congress center stairs.
spring season is always very special to me, when nature is awakening after months of grey drought ( unless there was snow and sun :P ) and the light has that special hint of freshness to it. by the time the bushes and trees start blossoming and the verdant greens are arriving it feels like life is about to burst open, exploding into a whirlwind of colours that tickle the eye nerves. pair this lush rebirth of nature with the architectural fabric that wiesbaden displays and you got a really awesome recipe for explorations through the city!
the loading area of the rheinmain congress center. this complex still was fairly fresh to me back then ( having been opened just in 2018 ). it's a very clean-cut building, but if you look closer, the details of the building materials are astoundingly beautiful ( for example, i really love the facade stone slabs that have a really great structure ). also, there's lots of interesting perspectives to be found, in relation to its surroundings, but also when you just look at certain elements closer. there's some really nice geometrical abstractness going on in the whole structure that reminds me of the fundamental foundations in practical art.
anyway, though this is just the loading area, it doesn't feel marked off and shabby, but rather inviting, leading towards rheinstraße in a very open manner - giving focus also on surrounding historic architecture ( in this image it's the neo-baroque ministry of higher education, research & the arts - formerly wiesbaden's main post office ).
a look back at bahnhofstraße & adelheidstraße.
climbing the stairs you reach a plateau that feels very lofty and open-spaced. i do love the way the window frames cast shadows on the tiled floor, reflections of the light that generously is cast against the window glass. the big halls of the congress center are situated on the left side, smaller venues and the parking area were placed on the right.
the main entrance to halle nord ( the northern hall ). again, the loftiness and airiness is the most apparent architectural detail, it feels lightweight and effortless, while being very elegantly modern. the big window panes give an insight onto what's going on on the other side of the street, again highlighting the time-honoured architecture of the wilhelminian era - in this case the museum wiesbaden.
a side view of the museum wiesbaden, we'll return to this place later in this post again.
a neo-classicist villa on mainzer straße, built in 1913 by ludwig von heemskerck.
not too far away from the nice villa, this scenery showed quite a contrast. construction sites rarely are a nice sight, but they can be very interesting! here they were in the middle of tearing down a building that looked like it had been an office x appartment building from the 1980ies. google maps still shows the whole place intact, but i am pretty sure it's now been replaced by something new ( i couldn't find anything, though, maybe i should just go for a check-up walk soon and see what has changed in the meantime ).
i kinda like the chaotic chaos of construction sites.
wires and beams, steel and glass.
some last standing remnants. seems like the place was quite overgrown with vines before it got torn down. it also looked like it was a rather light-flooded place, with lots of window openings everywhere. unfortunately i do not remember this place at all, or ever having showed interest in it ever before.
leaving the construction mess for cute little blossoms. the redflower currant is not a native shrub, it belongs to north america. its deep red blossoms make it a very decorative shrub in the spring!
magnolia blossoms, such a typical early bloomer here in wiesbaden ( yes they often start blooming at the end of march, while in many other places in germany they don't develop blossoms until the middle of april ).
the hessian headquarters for data processing is a rather boring building, but i always liked the air vents in front of them :P in spring light, the place can even be friendly-looking!
this particular spring walk brought me to the south-eastern villa quarters of wiesbaden, which has a lot of wilhelminian townhouses and is one of my favourite quarters in the city. it is surrounded by quite some busy streets, but when you walk through it, you barely notice that. and it's beautiful, very elegant and also very green. the attention to detail when it comes to the turn of the 20th century architecture is always mindblowing to me, and every villa is completely distinguishable from the next, making it hard to ever choose a favourite building. i adored this little front yard situation, especially the tiled pathway made my heart beat faster!
oh, and of course the bright and chipper yellow of the leopard's pane.
a curious brush-eared little squirrel was checking me out for a while! and i was happy to be able to take some photos of it, too! since the whole quarter is full of old tree populations, the red squirrel finds perfect living conditions here!
isn't it simply the cutest little critter? i love them ❤❤❤
gorgeous magnolia-bordered streets everywhere!
loved the black & white aesthetic of the window shutters.
gorgeous, gorgeous mansion from 1896 ( architect: franz berger ). built for the influential businessman eduard bartling its distinct turret is the most striking element of the villa. bartling got himself built a rather monumental grave site on the nordfriedhof of the city, one of the most amazing tombs i have ever encountered - here is an image of it.
cherry plum blossoms 😍
a splendid view down towards marktkirche, as seen from steubenstraße. this church was built from 1853 to 1862 by carl boos and boasts wiesbaden's highest tower, the west tower, which is supposed to be 98 meters high. it's elegant neo-gothic red brickstone structure is quite an untypical sight in the city's church architecture, a lot of the local churches are built with quarrystone materials instead of the more northern german brickstone style.
i love this contrast of the modern mid-century aareal-bank buildings and the historic marktkirche 😍
the aareal bank was erected in 1956 ( by alexander von branca & wilhelm wichtendahl ), and counts as one of the nicest examples of mid-century architecture in wiesbaden.
i really like the open design, and have always found the mosaic elements on the facade very beautiful!
the main building in the back, with its yellow marquees, is also always quite a sight!
the entrance to the lobby.
when you cross the street to the warmer damm park, you'll be witness of a gorgeous scene, especially in spring when the daffodils bloom! in the back the hessian state theater bedazzles with its splendor 😍
daffodil overload. 😍
these are always so incredibly beautiful!
the dancing horses statue in front of the workshop and rehearsal rooms. gerhard marcks created these 'playing stallions' in 1962! marcks was one of the first three teachers hired for the bauhaus school when it was founded, so this little fact makes me love the statue even more ;)
a sea of scilla blossoms on the other side of the park ❤
i should probably get a better image of the life sculpture at some point ( the ball in the back ), but for now, let's continue the scilla splendor.
found some iridiscent doves! despite them being sort of an annoying bird, and sometimes kind of stupid, too, they still possess some beautiful qualities ;)
shiny, shiny! ✨
this little fountain is situated right in front of the villa clementine ( our most prestigious local book club ).
little fat cherubs always get my attention 😜
the museum wiesbaden exhibited works of jawlensky and werefkin two years ago, and i am very sad to report that i've never been to that exhibition, thanks to corona overtaking our lives more and more. it would've been nice to see some colourful art, especially since i do have a great interest in the early expressionist painters! did you know that alexej von jawlensky lived and died in wiesbaden? that's why wiesbaden has a very special relationship with this 'blaue reiter' painter and often dedicates art exhibitions to him.
this museum is a two-branch museum, one part fully dedicated to natural sciences, the other part to art and art history! i've only been inside a handful of times, but always manage to get lost in it for hours and still end up missing most of the exhibitions 😂 last time i went to see a big art nouveau exhibition and found myself in the natural history department at closing time without having seen all of the art nouveau rooms. thank goodness the collection is a permanent one, and i'll probably get to see some elements that i missed last time at some point!
my most favourite detail about the museum's architecture is actually not really about the museum, but the johann wolfgang von goethe sculpture in front of the main entrance! i have never seen such a toned and exercised goethe sculpture ever in my life before, his abs could kill people 😂
very befitting to the spring blooms, this girl with daffodils was grazing the colonnades of the museum! it was painted by oskar zwintscher in 1907 and is part of the art nouveau collection!
i utterly fell in love with this portrait, it's so beautiful!
with spring thoughts in mind, i made my way back home, passing by the rhine main congress center again... another nice city walk behind me that lead to the often-experienced realization that this city is a marvellous one!
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