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Bauhaus in Krefeld, 2/2 –  More Mies!

The expanses and axes, geometry and large scale of the business park are quite striking. The paths are wide. There are bright, linear buildings. Precise green spaces. The powerful boiler house. Brick, white cubes, floor-to-ceiling windows that seem to dissolve the façades. The area was used almost 90 years ago as a production site; today, it seems to have lost none of its functionality, activity, aesthetic or logic. Post carriers, couriers and delivery persons stop in front of the so-called HE building (named after the lining materials for men’s clothing produced there, Herrenfutterstoffe), the parking lot is almost completely full, and the clear structure makes it easy to orient oneself in the property.

These days, many industrial parks, with their building-use-ordinance-oriented non-architecture, would do well with a slightly bigger dash of Mies. Instead, landscapes and people have been mistreated with a kind of mop aesthetic: the main thing is to be clean, practical and germ-free. As Mies van der Rohe and his partner Lilly Reich showed in Krefeld, however, there is another way. Here, both initially designed the residences of the textile manufacturers Hermann Lange and Josef Esters. Shortly thereafter, the large-scale manufacturers, who had founded Verseidag in 1920, commissioned them anew. The association of several textile companies based in the Rhineland and in Thüringen developed into the largest producer of tie fabrics and silk. Mies designed the HE building and the dye shop for Verseidag. They are the only production buildings that the architect ever planned. He executed the modest, cubic construction with a white plaster façade and a regular window arrangement. Its long side is partitioned by water spouts. The main stairwell is especially emphasised, clad as it is with clinker bricks from Bockhorn. Starting in 1934, Mies handed over the planning of further buildings to his student Erich Holthoff, who became the leader of Verseidag’s construction department. For the design of the gatehouse, the product review building, the arbitration building and the office building (on the opposite side of the street), he largely implemented his teacher’s specifications. Although the formal language of the HE building was thus carried forward, Mies was nevertheless dissatisfied with the realisation of the clock tower, which was not harmonious enough for him.

After the destruction of the Second World War, today’s revival of the Verseidag property is less deserving of criticism. Parts of the property had already deteriorated previously, and the HE building was first used as an office building in the 1970s. The investor, Leendertz, has this to say: “To me, it looked devastating: the floor and windows were shattered, the roofs were caved in, and there were pigeons everywhere, while old ventilators creaked in the wind. It was the picture of desolation.”

Harald Krage, from the park’s sales and marketing department, confirmed this picture on our tour: „Horror“ was the word he used. At the same time, it quickly became clear „that the area is a real treasure,“ according to Krage. Lots of work was done before the improvements themselves. Mies’s plan for the space of the HE building, with the open floor plans, had thus disappeared and been distorted through various installations. In 1999, the site was placed under historical monument protection, whereupon the means were provided to tackle the dismantling into the original state. The Krefeld architect Karl-Heinrich Eick restored the “free organisation of space” once more, together with the interior architects (the Dusseldorf-based raumkontor). The restoration of the clock tower façade followed. The architect Georg von Houwald (from Krefeld) is responsible for the conversion, restoration and revitalisation of the other historical buildings. The development is far from complete. The dye works are housed in the shed hall. Light streams in through bands of glass. A flat, refined building. Here, Harald Krage underscores the worth of the restoration that was done according to historical protection standards. Even the hall had to be designed according to the famous Bauhaus philosophy, “Less is more.” Diagonally opposite, the boiler house is meant to be restored as a multifunctional event space. Its models include the Gasometer in Oberhausen and the Zollverein Coal Mine world heritage site in Essen. Famous offices like Staab Architekten and gmp submitted designs for it. Architect Heinrich Böll’s plan was declared the winner. “The great space will be reconceptualised according to historical preservation standards,” according to the assessment. In the architectural textile city of Krefeld, in the 21st century, one can’t get much more Mies than that.