Front Facade, Villa Berlin, Hans Kollhoff

Villa Berlin

Hans Kollhoff

The villa typology  had a strange taboo in the post-war ar­chi­tec­ture of Berlin. It was Julius Posen­er who re-es­tab­lished a feel for the vil­las of Muthe­sius in the bud­ding ar­chi­tects. This high­light­ed the En­glish in­flu­ence in the first phase of villa architecture. The second phase showed a significant departure from the English country house influenced by the style of Schinkel, as rep­re­sent­ed in the works of  Pe­ter Behrens, Bruno Paul, and the ear­ly Mies van der Ro­he.

This seems to us an al­most in­evitable start­ing point for de­sign dis­cus­sions on the vil­la. A mod­est and pre­cise­ly organized Cu­bist ar­chi­tec­ture was what we were aim­ing for in the Villa Berlin. A mono­lith­ic qual­i­ty can on­ly be achieved with stucco technique. The build­ing faces the street with a slight­ly pro­trud­ing avant-corps, whilst the si­mul­ta­ne­ous in­let to the gar­den cre­ates a con­cave ges­ture, as if the house is ab­sorb­ing the gar­den. Par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant as­pects are the tow­er-like roofs, pavil­lions for the chil­dren’s rooms ac­ces­si­ble from the first floor, each by a sep­a­rate stair­case.

This spe­cial fea­ture, to­geth­er with the cen­tral stair­case lob­by, de­fines the ty­po­log­i­cal struc­ture of the vil­la. Op­po­site the two-story op­u­lent entrance hall with fire­place and glazed sky­light, there is a con­scious in­ti­ma­cy to the res­i­den­tial ar­eas in their lay­out and décor and they are tai­lored to the needs and wish­es of the fam­i­ly.

In the li­brary, in par­tic­u­lar, the cab­i­net­mak­ing skill is of the high­est stan­dard: the beau­ti­ful­ly struc­tured and del­i­cate­ly out­lined wall shelv­ing with cut glass eas­i­ly bears com­par­i­son with the li­brary fit­tings of the 1920s. In any case, the am­bi­ence of the house and its in­te­ri­or rooms would be un­think­able with­out crafts­man­ship con­form­ing to the high­est stan­dards. This ap­plies equal­ly to the tra­di­tion­al three-lay­er ex­te­ri­or plas­ter on rear-ven­ti­lat­ed fac­ing form­work and to the del­i­cate lead­ed win­dows of the ground floor, to the well-ex­e­cut­ed nat­u­ral stonework and the ex­traor­di­nar­i­ly ac­cu­rate brass con­struc­tions and of course par­tic­u­lar­ly to the ex­cel­lent cab­i­net­mak­ing work which in­cludes al­most all the fur­ni­ture.