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The Schminke House Foundation – A living testimony of Modernism

"May 1933. The house Schminke was just completed. We enter the ground through the garden gate located at the Kirschstraße. From the garden path we have the first look at the facade of the house, which is covered with a snow-white plaster, the crystal shares reflect the sun. The red shutters and the grey-blue window frames stand out clearly. It is a wonderful contrast to the blue of the sky, the green of the plants and trees and the dark gray shade.

The upper terrace appears like the bridge of a ship. Through the exposure of the basement and the curved wall of the cellar the house seems to lose its grip. Looking from the water of the garden pond, the silhouette of the house looks like a ship's hull."

That`s how the German architect and author Klaus Kürvers describes his tour through the house Schminke in his book "decryption of an image".

The Schminke House, built from 1932 to 1933 by architect Hans Scharoun (1873-1972) for the manufacturers familiy Schminke in the small Saxon town Lobau, is one of Germany's most important architectural creations between the world wars. Among the residential buildings of that era, the Schminke House is mentioned in the same breath with the Villa Tugendhat by Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye or the Kaufmann House (Fallingwater) by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The
Schminke House annually attracts several thousand visitors from around the world. The guided tours of house and garden are interesting not only for architects but are also becomming more and more popular for cultural tourists. Besides the possibility of holding seminars and workshops, you have also the possiblity to stay for a night in the Schminke House.

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