The Glockenspiel House (german: Haus des Glockenspiels) is a building in
Bremen
Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...
in the north of Germany. With its 30 bells of
Meissen porcelain
Meissen porcelain or Meissen china was the first European hard-paste porcelain. Early experiments were done in 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger continued von Tschirnhaus's work and ...
, the
carillon
A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniou ...
(''Glockenspiel'') chimes three times a day while wooden panels depicting pioneering seafarers and aviators appear on a rotating mechanism inside the tower.
History
The building which houses the carillon is located at No. 4
Böttcherstraße
Böttcherstraße is a street in the historic centre of Bremen, Germany. Only about 100 m (330 ft) long, it is famous for its unusual architecture and ranks among the city's main cultural landmarks and visitor attractions. Most of its bui ...
in Bremen's old town district. In 1922, the two old warehouses which once stood there were converted into a new office building for the Bremen America Bank, built by coffee merchant
Ludwig Roselius
Ludwig Roselius (2 June 1874 – 15 May 1943) was a German coffee merchant and founder of the company Kaffee HAG. He was born in Bremen and is credited with the development of commercial decaffeination of coffee. As a patron, he supported arti ...
and designed by Bremen architects
Eduard Scotland
Eduard Scotland (1885–1945) was a German architect active in Bremen. He is remembered in particular for the Böttcherstraße houses he and his associate Alfred Runge built for the coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius.
Early life
As a child, Scotl ...
and
Alfred Runge. The gabled red-brick facades of No. 4-5 were built in
Neo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...
style.
[ ] Roselius is known today as a successful businessman who invented and was the first to market decaffeinated coffee.
[
The carillon of 30 Meissner porcelain bells lodged between the gables was added in 1934, maintaining a medieval tradition. Initially, the bells were painted blue on the outside and gold on the inside.]Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
, Hermann Köhl
Hermann Köhl (15 April 1888 – 7 October 1938) was a German aviation pioneer and pilot of the first transatlantic flight by a fixed-wing aircraft from east to west.
Biography
Köhl was born in Neu-Ulm, Bavaria, as one of eight children. At the ...
, Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...
, Count Zeppelin
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (german: Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin; 8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and later inventor of the Zeppelin rigid airships. His name soon became synonymous with airships a ...
, and Ehrenfried Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld
Ehrenfried Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld (1 May 1892 – 5 February 1929) was a German aviation pioneer and initiator of the first transatlantic aeroplane flight from East to West.
Early life
Hünefeld was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, th ...
.Bernhard Hoetger
Bernhard Hoetger (4 May 1874 in Dortmund – 18 July 1949 in Interlaken) was a German sculptor, painter and handicrafts artist of the Expressionist movement.
Life
Hoetger was the son of a Dortmund blacksmith, he studied sculpture in Detmold f ...
and crafted by Zdzislaus Victor Kopytko. The National Socialist Party considered Hoetger's Expressionist
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
work degenerate but in 1937 it nevertheless listed Böttcherstraße for cultural heritage protection as an example of degenerate art
Degenerate art (german: Entartete Kunst was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, ...
.[ They were restored in 1991, together with the carillon, which received a new set of white bells.][
]
Chiming times
The carillon chimes three times a day from January to March at 12 noon, 3 pm and 6 pm. The rest of the year, it chimes every hour from 12 noon to 6 pm.[ The bells chime for approximately 8:30 minutes.
]
Panels depicting seafarers
The 10 panels which rotate inside the tower as the carillon chimes depict famous seafarers and aviators:[
]
References
Literature
*
*
{{Coord, 53, 04, 30, N, 8, 48, 21, E, type:landmark_region:DE-HB, display=title
Buildings and structures in Germany destroyed during World War II
Buildings and structures in Bremen (city)
Renaissance Revival architecture in Germany
Carillons
Residential buildings completed in 1924