Anyone who has ever driven the former ICE Nuremberg-Leipzig route may remember the sleepy passage through the slate mountains and the view down into the Loquitz Valley in the Thuringian Forest. A rust-red statement pops out down there – a Bauhaus hotel, with a striking tower on a hillside.
The “House of the People” from 1927 in the small town of Probstzella is the largest Bauhaus ensemble in Thuringia. It was designed in 1925 by Alfred Arndt, a student at the Bauhaus, and commissioned by Walter Gropius for the mega project.
From 1949, the restricted area of the GDR began to crumble and, after reunification, crumbled towards demolition. In 2003, entrepreneur Dieter Nagel bought the striking piece of local history for 28,000 euros. Since then he and his wife Antje have put a lot of time, money and love into it.
“The renovation never stops,” says Dieter Nagel, who has worked deeply into the history of the ensemble. The gem is the “Blue Hall”, the hotel restaurant with a decent menu: regional specialties such as Thuringian dumplings with roulade or with porcini mushrooms.
From the restaurant there is a terrace with a fantastic panorama over the valley and the adjacent park – with a Bauhaus glass pavilion that has not yet been fully restored. This was once called the “D-Zug” because its glazing with a brass frame was reminiscent of a train wagon. Today some of the windows are still walled up by a kitchen extension from the 1950s.
The second heart is the “Red Hall” with a stage, in which ensembles from Weimar, Leipzig or Berlin performed in front of 1000 people in the 1920s. Probstzella itself had 2000 inhabitants at that time. A cinema hall, the theater and dance hall as well as the bowling alley remained from the entertainment.
The “House of the People” is still an insider tip. Guests are almost exclusively hikers who walk the Green Belt, the former inner-German border strip, or Bauhaus enthusiasts on their tour of modernity.
He wants to make Bauhaus tangible. For this, Dieter Nagel got support from students at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, who spent months scratching the floor and walls and researching color templates by Alfred Arndt. Arndt’s use of color can be seen particularly well in the staircase. The pale colors of yellow, gray and white alternate with the strong colors of red and blue.
Nagel evaluates photographs with experts and collects archive material. It is well known that the fabrics and curtains were developed in the Bauhaus workshops, as were the furniture, lamps and door handles. “The furniture was from Arndt, Gebhardt and Breuer,” says Nagel.
Hardly anything has survived from the originals, but fortunately the true-to-life replicas work in the Bauhaus style. When you enter the “Blue Hall” and the autumn sun shines through the room-high brass frame windows, the full strength of this lover’s project becomes apparent. Someone wanted to create an extremely beautiful place here. Now the park is being revamped with a pavilion, as are the garages in the Bauhaus style.
Reduced to the essentials and just no frills: the 15 rooms, like number 104, were reconstructed as true to the original as possible. And yes, the beds, bedside table, table and chairs are replicas that Dieter Nagel had specially made by a Probstzella carpenter based on Alfred Arndt’s designs.
But the whole thing is consistent (apart from the TV and safe) – inevitably one has the feeling that once every guest, whether worker or manager, should find the same high-quality equipment here. Spherical reading lamps are mounted above the headboard, and four square lamps hang from the ceiling.
Instead of a curtain, which at that time separated the bathtub from the room, a wall was erected. So many adjustments to today’s needs and deviations from the factory loyalty are allowed.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the room was of an unbelievable standard: there was running hot water, a bath, telephone, built-in cupboards, and beds made by us. It sleeps well, the mattresses are comfortable, only the masonry is noisy. But you are here because of the Bauhaus feeling and the beautiful location – and if necessary, make sure you get an individual night’s sleep with earplugs.
The house is shaped by two families, the Ittings and the Arndts. The industrialist Franz Itting (1875–1967) was a successful entrepreneur who introduced the 40-hour week in his power plant, had workers’ housing built and set up a house for the people that was supposed to be a place for education, entertainment, relaxation and more equality. That’s why he was called the “Red Itting” – by the way, the house cocktail in the hotel bears exactly that name.
Through two of his children studying at the Bauhaus, he came into contact with their friend Alfred Arndt (1898–1976), who up until then had mainly been involved with mural painting. Arndt presented a bold design, devoid of neoclassical ornamentation, and placed the six-story building on the hillside. Itting had the furniture and trades made in his factories.
Arndt returned to the Bauhaus in 1929, Itting had to rename the building under pressure from the Nazis in 1936, was temporarily sent to a concentration camp and was expropriated by the GDR after the war. At the age of 74 he went to the west, six kilometers away – and rebuilt his company in Bavaria.
A Bauhaus room costs 84 euros for two people plus 9 euros for breakfast per person, bauhaushotel.com.
This article was first published in September 2021.
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Source: WORLD / Sebastian Struwe
