Worpswede

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Worpswede
Coat of arms	Location

Administration
Country	Germany
State	Lower Saxony
District	Osterholz
Municipal subdivisions	8 districts
Mayor	Stefan Schwenke (Ind.)
Basic statistics
Area	76.13 km² (29.4 sq mi)
Elevation	54 m (177 ft)
Population	9,469 (31/12/2006)
- Density	124 /km² (322 /sq mi)
Other information
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Licence plate	OHZ
Postal code	27726
Area codes	04792 - 04794
Website	www.worpswede.de Coordinates: 53°13′20″N 08°55′40″E / 53.22222, 8.92778

Worpswede is a municipality in the district of Osterholz, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Teufelsmoor (devil's bog), northeast of Bremen. The small town itself is located near the Weyerberg. It has been the home to a lively artistic community since the end of the 19th century, with over 130 artists and craftsmen working there.

1 History
2 Culture
3 Notable people
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

Its origin goes back to the Bronze Age. The first time it was mentioned however was in 1218.

In 1630, it was ruled by Sweden for a short period of time. However, it took another 120 years (1750) until the colonization of the Teufelsmoor was started by Jürgen Christian Findorff by drainage of the bog.

Worpsweder Käseglocke, created by the architect Bruno Taut in 1921 and built in 1926 by the writer Edwin Koenemann. This small structure was given its name because of its resemblance to a cheese cover. Since 2001 the käseglocke has been used as a museum

[edit] Culture

Worpswede is famous nationwide for its long tradition as an artists' colony. Nowadays, about 130 artists and craftsmen and women live there permanently; though one should really include most of the inhabitants of Worpswede, since many are artists or have at least to do with any kind of arts. As an example, the owner of the small "Café Vernissage" also displays her paintings in the Café.

[edit] Artistic community

In 1884, Mimi Stolte, the daughter of a shopkeeper in Worpswede, met Fritz Mackensen, a young student of arts, while she was staying with her aunt in Düsseldorf. Since he was destitute, she invited him to Worpswede to spend the holidays with her family.

In 1889, he settled in Worpswede, accompanied by other painters such as Hans am Ende and Otto Modersohn, and followed by others such as Fritz Overbeck, Carl Vinnen, and Paula Becker (who married Otto Modersohn). Other artists came, for example the writers and poets Gerhard Hauptmann, Thomas Mann, and Rainer Maria Rilke and the sculptor Clara Westhoff (who was married to Rilke).

Fritz Mackensen remained a good friend of Mimi Stolte's family to the end of his life. A memorial tablet created by Mackensen can be seen at the front of the Kaufhaus Stolte.

[edit] Heinrich and Martha Vogeler

In 1895 Heinrich Vogeler joined the first artists around Fritz Mackensen. He was not only a painter but also a draftsman, designer and architect. Since the growing industrialization made it necessary to find new ways of transporting goods and all sorts of materials, the idea came up to build a railway through the Teufelsmoor-area. So Vogeler was charged with the building of railway stations along the route. In 1910 the railway station at Worpswede was opened.

It is the only railway station on the Osterholz-Scharmbeck - Bremervörde route still kept in its original "shape". Nowadays it is used as a restaurant.

In 1895 Vogeler bought a cottage and planted many birch trees around it, which gave the house its new name: Barkenhoff (Low German for Birkenhof, literally translated Birch-Tree-Cottage). It became the cultural centre of the artistic scene of Worpswede.

His participation in World War I, in which Hans am Ende lost his life, made Vogeler contemplate about life. As a result he became a pacifist after the war had ended and joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). It was at that time that he and his wife Martha were divorced. From that point on, he wanted to work ideologically. He left his former way of painting romantic scenes and started to make proletarian content the center of his work. In 1931 he emigrated to Russia and was deported in 1941 by German troops to Kazakhstan, where he died in 1942.

Meanwhile, the Barkenhoff became a children's home. It was recently restored and has re-opened as a Heinrich Vogeler Museum in 2004.

After their divorce his wife Martha built up her own childhood dream with the "Haus im Schluh". It still exists and belongs to the descendants of Martha and Heinrich Vogeler. As during the time of Martha herself, it contains a museum, a boarding-house, a weaving-mill, and offers different cultural events as exhibitions, concerts of songs, etc

[edit] Second generation of artists

The first generation of artists was followed by a second one. The probably most important of them was Bernhard Hoetger, the creator of the Böttcher-Straße in Bremen.

Like Vogeler he was a "Jack-of-all-trades". Many buildings in Worpswede are built by him: examples include "Niedersachsenstein", "Kaffee Verrückt", "Grosse Kunstschau" and his own house Hinterm Berg. He also created many sculptures, such as the "Bonze des Humors", the "Träumende", Schlafende", "Wut" etc.