Villa Meirowsky shines anew after reconstruction
Max Meirowsky, a Jewish entrepreneur, had the villa built in Lindenthal, a borough of the City of Cologne in Germany, between 1909 and 1911 as a private residence. The reliefs integrated into the facade on the garden side, with their blend of Art Nouveau ornaments and historicist elements, appear in renewed splendor.
Köln: Max Meirowsky founded his company in Ehrenfeld
Max Meirowsky was a Jewish entrepreneur, art collector, and philanthropist. In the late 19th century, the East Prussia-born Meirowsky founded the company “Meirowsky & Cie.” in Ehrenfeld, producing insulation materials for the electrical industry. For his private house in Lindenthal, at the corner of Fürst-Pückler-Straße and Joeststraße, he hired well-known designers from across Germany.
In 1909, Fritz Schumacher, Peter Behrens, Fritz Erler, and Georg Wrba were commissioned to furnish the villa built by architect Ludwig Bopp from Cologne for the industrialist Max Meirowsky in Cologne-Lindenthal. Schumacher designed the interior (furniture, paneling, fireplaces, carpet and fabric designs) for the villa’s music room, smoking room, dining room, and men’s room. The music room was executed by I. A. Eysser-Bayreuth. The furniture for the dining room was made by B. Goebel from Freiberg in Saxony. The radiator grilles in the dining room were designed by Max Großmann from Dresden in nickel silver.
For decades, the house was negleted and the villa’s grandeur was lost. It was severely damaged in World War II. The ornate roof with corner towers and the second floor were destroyed. The plain roof built in the 1950s robbed the building of its character. Even the decorative bay window on Fürst-Pückler-Straße was lost.
During the Nazi regime, Meirowsky fled to Amsterdam and then to Geneva, where he died in 1949. To ensure his financial security, he auctioned off part of his art collection, including works by Van Gogh, Renoir, and Monet, far below their value.
Max Meirowsky’s name has largely faded from public memory in Cologne, despite his contributions to the city and his support for scientific research in child nutrition.
pic from https://fritzschumacher.de/gesellschaft/werkkatalog
Recent reconstruction of the villa
In recent years, the villa has been restored. André Peto, the owner of the “Wohnwert” group, bought the property and meticulously reconstructed it to its pre-war state. The lost bay window and corner towers have been restored, and the facade’s garden-side reliefs shine once more.
The renovation wasn’t simple. Rusted steel beams and other challenges arose, extending the construction to three and a half years. The new roof added a fifth residential unit to the building. Only small original parts of the interior survived, including four doors, a marble rosette, and a column.