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Loheland

year of construction / construction time 1919 — 1934
architect Hermann Mahr, Louise Langgaard, Walther Baedecker, Kurt Wehlte

year of construction / construction time 2015 — 2018
architect Peter Sichau

building typology

Also known as: Loheland Schule für Körperbildung, Landbau und Handwerk

The Loheland women’s settlement is a document of the modernist European reform movement. It was founded as “The Loheland School for Physical Education, Agriculture and Crafts” at the same time as the Bauhaus in 1919. By 1934, the settlement on Herzberg near Fulda grew to include some twenty buildings and it would be enlarged again at a later date. The ensemble is now a listed historical monument.

The initiative behind the founding of Loheland goes back to Louise Langgaard and Hedwig von Rohden. The two women had offered “classic gymnastic” classes at various locations since 1912 and founded the Loheland School in 1919 as a holistic educational facility. The school was not only concerned with physical education, dance and music but also handicraft and artistic activities as well as experiments with biodynamic agriculture and horticulture.

Learning, working, and social living in a community—about twenty-four teachers lived in Lohelandin the 1920s—came together in the settlement’s concept. In the process, however, the buildings deviate considerably from the Bauhaus structures of that time. With their pitched roofs, wood sidings, natural stone walls and half-timbered frameworks, they reference traditional native architecture. The Hamburg architect Walther Baedeker among others worked alongside Louise Langgaard on planning the buildings.

Each of the houses has its own individual character. The slender Eva House featuring a pointed gabled roof in which the dancer Eva Maria Deinhardt lived is an example of a Loheland total artwork. The original furniture is still preserved in the house. More experimental in nature is the Waggonia from 1927 that consists of four discarded railroad wagons that were assembled to form a U-shaped structure with wood siding. The Franziskus Building begun in 1924 and enlarged in 1982 recalls examples of ecclesiastical architecture with its natural stone vaulted roof.

The complex now includes some forty buildings distributed over an area measuring fifty-four hectares. A Rudolf Steiner School, a Waldorf kindergarten and the archive of the Loheland Foundation (founded in 1971) are located in the idyllic settlement, where not only women live today but also families and several high school students. Loheland is open to visitors. [KS]

Address

Loheland-Stiftung
Loheland 1
36093 Künzell-Loheland

Opening hours

The settlement, which stretches over 54 hectares, is accessible as a whole all year round in the outdoor area.
Please inform yourself about the current opening times and applicable access and hygiene regulations on site.

Directions by local public transport:

Nächstgelegener Bahnhof der Deutschen Bahn: Fulda
Nächstgelegene Haltestelle ÖPNV (Bus, Straßenbahn o.ä.): Loheland-Schule

Dresden
Hellerau Festival Theatre
- developed for tourism

What Does the New Woman Need?

100 Years of Loheland colony. The Loheland colony in the foothills of the Rhön mountains was seen in the Weimar Republic as a provocation: here, women were empowered through gymnastics training to live self-determined lives. Like the Bauhaus, Loheland is also celebrating its hundredth anniversary this year. Elisabeth Mollenhauer-Klüber, together with Michael Siebenbrodt, has curated the anniversary exhibition in Vonderau Museum and explain what the emancipatory project was all about.

Book: Bauhaus 100 Sites of Modernism

Extraordinary sites associated with the Bauhaus and modernism can be found throughout Germany—pioneering architecture that has enduringly shaped our understanding of life and work, learning and living. This travel guide brings the historical and architectural traces of over 100 examples of Neues Bauen building to life, making tangible the impact of the historical Bauhaus beyond the school, its sites and its time.

Die Sanierung der Gebäude und die denkmalgerechte Weiterentwicklung der Grünanlage wird gefördert durch das Land Hessen, aus Bundesmitteln für Denkmale nationaler Bedeutung und von der Deutschen Stiftung Denkmalschutz.

Loheland

building typology

Also known as: Loheland Schule für Körperbildung, Landbau und Handwerk

Map

Contact and opening hours

Address

Opening hours

conveying formula

Directions

Directions by local public transport:

Link to more places

Hellerau Festival Theatre

From the magazine

What Does the New Woman Need?

Book: Bauhaus 100 Sites of Modernism

conveying formula