A cultural venue turns a hundred

Bayer's house of culture since 1908

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Erholungshaus from the garden, around 1930

100 years ago, on September 13, 1908, the Erholungshaus in Wiesdorf, now part of Leverkusen, was officially opened by Professor Carl Duisberg, the first Managing Director of Farbenfabriken vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co.

The German word “Erholung” means “recovery” or “relaxation”, and the choice of this name reflected corporate philosophy in the early 20th century. The building was the company’s central venue for meetings, recreation, education and sports, especially after the headquarters were transferred from Wuppertal to Wiesdorf in 1912. It was built for employees and their families and for the various works societies which organized social and educational activities for both white-collar workers and manual labourers.

Patriarchal attitude

The Erholungshaus formed part of the “Kolonie II” housing estate, known as the “Anna” estate, which was completed in 1916. The construction of company-owned housing had begun in 1895 with “Kolonie I”. In 1900, the Farbenfabriken then started building living accommodation for around 1,000 families on the northern boundary of its large industrial site on the Rhine. The houses in this “Kolonie II”, each consisting of four flats and better equipped than the earlier houses, were built in traditional German half-timbered style, and the estate was modelled on English garden architecture, with each family being allocated a plot of land on which to grow vegetables and keep a pig. The construction of the new multi-purpose social and welfare centre was in line with corporate policy of having a highly trained workforce living in the immediate vicinity of the factory. It also exemplified the prevailing patriarchal attitude of company managements, who saw it as their duty to provide their own educational and social facilities for employees of all ranks. With its social institutions, the company literally accompanied each individual from the cradle to the grave – or from the maternity home to the crematorium.

The construction of the Erholungshaus, from the initial idea to the official opening, took just over two years. The suggestion was first put forward at the silver wedding celebrations of Councillor Friedrich Bayer jr. and his wife in May 1906. The application for building permission was submitted on September 8, 1906 and approved by Wiesdorf town council on December 6, and by the winter of 1907 the building was structurally complete. The construction department of the Farbenfabriken, headed by the architect Heinrich Blatzheim, was responsible for planning and for supervising the building work.

Neo-baroque elements

As for the architecture of the Erholungshaus, the façade of the building included neo-baroque elements, while the wrought ironwork of the banisters and the paintings on the walls of the auditorium showed an art nouveau influence. On the ground floor there was a restaurant and a billiard room. In accordance with the contemporary concept of “educating the people” – as propagated by the librarian Constantin Nörrenberg and his reading-room movement around the turn of the last century – there was also a reference library and reading room containing 1,500 works of popular science and 30 different newspapers and journals. The walls of this first reading room, which was transferred to the hostel for unmarried employees in 1927, had picture rails for exhibiting reproductions of classical, mediaeval and modern art. This part of the building also housed the catering rooms and kitchens, a room for rehearsing and tuning up, a meeting room and the restaurant proprietor’s apartment. The larders and the cold stores for meat and beer were in the basement.

The other part of the building consisted of the auditorium, measuring 18 x 28 metres, with galleries and a stage which could be lifted up to reveal a long-jump pit! The basement of this part contained two double skittle alleys, the heating system and a cellar for storing the garden furniture in the winter. Underneath the stage were changing and washing rooms for the members of the sports clubs. The summer sports grounds adjoined the auditorium on the Dhünnstrasse side, while on the south side of the building there was an outdoor restaurant.

The housing estate also included a maternity home and a domestic science school. In the statutes of June 1908, the purpose of the building was outlined thus: “The purpose of the Erholungshaus […] is to promote social contact between all the employees of the company, thereby generating mutual respect and mutual trust.” The building, its facilities and the events held there were initially open only to members of a society which was dissolved in the 1930s, but it had become accessible to the general public by 1936, when the city of Leverkusen and Bayer cooperated on a joint concert and theatre programme, heralding a new era in the relations between town and company.

One festivity after another

From January 1910 onwards, the members of the Erholungshaus had their own newspaper called “Die Erholung”, which not only published details of forthcoming cultural attractions, but also served as a chronicle of club and cultural activities. During the Weimar Republic, the Erholungshaus came in for criticism on ideological grounds. The Communist newspaper “Solinger Volksblatt” wrote: “Anyone coming to Wiesdorf and seeing the Farbenfabriken’s Erholungshaus will undoubtedly get the impression that this is genuinely a place where the workers can come and relax after a hard day’s toil in the factory. […]However, the so-called ‘house of recovery’ is anything but that. It is purely and simply an amusement establishment in the truest sense of the word, offering one festivity after another. An endless succession of plays, concerts and balls, fun and merrymaking is designed to divert the attention of the workers from grim reality and present them with a make believe world in which everything is shown in a rosy light. Workers of the Farbenfabriken, the Erholungshaus is not a place of education as you are constantly being told! It is nothing more than a business enterprise like any other. Avoid the Erholungshaus, where you will only be robbed of your hard-earned pennies.” (Solinger Volksblatt dated April 27, 1922)

Entire stage demolished

Unswayed by such political diatribe, the then head of the Cultural Affairs Department, Dr. Hugo Caspari, continued his endeavours to further the musical education of the people, developing a concept for this in the highly regarded music journal “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik”. Thus the inhabitants of Wiesdorf (the city of Leverkusen was not founded until 1930) were able to enjoy a wide range of ambitious musical events in the Erholungshaus, from talks on “musical objects” to orchestral concerts. As early as 1926, Caspari succeeded in engaging Hermann Abendroth and the Gürzenich Orchestra for the 125th symphony concert in Leverkusen. In February 1923 the Erholungshaus acquired its first organ – second hand and, according to the records, “for a reasonable price”. This was replaced in 1927 by a Klais organ with three manuals and 45 registers which was inaugurated by Cologne Cathedral organist Hans Bachem and which accompanied the “Oratorio Society” during their splendid concerts up to the 1930s. The Klais organ was installed during one of the most extensive renovation projects in the history of the building. The entire stage section as far as the curtain was demolished and a new fly tower was built with a stage area of 12 x 16 metres (compared with 6 x 10 metres previously). In 1938, when the official celebrations to mark the 75th anniversary of the company were to be held in the Erholungshaus, the cloakrooms and prop room were renovated and extended and seating for 1,500 people was purchased. The building survived the Second World War relatively unscathed: on October 26, 1944 it was hit by six incendiary bombs, but the fires were extinguished in time.

A central forum

After the war was over, the Erholungshaus was transformed for a short time into a recreation centre with a tightly packed programme of events including films and boxing contests. Between August 24 and December 31, 1945, no fewer than 285 events were held: 63,960 visitors saw 130 German films, 21 English-language films attracted 1,400 people, and 2,200 spectators attended two boxing contests at the end of the year. There were also 48 cabarets and variety shows, two operas, seven operettas, 16 concerts, two plays, 15 performances of fairy-tales, four dances, six evenings of light entertainment, eight meetings and 24 dances for members of the British occupying forces. Between 1948 and 1950, there was close cooperation between the Erholungshaus and the NWDR (Northwest German Broadcasting Company).

According to the “Kölnische Rundschau” of September 12, 1950, “The Erholungshaus is to Leverkusen what opera houses and theatres are to large cities. In addition, for over two years the NWDR in Cologne used it as a broadcasting centre.” During the 1950s, the Erholungshaus became the central venue for Bayer’s cultural events, and the combination of first-class theatre and art exhibitions with the ambitious work of the company’s own cultural societies made it a model of German corporate culture.

A veritable house of culture

The Erholungshaus was extensively modernized again during the last quarter of the 20th century. Following a fire in December 1975, the fly tower had to be completely rebuilt, providing an opportunity to incorporate additional technical features and improve the facilities. The foyers were made into exhibition rooms with a total display area of 220 running metres over two storeys. New cloakrooms and disabled facilities were built and the technical facilities of the auditorium upgraded with a new orchestra pit, a revolving stage and a modern lighting system. As far as the audience is concerned, however, the most important improvement was in 1997, when each row of seats was placed on its own platform to give a better view of the stage. The platforms can be dismantled if a flat seating area is required. With its programme of theatre, music, dance and art, which takes a different theme each year, the Erholungshaus is truly the jewel in Bayer’s cultural crown.