Factor’s House Schönbach

Atelier ST

Products

1102
Door handle fitting

The FSB 1102 model is rooted in Alessan­dro Mendini’s re­design of the cel­e­brated Gropius lever handle, which he re­fash­ioned by using a dif­fer­ent ma­te­r­ial and adding a groove. The remodel was one of his sub­mis­sions to FSB’s Design Work­shop held in 1986. We now supply the FSB 1102 in three ma­te­ri­als but would rec­om­mend using the stain­less steel or bronze vari­ants on heavily used doors.

1102
Door handle fitting
34 1102
Window handle
42 4250
Slid­ing-door pull

Cloth merchant’s turned company headquarters

The scenic Upper Lusa­t­ian Hills roll down from south-east of Dresden in Saxony to the border with the Czech Re­pub­lic. The region is still home to large numbers of her­itage umge­binde houses, a fusion of the Slav log-con­struc­tion method and the German half-tim­bered style of build­ing. Such is the aura of tra­di­tion em­a­nat­ing from these splen­did-look­ing struc­tures that they have now become a land­mark tourist at­trac­tion in the Upper Lusa­t­ian Hills. One notable example is the Factor’s House in Schönbach, which has now been most agree­ably re­vamped by Atelier ST.

Umge­binde houses usually com­prise a brick-and-tim­ber ground floor sur­mounted by one or more storeys made en­tirely of wood. The term umge­binde derives from the way a non-load-bear­ing central log-walled space on the ground floor (the block­stube) is “bound round” by a system of wooden posts and beams sup­port­ing the floor(s) above. The Factor’s House in Schönbach was erected in 1785, at a time when linen weaving was a major in­dus­try in Upper Lusatia. A build­ing in which com­mer­cial agents known as “factors” once traded in threads and other items for the cloth-mak­ing in­dus­try now houses the man­age­ment and ad­min­is­tra­tive de­part­ment of a modern fur­ni­ture maker.

The block­stube con­tin­ues to be of par­tic­u­lar im­por­tance to the house. It serves a semi-pub­lic func­tion as a space for sem­i­nars in the course of which both company staff and their cus­tomers get a chance to create menus of their own in co­op­er­a­tion with an in-house chef. The at­mos­phere ob­tain­ing in the space results from the cir­cum­spect, con­ser­va­tion-com­pli­ant manner in which the orig­i­nal ar­chi­tec­ture has been re­fur­bished, a dra­matic sense of con­trast being pro­vided by a modern crude-steel stove and by de­cid­edly linear fur­ni­ture.

Architecture and Object

Silvia Schel­len­berg-Thaut and Se­bas­t­ian Thaut, Atelier ST
Photo: © Atelier ST

“We aspire to create build­ings that do not im­me­di­ately give every­thing away from the outside,” the prac­tice de­clares. “They have to be felt, be capable of being ex­pe­ri­enced spa­tially.”

A spatial experience

The aim was to pre­serve the build­ing’s orig­i­nal ap­pear­ance whilst nev­er­the­less “styl­is­ti­cally up­dat­ing it so as to fa­cil­i­tate new forms of use”. The con­ser­va­tion au­thor­i­ties are partly to thank for this having been achieved so well in that they gave the thumbs down to some of the ar­chi­tects’ initial ideas. Large window aper­tures in the roof were ad­judged to be in­ac­cept­able, for in­stance. A means of gen­er­at­ing more light that found favour with all con­cerned came in the form of a long dust-pan dormer made up of several small windows in a row. It blends in vi­su­ally with the eyebrow windows above and has an au­then­tic feel about it.

And what a sur­prise it is to dis­cover upon en­ter­ing how the ar­chi­tects have con­trived to fashion the in­te­rior. How high, wide and bright the spaces look, an effect achieved in part by means of a size­able opening in the loft. And yet the spaces are pri­mar­ily defined by exposed half-tim­ber­ing and the struc­tur­ing of the roof, fea­tures that keep the nar­ra­tive of the past alive. Painted white through­out, they serve to his­tor­i­cally con­tex­tu­alise a new func­tional iden­tity brought about with the aid of bold colours and modern ma­te­ri­als.

The FSB 1102 door and window handle se­lected has its roots in a re­design by Alessan­dro Mendini that opened up a fresh per­spec­tive on the famous lever handle by Walther Gropius. The FSB 1102 model is sup­plied in three ma­te­ri­als. The handles for the Factor’s House were fitted in Dark Pati­nated Bronze, thus, as the ar­chi­tects them­selves put it, “un­der­scor­ing the sym­bio­sis at­tained between old and new whilst also exuding a sense of value, time­less­ness and el­e­gance.” The re­cessed pull FSB 42 4250 was em­ployed on sliding doors – like­wise in Dark Pati­nated Bronze.

Object Details

Photos: Robert Rieger

Location

Factor’s House Schönbach

Haupt­straße 73,
02730 Ebers­bach-Neugers­dorf
Deutsch­land

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