Lübeck is a fascinating city and as I have a flat in the nearby place called Travemünde I am oftentimes in town. Normally I go there for shopping or doing important things but sometimes a friend of mine and me we walk around and have a look at all the beautiful houses, the hidden yards and passages, go to events such as like exhibitions, flea markets or concerts.
One of these days I noticed the often really special facades of the houses. Especially in the quarters of villas and once rich people areas just a little bit out of the center.
When she was at the dentist I was outside walking in a nearby park and enjoying the sun waiting for her being ready. And I noticed that nearly all the houses had really amazing decorations. Especially under the gable. Beautiful painted with bright but soft colors the decorations were highlighted often in brilliant white on soft blue, green, yellow or pink underground.
The gables are peaked, rounded or crow-stepped. Sometimes painted just lines, sometimes really, elaborated pictures, sometimes only around the windows, round, high and narrow or very wide ones. Some had also the emblem of the once house owner.
So next time when I was in the city center I spent some time to put my head in my neck and walked head-up around the streets. And I discovered even more fascinating tops and facades.
One of the most beautiful houses maybe is the famous Buddenbrook house. Nearly all over the world Thomas Mann is known for his story about the Buddenbrooks, a trade family of Lübeck in the 19th century. And the house where he lived (and the story is situated) is in the heart of Lübeck. The house was owned in the Middle Age by the von-Dorne family, a wealthy trade family. After 220 years of family property it was bought by the Croll family and only in 1842 bought by the Mann family. Thomas Mann grew up also in this house. Today there is a museum about the Buddenbrooks and the Mann family.
In the Königsstrasse (Kings Road) I noticed a nice and very crowded top of a house. A handful of figures are crowning the apparently flat roof and looking in the distance. Maybe thinking about ‘the good old times’?
Just a little bit after I reached the Katherineum. It was once a former Franciscan monastery of the Saint Catherine Church. Today it is a humanistic gymnasium. Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Werner von Siemens, Emanuel Geibel, Theodor Storm, Gustav Radbruch and Friedrich Overbeck are some of the later most famous students of this school. Outside the church there are some figures at the facade with a miserable look I would say….
The very next photo I shot in the same street but more outside the center near to the Burgstrasse (Castle Road). I thought that is such a typical corner house with all that decorations, balcony and lodges and especially because it has no sharp corner but a flat one. I love this style.
In the very center of Lübeck there is the once guildhall, today town hall. The facade here is so rich in decoration and colors than it’s nearly impossible not to shoot all of them. Every edge, every centimeter has a mask, a face, an animal, a head or something like that. What I really like is the play between brick and timbre, the round galleries and the figures under a small Roman balcony that seem to hold the upper part. They often have a meaning such like frighten evil spirits or also just teasing the owner of the house.
After this walk I had too things: great shots in my camera and a hurting neck. But definitely it was worth it.
Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein/Germany:
