The impending demolition of one of the ten houses built by Sep Ruf in Grünwald continues to stir feelings in the Isar Valley community. After the Greens in the municipal council approached the administration at the weekend with an application to preserve the ensemble, the residents are now also taking action. Most recently, homeowners from the affected Hugo-Junkers-Strasse and the neighboring Zweigstrasse and Südliche Münchner Strasse met to coordinate further action.
The meeting was organized by two residents who have a special connection to this settlement: Ernst Holthaus, born in 1931, who has lived in house number three for 87 years now, after his mother Katharina bought the building shortly after its completion in 1936. And Angela Mennerich, granddaughter of the client couple Hayo and Ruth Folkerts, who lives in house number seven. Her great-grandfather was the aircraft engineer Hugo Junkers, after whom the street in Grünwald is named. Irene Meissner, Chairwoman of the Sep-Ruf Society, joined the residents.
The group said there were “passionate discussions” for a good two hours, “with the aim of finding ways to preserve the Hugo-Junkers-Straße monument” and “to preserve Sep Ruf’s legacy”. The aim is to prevent the demolition of the only one of the ten houses in the street that is no longer a listed building since a court ruling in 1998. An investor would like to build a new residential and office building there.
It was agreed that they wanted to work “to ensure that some of the old building fabric that still exists in our place, which is worth living in, is preserved”. Specifically, in the case of Hugo-Junkers-Strasse 1, that means that legal assistance will be sought, says Ernst Holthaus. In addition, one is already in the process of making direct contact with the municipality in order to discuss all possibilities for preserving the house.
The goal is an amicable agreement in the interests of the owners
In doing so, however, the current owners of the house are by no means excluded: “In addition to preserving the building, our goal is above all to find an amicable agreement in the interests of the owners,” says Holthaus on behalf of all residents.
Ernst Holthaus has lived in house number three for 87 years.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
In the meantime, the Grünwalder building authority manager Stefan Rothörl claimed loudly Munich Mercury, that the controversial house was not built by Sep Ruf. After reviewing a number of expert reports, it was clear to him that the house dates back to the 1930s, but that Ruf had neither created the planning basis nor was he directly involved in the realization. “You’re serving a story here, but unfortunately it’s wrong,” Rothörl is quoted as saying. In the meantime, the head of the building authority has qualified his statements that Ruf was “already the architect”, but that he did not yet have the expertise of his later work. Rothörl could not be reached by phone for comment on Tuesday.
The Munich Latest News reported in 1936 about the opening of the settlement.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
The residents reacted angrily to the doubts expressed by the head of the municipal building authority: “This is fake news,” says Ernst Holthaus. The former entrepreneur, who is now a respected painter, also has evidence of Sep Ruf’s significant involvement in the “Siedlung Herrenwies”, as the houses on Hugo-Junkers-Strasse were formerly known. He not only presented the SZ with two construction documents from January 1936, which were signed by Sep Ruf as the architect in charge, but also with a newspaper clipping from the weekend edition of the Munich Latest News from 29./30. Aug 1936.
In the text “Am Wald und an der Isar”, which was published on the occasion of the opening of the first construction phase, the settlement is described as an “idyll for old and young”, in which “objectivity and cosiness, modern times and comfortable living in good unite old bourgeois rooms”. It also says that the “meritorious mayor of Grünwald, Dr. Otto Grunert”, in his speech, along with other people involved in the construction, also paid tribute to “the architect Sep Ruf for the beautiful, new work on the Hochwald and on the green Isar”.