Description
The slightly recessed villa, with its representative late neo-classical main design theme, is one of the oldest examples of Guben’s villa urbana and therefore holds a significant architectural, historical, and regional value.
It is a two-storey rendered building with a basement, set in a L-shaped floor plan with a modern extension hidden in the backyard. The whole was designed based on three axes, with a main entrance located on eastern street front, flanked both sides by two windows. Above the entre, supported by four Corinthian columns a wide balcony was built to connect the upper floor with the marvelous view on the Neisse River and the medieval part of the city. The balcony door and the windows on the upper floor are arched and combined by a straight window roof. The top of the main axis and at the same time central roofing is composed by a cornice with an ornamental frieze and a relief of women. The triangular gable of the pitched roof is richly decorated with stucco. On both sides of the central avant-corps there are single-storey extensions with hipped roofs and, on the street side, two tall rectangular windows with mirror and modern roofing elements, which are supported by volute consoles and have decorations of a woman's head and frieze.
Historical background
The magnificent villa was built around 1875 and was owned by the company Berlin-Gubener Hutfabrik (BGH) for a long period of time; BGH factories bordered the villa directly to the north and west. Before the World War II, Dr. jur. Alexander Lewin, the owner of the whole real estate complex, who had been “since 1914 as a board member and since 1920 director general of the BGH” (cf. ACOL). On March 6, 1933, he was re-elected chairman of the Cottbus Chamber of Commerce and Industry but had to resign his office a month later due neonazi-driven political pressure that emerged because of his Jewish origins. At the beginning of September 1938, the systemic antisemitic propaganda forced him to give up his position also as the Executive Board Member of the BGH. A year later he fled to Switzerland with his family. On August 4, 1941, the Reich Minister of the Interior withdrew his German citizenship - all his assets, e.g., the villa was also therefore confiscated.
From 1945 and throughout the GDR period, the building was occupied by many families. From 1992 until 2011 the property stood empty- In 2022 the villa was bought by businessman from Eisenhüttenstadt that undertook extensive refurbishment around 2016. Nowadays it is used as a retirement home.
Alte Post Str. 61, 03172 Guben, Germany
Dr jur. Alexander's Lewin (formerly A. Cohn) villa
Construction: 1875 according to BLDAM, but information on the facade "ANNO 1860" indicates an earlier date
Technology: massive, plastered
The villa is located directly across from the Neisse promenade and the pedestrian and bicycle bridge to Gubin. As it is a private property, it can only be visited from the outside.
