Refurbishment of the historic Commandant's House in Fürstenwalde

The commandant's house belongs to the ensemble of the listed Fürstenwalde barracks, which was completed in 1937 by Robert Kirsch for the Wehrmacht rider regiment. After the end of World War II it was taken over by the Red Army and remained in military use until 1993. In cooperation with the monument protection, it is important to restore the building in line with monuments and to expand it for residential purposes.

The building is accessed through a north-facing main entrance with a representative, upstream staircase. As a two-story building with a one-story west wing, the building has an almost cruciform plan. The inventory is characterized by lined-up, spacious rooms with double doors, parquet floors and fireplaces. Here it is important to maintain the floor plans as far as possible and still enable residential use.

The heart of the building is in the rear south wing: a two-story hall. This is illuminated from the west by high windows and makes the building a special building. The unfavorable, one-sided lighting in addition to the high depth of the room makes the design as a residential use more difficult. The detailed stucco ceiling as well as the overall sense of space in the hall should be preserved for monument protection reasons. A "house within a house" was designed as a solution. This enables a more flexible floor plan and allows the hall as a whole to be retained.

The previously unused attic is being expanded for residential purposes. Existing dormer windows serve mainly to illuminate the rooms. New openings are integrated into the roof skin through roof windows in order to largely preserve the original appearance of the building.

The expansion takes place in close consultation and cooperation with restorers, plasterers, stone and wood experts as well as the monument protection authority.