Haus Harkorten

The area around Hagen-Haspe is historically connected with the name Harkort. Here, on the edge of Haspe, we find one of the cradles of early industrialisation in the Ruhr area. Haus Harkorten is the original home of the Harkort industrial family and the birthplace of Friedrich Harkort, who on Burg Wetter founded his Mechanische Werkstätten and thus became an industrial pioneer in the Ruhr area. Only a few hundred yards away, near the River Ennepe, was the Harkort´sche Fabrik, a factory of which only a few parts remain, and, well into the 1960s, the Harkort´sche Kohlenbahn (coal railway).
In 1756/1757, Johann Caspar Harkort III had a new manor built on the older family-owned site, probably planned by Schwelmer Meisterschule, as records would have it. Its axial avenue pays hommage to the design of castles. However, the site’s park-like design has now been very much lost.
The two-storey timber-framed building on a high quarry stone base features a broken, partly cambered hipped roof with a large spire light with a cambered gable in front of the entrance and garden side. The facade features large baroque windows along six axes.
The entrance with a perron lies between the central windows. It features a richly carved portal with an ornamented skylight (there is another, a bit plainer, on the garden side). The square ground plan of the building is divided into three zones: a hallway and lateral rooms, representative living rooms on the ground floor, plainer living and bedrooms above.

Author: Route Industriekultur/ Editorial baukunst-nrw
Last changed on 22.10.2007

Categories:
Architecture » Residential buildings » Mansion/villa