Back To The Future With Histolith - For Authentic Color Design

Between 1921 and 1928, a publicly funded rental housing facility for low-income earners was built in Darmstadt. Also due to their location on an arterial road, the 50 buildings with a total of 900 apartments are clearly getting on in years and are hardly recognizable as an ensemble. In coordination with the restorer, Martina Lehmann visualized the buildings of the first construction phase in "Amberger yellow", a color from the Histolith color card, which was specially developed for the authentic color design of historic buildings.

Author: Petra Neumann-Prystaj | Photos: Caparol Farben Lacke Bautenschutz / blitzwerk.de

Step by step, all buildings are to be renovated by 2021. A particular challenge for everyone involved is to restore the historical state, at least externally. Because the street built by August Buxbaum in the 1920s is a listed building due to its ensemble character. It is no longer possible to determine which facade colors the architect chose at the time. All documents are missing, there are only a few, hardly meaningful black and white photos.

From the beginning, the monument authority was involved in all decision-making processes. Graduate designer Martina Lehmann was only able to create her color concept when restorer Thorsten Moser had completed his findings. Before the start of the construction work, he got to work with the leaning ladder, headlamp and scalpel and first exposed the individual layers of paint to the ground in two houses in the Spessart ring. After all, he had a “staircase” - the sequence of paint layers up to the first coat - in front of him. This is how he proceeded with the surfaces of the folding shutters and front doors. On the arcades, he even discovered remnants of the original plaster. The findings were photographed and labeled. Moser's research showed that the houses examined were originally ocher, which is not surprising. Natural ocher pigments, i.e. earth colors, used to be easy to obtain and therefore relatively inexpensive.

Authentic color design

In coordination with the restorer, Martina Lehmann visualized the buildings of the first construction phase in "Amberger yellow", a color from the Histolith color card, which was specially developed for the authentic color design of historic buildings. "There is also no stress with the monument authority," emphasizes Lehmann. This emphasizes mineral colors, such as those offered by the Histolith-Klassik collection. "These colors are based on the colors of traditional pigments, natural building materials and colored earths," explains Mario Kartsch (Alsecco division). The greater Amberg area was formerly known for its color earth, the "gold of the Upper Palatinate", which was mined with difficulty. "Amberger Gelb" goes well with the "Golden Twenties", says Martina Lehmann. It was the time when the economy started to boom again.

Dominant yellow

The renovation of the first two houses of the Buxbaum ensemble was completed in 2016. Now its dominant yellow underlines its importance as a gate to Mathildenhöhe. Plastic windows were exchanged for wooden lattice windows and wooden shutters were renewed. Doors and folding shutters, as well as handrails, stand out against the facade in moss green or red - as Buxbaum once intended. When the roofs were re-roofed, the “Frankfurter Pfanne” was replaced by historically correct natural red beaver tail tiles. Even the carpet tapping bars, which children like to use as gymnastic equipment, should be preserved for posterity.

Everything true to the original

For each house, Martina Lehmann has drawn up a color plan for all components. The first two houses in a strong ocher yellow opposite act like the gateway to the ensemble. The adjoining buildings deliberately take on a slightly lighter shade of the "Amberger yellow". The next block on the long renovation list will be visually outstanding again: it will shine in "Pompeian red". Even if this reddish brown earth pigment color can be mastered for today's color taste, this Buxbaum stipulation remains: Authenticity is more important than the zeitgeist.

Weight of two elephants

Mario Kartsch estimates that around 10,000 to 12,000 kilos of paint will be used for the embellishment - this corresponds to the weight of two fully grown African elephants. By 2021, the architectural eyewitnesses should then look as if they had survived 100 years without any age.

More about architecture and color planning: bit.ly/2mEDVsg

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used material

Alsecco Armatop A Alsecco glass fiber reinforcement 32

Alsecco Oberputz Alsilite Aero T

Alsecco facade paint / silicate paint Alsicolor Silitec in the respective Histolith colors