Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Haus

In the Bonn district of Südstadt stands the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Haus, a 19th-century villa on the Rhine that today serves as a branch of the Stadtmuseum Bonn.

The villa is located at Adenauerallee 79, about 50 metres from the riverbank, and is listed as a historic monument. It sits on a park-like, rectangular plot of roughly 6,000 square metres stretching from Adenauerallee to Rheinuferstraße (Rathenauufer). The villa occupies the eastern end of the grounds above the Rhine.

The house was commissioned by the poet Ernst Moritz Arndt; construction began no later than January 1819 in a vineyard area that at the time lay outside the city walls. In 1818 Arndt had been appointed Professor of Modern History at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität and that same year had purchased two vineyards on this site. A Royal Prussian building inspector was responsible for the design. The family moved into the house as early as October 1819; the interior fit-out was not yet fully completed in February of the following year, and the pink exterior paint was applied by September 1820. Ernst Moritz Arndt lived in the villa until his death in 1860. From 1867 the building belonged to the city of Bonn.

Architecturally, the late Neoclassical villa has a rectangular plan with two above-ground storeys and a high hipped roof. The front and rear façades are each five bays wide; on the front a three-bay risalit projects and is topped by a triangular pediment; a similar pediment appears on the rear, there without a risalit. On the north side a single-storey utility and garage building with a hipped roof adjoins. In the door lintel of the front façade there is an inscription that refers to “a sweet spot” in his Rügen homeland and probably denotes a small oak wood near Groß Schoritz.

Since 1989 the Stadtmuseum Bonn has used the villa for special exhibitions, concerts and readings. On the upper floor the furnishings are arranged in the Biedermeier style characteristic of the building period and provide insights into the living conditions of that time.