Gut Fergitz — Cul­tural melting pot with lake view

Paradise Found

At the turn of the mill­ennium, the Uckermark was still little known beyond the region; espe­cially the resi­dents of (East) Berlin regarded it as a refuge for artists, while in the rest of the country it was rather asso­ciated with unem­ployment and emi­gration. In the fol­lowing 20 years, a Chan­cellor from the Uckermark and the influx of many people from the creative sphere drew attention to the beau­tiful region in the north-east of the republic. Like us, many of the new­comers have moved to the Uckermark.

Here we found our paradise in 2001: for us, an Aus­trian artist and an architect from south-west Germany, the lonely Uckermark was com­pletely new ter­ritory. We first became aware of the region when we were planning a holiday home nearby for acquain­tances and soon came across Fergitz, whose empty estate by the lake we imme­diately fell in love with. The hilly end-moraine land­scape rich in lakes and the lonely expanse of the Uckermark, barns and churches made of grey granite field­stone or red brick opened up new per­spec­tives and pos­si­bi­lities. For a young architect working in a Berlin flooded with archi­tects in the 1990s, a new working field opened up.

Above the tempting Obe­ru­ckersee laid the pro­perty that seemed to be waiting for us: three huge aban­doned field­stone barns with a dairy house, the col­lapsed former caret­a­ker’s house and two run-down settlers’ cot­tages from the post-war period — a perfect challenge for an architect!

Taming the jungle

First of all, the con­ta­mi­nated sites of the former LPG had to be dis­posed of and unsealed, the jungle had to be tamed and the site had to be rede­ve­loped. The land­scape archi­tects of Kalnoky Wood Land­scape Design, based in Somerset, England, created a garden concept con­sisting of hedges and fruit trees to give the open area a spatial structure and to divide it into private and public areas.

The setting within the pro­tected land­scape area of the Schorf­heide-Chorin Bio­sphere Reserve is a com­mitment for us that we want to take into account both struc­tu­rally and socially, which is why we have shaped the estate with the use of rene­wable energies and sus­tainable building mate­rials.

First of all, we tackled the former dairy­man’s house, which we called the Stone House because of its field­stone façade. We opened up the narrow chambers and let the interior unfold in width and height. Old and new beams remained visible and a sym­biosis of old and new, of ver­tical and hori­zontal space was created.
The pro­ximity to the lake inspired Ilona to make ceramic tiles in the shape of fish for the kitchen and fire­place bench.

Old cellar, new cubes

The former caret­a­ker’s house over­looking the lakeshore was the next stage of this project. Unfort­u­nately, it had col­lapsed, so we had to decide: do we rebuild the house or create some­thing new? The field­stone base with the vaulted cellar could still be saved, but the upper floors had to be removed and opened up space for some­thing new: the cellar base became the basis for two new cubes, which were stacked on top of each in an offset manner. The ground-floor cube allows generous views of the lake and blurs inside and outside through the sur­rounding terrace.

After we had already suc­cessfully rented out the Steinhaus and the region gra­dually became more attractive, we wanted to create more holiday homes. It was not eco­no­mically viable to maintain the existing settlers’ houses. So we built two new houses, each with two holiday flats, and ori­ented them towards the lake. The houses are arranged in an L‑shape and form a cour­tyard situation with the barn ruin.
Since rural life mainly takes place out­doors, we planned the houses as single-storey buil­dings, allowing all living rooms and bed­rooms to open out into the garden and enabling older people to move around barrier-free. Ent­rance, bath­rooms and kit­chens are ori­ented towards the cour­tyard, so that people can meet there or retreat to the sides facing the lake and the fields.

Cubes were inserted into the flat struc­tures, which contain the living rooms with greater room height and are framed by ter­races. The local mate­rials of brick, plaster and wood as well as field­stone are used in our new houses and blend the cubic building forms with the mate­riality of the village.

Living culture

The imposing park barn serves as the artist’s studio and faci­li­tates work­shops as well as cul­tural events. In the next stage of con­s­truction, we intend to expand the second barn, located on the lake, and add more guest rooms and a seminar room con­nected to a studio, as more and more groups and com­panies from the city are asking for spaces for work­shops in the coun­tryside.

There we also want to enable our visitors to engage more deeply with eco­lo­gical issues. In a workshop kitchen, we want to offer cooking with pro­ducts from the region and our own garden and com­plement this with work­shops in the studio with han­di­craft and haptic expe­ri­ences. In this way, we hope to arouse interest in schools, busi­nesses and private groups in the region. The ruins of the field barn will even­tually provide an attractive setting for open-air events.

Beyond our acti­vities as an artist, architect and landlord of holiday flats, we want to make a cul­tural con­tri­bution to the region that estab­lishes art, music and lite­rature as con­necting ele­ments with society, economy and nature. Tog­ether with Uckermark friends from the creative field, we founded the UM Fes­tival in 2007, which we organise every two years in Fergitz and the neigh­bouring vil­lages of Pinnow and Gers­walde.
Gut Fergitz has become a place of art and archi­tecture.

Kunst/art: Sonja Alhäuser, Dennis Fed­dersen © Csaba Szalay

Sus­tainable inter­action

Today, the Uckermark has emerged as a popular desti­nation for leisure and recreation. Incre­asingly, farm­houses, barns and manor houses are being con­verted into holiday flats and seminar houses of a high archi­tec­tural standard. We have been planning con­ver­sions and new buil­dings in the region for over 20 years, many of which are listed buil­dings. In addition to the Fergitz estate, the pro­perty of Gutshof Fre­den­walde and the St. Unterholz holiday home in Kraatz can be found on URLAUBSARCHITEKTUR.

The region has shaped us a lot in the past years and made us become Ucker­märkers. We are incre­asingly con­cerned with life in the bio­sphere reserve and social and eco­nomic deve­lo­pment in the coun­tryside, have built up net­works and are incor­po­rating sus­tainable con­cepts into our acti­vities. We maintain regular exchange with our col­le­agues in tourism, espe­cially with the UA partners in the region.
We want to strengthen regional forces and con­tribute to a sus­tainable and liveable region between Berlin and Stettin.