HomeStory

Much light and in praise of the shadow: Quartier Wieck

Two ela­borate holiday homes on the Baltic Sea — reduced, modern and con­ceived with love for Japan and Scan­di­navia. Breathe a sigh of relief at the edge of a National Park, con­tem­porary art included.

by Ulrich Knoll in December 2021

For years, the west beach on the Darss has been regu­larly listed in national and inter­na­tional maga­zines as one of the most beau­tiful beaches in the world. Quite rightly, as the owners of Quartier Wieck can confirm. They fell in love with the beauty of the nor­thern German pen­insula a long time ago and know only too well that the attraction of Darss is by no means limited to the pristine, fine-sand beach.

Their enthu­siasm for the Baltic Sea has grown over decades: In the 1990s they were both stu­dying in Lübeck, became a couple and tog­ether they dis­co­vered a fasci­nating world that had been com­pletely unknown until then. They imme­diately fell in love with the Fischland-Darss-Zingst pen­insula in the Vor­pommern Bodden land­scape National Park.

At the time, the young couple fell hope­l­essly in love with the west beach men­tioned at the beginning of this article, many kilo­metres of which are com­pletely unspoilt and enchanting, with a clo­seness to nature that is incom­pa­rable in Germany. Here they still take hour-long walks along the beach, often as far as the light­house at the north-western tip of the pen­insula.

Just the walk to the beach through the pic­turesque Darss forest is always a special expe­rience. As part of the national park, it can only be crossed on foot or by bike; moreover, it reaches right up to the beach, giving it a magical backdrop. Since the beach can only be accessed by moto­rised vehicles it is never crowded.

If you ask about other high­lights, their list of favou­rites is almost endless: excur­sions to the Baltic Sea resorts of Prerow or Ahren­shoop with its artists’ colony, cul­tural events such as the Darss Nature Film Fes­tival, clas­sical con­certs directly on the west beach or day trips to the nearby Han­seatic cities of Rostock and Stralsund, canoe tours on the Bodden or the autumn migration of the cranes are just some of their recom­men­da­tions. In general: Large areas of the Darss belong to the National Park Vor­pommern Bodden land­scape, the third largest of its kind in Germany. Here, the path is often the true desti­nation.

Having just returned from the Darss, the gleam in their eyes reveals how much they are already looking forward to being back there them­selves as soon as pos­sible. 

As life some­times turn out, however, for pro­fes­sional reasons, after uni­versity it was many years before they got back to the coast. The longing for sun, waves, space and untouched nature, on the other hand, remained unbroken even at their new domicile in sou­thern Germany. Out of sight, out of mind: no way.

Even many highly inspiring trips around the world did nothing to change the magic. So, they con­tinued to go regu­larly on holiday to the Darss ­– at some point with the children too, for whom the pen­insula also imme­diately became their second home.

Over the years, a kind of “on-off” rela­ti­onship deve­loped. None of the five could get enough of it. When the holiday was over, the question always remained: When will we come back? In 2015, the question of their own holiday home was almost ine­vi­table.

On your mark, get set, Wieck!

If you come to the Darss, you should bring a bike with you, if pos­sible. And you will soon dis­cover that life without moto­rised vehicle brings with it an incre­dible sense of lightness. Except perhaps when there is a headwind … then it helps to always plan your tours pro­perly. For a walk on the beach, for example – with the wind on the way to the beach and against the wind back through the neigh­bouring forest.

Ideally, you should not only give yourself, but also your car a break. Unless you have arrived by public transport anyway, which is not a problem.

You can get a first impression of what is hap­pening on the island directly on site at the Darss Arche National Park Centre. It has an extensive exhi­bition and an artists’ gallery.

Archi­tecture with a focus on light

The choice of a sui­table architect was essential for the rea­li­sation of the dream of one’s own house. In line with their ideas of modern archi­tecture, the couple first scouted holiday homes on the Darss, including one or two Holi­da­y­ar­chi­tecture houses. From there it was was not dif­ficult to find the Berlin architect Norbert Möhring. He has had an office on the Darss for years and had already built one or two stunning houses in the holiday home sector.

Light is law. It is power, force and life. Light is an energy that helps to create the world and define our expe­ri­ences. 

Axel Ver­voordt, Living with Light

An important aspect of the phi­lo­sophy of the archi­tec­tural office is to derive the design from the interplay of interior and exterior space and to give special importance to the interplay of space and light in finding a shape and its volume that are as tim­eless as pos­sible.

This coin­cided with the ideas of the owners, who had been impressed by the aes­thetics of Japan and the Scan­di­navian countries after many journeys there and had studied the various forms of art, archi­tecture and design in depth. Central aspects of their approach to planning were the themes of reduction, archi­tecture with a focus on light, the “praise of the shadow” stemming from Japanese tra­dition, and the beauty of simple things.  Per­fection with simul­ta­neous imper­fection with the courage for dis­con­ti­nuities and irre­gu­la­rities – mostly known as wabi-sabi – were equally part of the architect’’ wish list.

The owners had also empha­sised their wish for a modern ensemble of buil­dings with an inde­pendent formal lan­guage. The architect resisted any attempt to merely copy local building types such as the his­toric thatched-roof houses. Nevert­heless, the buil­dings com­pleted in 2018 and October 2021 in the form of gable-roofed and pent-roofed houses fit in per­fectly with the tra­di­tional form and the sur­rounding buil­dings – in addition, the dark façades are based on the appearance of the typical local, often tarred barns.

The first thing that new arrivals will pro­bably notice about the external appearance of the two pent-roofed houses are the steeply pitched copper roofs and the rough-sawn black wood cladding that define the cour­tyard-like grouped cuba­tures. In this way, the wood cladding absorbs the changing inci­dence of light during the course of the day and con­stantly creates new aspects.

The architect Norbert Möhring responded to the desire for plays of light and shadow and a Japanese-reduced impression.

For the facade, we tried to interpret tra­di­tional Stülp­schalung [inverted formwork] dif­fer­ently. We arranged them ver­ti­cally instead of hori­zon­tally and sepa­rated them hori­zon­tally in the middle. The upper formwork runs in the opposite direction to the lower formwork, creating an inte­resting shadow pattern that dis­creetly divides the building hori­zon­tally. Central to the concept of the houses is the kitchen-living room, which is designed as an open hall over two floors, serves as a central hub and is glazed on the east and west sides.

Norbert Möhring

Inside, the first thing you notice is how flooded with light the house is in many areas.

Thanks to large sliding windows and the sky­light, the central area of the house is flooded with light even on less pleasant days and is also closely linked to the garden and the changing seasons.

Lightness, wha­tever the weather

Because even here in the far north of Germany, there are of course those days when it just doesn’t get light pro­perly or the rain pelts down inces­santly. All the better that the holiday homes are veri­table light coll­ectors.

Even and espe­cially on these days, the houses offer sui­table retreats. For reading a good book (finally! –  We always take far too many with us on holiday and usually don’t even manage to read them. Do you feel the same way?) Or you do lots of cooking with family or friends, go to the sauna and then settle down in the living room with the afo­re­men­tioned good book or in a large group with a board game. Finally, time for leisure! Mean­while, the fire crackles and blazes in the fire­place, which is between the living room and the spa­cious, central living and kitchen area.

Well cared-for in this way, you are much more relaxed about any kind of inclement weather that may be looming in front of the pan­o­ramic windows.

In the warm months, there is a great sense of lightness anyway – the house lite­rally opens seam­lessly onto the garden, and the east and west ter­races offer sui­table places to sit at any time.

Various works of art from the owners’ private coll­ection also provide lightness and inspi­ration. For example, “The Bathers” by Petri Niemelä. The painting sym­bo­lises the afo­re­men­tioned longing for one’s own holiday home by the sea – it was purchased for the house even before it existed.  Works by another Finnish artist, Sami Luk­ka­rinen, can also be admired in House 9.

House 11, on the other hand, fea­tures two other artists, the German pho­to­grapher Michael Wesely and the young street artist Fillin Guas, whose works fit more decisively into the colour canon of the younger house.

The minute you step inside, you can lite­rally feel that the owners have been actively involved with various repre­sen­ta­tives of the European art scene for many years and enjoy their tre­asures – the advantage of an owner-occupied holiday resi­dence! — but are also happy to share them with their 2–12 guests.

Birds are twit­tering

like the rippling of water

Mountain cherries bloom

at lunchtime between pine trees

in the depth of the forest

Wakayama Bokusui
In der Ferne der Fuji wol­kenlos heiter
[In the distance Mount Fuji cloudless radiance]
May 1906 1,35,9

---

Text: Ulrich Stefan Knoll, December 2021

Overview: Here you will find all HomeS­tories at a glance!

The house