The Upper Lusatian house [1] or Umgebindehaus is a special type of house that combines log house, timber-framing and building stone methods of construction. It is especially common in the region running from Silesia through Upper Lusatia and North Bohemia and into Saxon Switzerland, as well as East Thuringia.
The Upper Lusatian house is defined by the constructional separation of its living area from the roof, or its living area from the upper story and roof. The main characteristic of the normal type is "a wooden support system, which runs around the living area of the house made of logs or boards, which has the job of freeing the frame of the living area from the weight of the roof (in single-storey houses) or the roof and upper storey (in two-storey houses)." [2]
Upper Lusatian houses are transversely divided Middle German houses or Ernhäuser. The hallway runs transversely across the house and separates the ground floor into living and working areas. The living area or Blockstube is usually located at the eastern or southern gable end in order to protect it from damp. The working area, of solid construction (usually rubble stone) is located opposite the Blockstube. This is where the animal stalls or stables, store rooms and barn are housed. A building in which the solid section is replaced by another Blockstube is known as a Doppelstubenhaus ("double living area house").
Above the Blockstube (Handweberstube) the upper storey or roof rests on wooden posts that are stabilised by triangulation with jetty brackets (Knagge) or braces (Kopfverbund). It is thus independent of the carrying elements below it and may be freely worked on. The upper storey is usually of timber framed construction. By contrast, especially in North Bohemia, the upper storey is made of log cabin construction.
The Sudetes, commonly known as the Sudeten Mountains, is a geomorphological subprovince in Central Europe, shared by Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. They consist mainly of mountain ranges and are the highest part of Bohemian Massif. They stretch from the Saxon capital of Dresden in the northwest across to the region of Lower Silesia in Poland and to the Moravian Gate in the Czech Republic in the east. Geographically the Sudetes are a Mittelgebirge with some characteristics typical of high mountains. Its plateaus and subtle summit relief makes the Sudetes more akin to mountains of Northern Europe than to the Alps.
A barn is an agricultural building usually on farms and used for various purposes. In North America, a barn refers to structures that house livestock, including cattle and horses, as well as equipment and fodder, and often grain. As a result, the term barn is often qualified e.g. tobacco barn, dairy barn, cow house, sheep barn, potato barn. In the British Isles, the term barn is restricted mainly to storage structures for unthreshed cereals and fodder, the terms byre or shippon being applied to cow shelters, whereas horses are kept in buildings known as stables. In mainland Europe, however, barns were often part of integrated structures known as byre-dwellings. In addition, barns may be used for equipment storage, as a covered workplace, and for activities such as threshing.
Lusatia is a historical region in Central Europe, split between Germany and Poland. Lusatia stretches from the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers in the east to the Pulsnitz and Black Elster rivers in the west, and is located within the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg as well as in the Polish voivodeships of Lower Silesia and Lubusz. Lusatia's central rivers are the Spree and the Lusatian Neisse, which constitutes the border between Germany and Poland since 1945. The Lusatian Mountains, separate Lusatia from Bohemia in the south. Lusatia is traditionally divided into Upper Lusatia and Lower Lusatia.
Görlitz is a town in the German state of Saxony. It is located on the Lusatian Neisse River, and is the largest town in Upper Lusatia as well as the second-largest town in the region of Lusatia, after Cottbus. Görlitz is the easternmost town in Germany, and lies opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was the eastern part of Görlitz until 1945. The town has approximately 56,000 inhabitants, which make Görlitz the sixth-largest town in Saxony. It is the seat of the district of Görlitz. Together with Zgorzelec, it forms the Euro City of Görlitz/Zgorzelec, which has a combined population of around 86,000. While not Lusatiophone itself, the town is situated just east of the Sorbian-speaking parts of Lusatia.
Bautzen or Budyšin, until 1868 Budissin, is a town in eastern Saxony, Germany, and the administrative centre of the district of Bautzen. It is located on the Spree river, is the eighth most populous town in Saxony, and is the seat of Saxony's largest district. Bautzen lies in the bilingual Sorbian settlement area of Lusatia, and is Lusatia's third-largest town after Cottbus and Görlitz, as well as the second-largest town in Upper Lusatia.
Timber framing and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs. If the structural frame of load-bearing timber is left exposed on the exterior of the building it may be referred to as half-timbered, and in many cases the infill between timbers will be used for decorative effect. The country most known for this kind of architecture is Germany, where timber-framed houses are spread all over the country.
Zittau is the southeasternmost city in the German state of Saxony, and is located in the district of Görlitz, Germany's easternmost district. It has a population of around 25,000, and is one of the most important cities in the region of Lusatia.
A log house, or log building, is a structure built with horizontal logs interlocked at the corners by notching. Logs may be round, squared or hewn to other shapes, either handcrafted or milled. The term "log cabin" generally refers to a smaller, more rustic log house, such as a hunting cabin in the woods, that may or may not have electricity or plumbing.
Löbau is a city in the east of Saxony, Germany, in the traditional region of Upper Lusatia. It is situated between the slopes of the Löbauer Berg and the fertile hilly area of the Upper Lusatian Mountains. It is the gateway to this volcanic mountainous area and is situated halfway between the cities of Bautzen, Görlitz and Zittau.
Upper Lusatia is a historical region in Germany and Poland. Along with Lower Lusatia to the north, it makes up the region of Lusatia, named after the Slavic Lusici tribe. Both parts of Lusatia are home to the West Slavic minority group of the Sorbs.
Cochem is the seat of and the biggest town in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With just over 5,000 inhabitants, Cochem falls just behind Kusel, in the Kusel district, as Germany's second smallest district seat. Since 7 June 2009, it has belonged to the Verbandsgemeinde of Cochem.
The community of Jonsdorf is located in the south of the Kreis Görlitz in the southeast of the German federal state of Saxony. It is embedded into a valley of the Zittau Mountains, part of the Lusatian Mountains.
The method of building wooden buildings with a traditional timber frame with horizontal plank or log infill has many names, the most common of which are piece sur piece, corner post construction, post-and-plank, Ständerbohlenbau (German) and skiftesverk (Swedish). This traditional building method is believed to be the predecessor to half-timber construction widely known by its German name fachwerkbau which has wall infill of wattle and daub, brick, or stone. This carpentry was used from parts of Scandinavia to Switzerland to western Russia. Though relatively rare now, two types are found in a number of regions in North America, more common are the walls with planks or timbers which slide in a groove in the posts and less common is a type where horizontal logs are tenoned into individual mortises in the posts. This method is not the same as the plank-frame buildings in North America with vertical plank walls.
The vernacular architecture of the Carpathians draws on environmental and cultural sources to create unique designs.
The Middle German house is a style of traditional German farmhouse which is predominantly found in Central Germany.
Log buildings and structures can be categorized as historic and modern. A diverse selection of their forms and styles with examples of architectural elements is discussed in the following articles:
Hochwald is a mountain on the border of Saxony in southeastern Germany and Bohemia in the Czech Republic. It is at 749.5 metres (2,459 ft) above sea level, one of the highest in the Lusatian/Zittau ranges, directly on the Czech/German border. It has two peaks, the southern main summit, which lies 743.8 metres (2,440 ft) above sea level, and the north summit, which is 370 metres (1,210 ft) away. Due to the visually appealing views from the mountain, it has earned the nickname Aussichtsturm des Zittauer Gebirges.
The hall house is a type of vernacular house traditional in many parts of England, Wales, Ireland and lowland Scotland, as well as northern Europe, during the Middle Ages, centring on a hall. Usually timber-framed, some high status examples were built in stone.
American historic carpentry is the historic methods with which wooden buildings were built in what is now the United States since European settlement. A number of methods were used to form the wooden walls and the types of structural carpentry are often defined by the wall, floor, and roof construction such as log, timber framed, balloon framed, or stacked plank. Some types of historic houses are called plank houses but plank house has several meanings which are discussed below. Roofs were almost always framed with wood, sometimes with timber roof trusses. Stone and brick buildings also have some wood framing for floors, interior walls and roofs.
Media related to Umgebinde at Wikimedia Commons
European farmhouse types | ||
|---|---|---|
(If the same type of house is known by alternative names, it may be linked more than once.) | ||
| Old European |  | |
| German | ||
| Danish | ||
| Dutch | ||
| British | ||
| Scottish | ||
| Swiss | ||
| French | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Italian | ||
| Swedish | ||
| Malta | ||
| Carpathian | ||
| Authority control: National |
|---|
