2: The Summer House
Havehuset fra Riisingsminde i Den Fynske Landsby.
Havehusets have i Den Fynske landsby
Havehuset efter genopførelsen i Den Fynske Landsby.
Intro
The summer house (no. 2) is from the farm of Riisingsminde, which was the country residence of the merchant family Riising. After a fire in 1933 the summer house was all that was left of Riisingsminde. It was re-erected in the Funen Village in 1947.
The summer house was built in about 1800 under the influence of the ideas behind the “landscaped”, “English” or “romantic” garden. In the romantic garden, there was a desire to create and control nature in the immediate surroundings, such that plain, hill, forest, lake and meadow were represented. The garden was the place where people became meditative and at one with nature. Very appropriately, the spirits could commune in a summer house. The summer house is more an expression of manorial ambition than of peasant life.
The Summer House in The Funen Village
The summer house, like the prison and the Brahesborg Barn, is an element which falls outside the core area of The Funen Village. These buildings are associated with manorial surroundings. However, the building is an expression of the interplay between the urban middle classes and agriculture during the 19th century and for the new wealth and the new norms which came to the most affluent social layer in agriculture. The building is integrated into a fine rose garden. Note also the mulberry tree.
The summer house is built around a classic timber frame with oak for the lower timbers and softwood for the upper. The roof is thatched with reed and has a ridge with kragetrær. There are also weatherboard gables. But here the similarity to the peasant buildings also ends. There is no re-used timber in the house. The core of the summer house is an octagonal room and small rectangular side rooms have been added to the east and west. The building has constructional references to Classical Antiquity in the form of four carved, wooden pillars which carry the large overhang or porch out towards the garden.