Model of a winegrower’s house

James Simon (1851–1932), collector and patron of the then Royal Prussian Museums, ensured that the German folk- lore collection’s inventory of building models could be expanded in the early 20th century. The houses selected for this were regarded as typical for German cultural landscapes and chosen in accordance with the proposals of Robert Mielke (1863–1935), a settlement researcher, and Otto Lehmann (1865–1951), director of the museum in Altona.This model replicates a house in Rissbach by the Moselle river. The architecture of the buildings along the riverwas as much influenced by the narrowness of the Moselle valley as by the traditional monoculture of wine-growing. A massive ground floor afforded protection from floods. The wine barrels were rolled out of the vaulted cellar through the basement entrance at the side facing the street. This side was the building’s showy front: the wooden struts not only follow structural requirements,but were also placed in consideration of decorative aspects, unlike the struts on the lateral façades.