House on Heinsbergstraße, Duesseldorf – Villa in Alt-Niederkassel
In Alt-Niederkassel, one of Düsseldorf’s most historic and sought-after residential quarters, a new urban villa has been built on Heinsbergstraße that unites classical architecture with consistently high-quality materiality. Developed by Ralf Schmitz and designed by the Berlin-based office Sebastian Treese Architekten, the project reinterprets the building traditions of the Rhineland—through balanced proportions, a distinctive stepped gable, and a façade composition deeply rooted in the local architectural culture.
The cubic volume responds precisely to the corner position of the plot. The stepped gable clearly marks the intersection and lends the building a strong vertical orientation. The remaining façades follow a calm, disciplined rhythm of evenly proportioned window axes, deep reveals, and minimal articulation. Sash windows and shutters introduce classical accents without overwhelming the overall composition.
The building envelope is executed in traditional brick construction. A blue-brown Wittmunder clinker brick, Sortierung 211 in normal format, was used in an alternating bond, allowing both the smooth facing sides and the rougher Fußseiten (back sides) of the bricks to appear on the façade. These back sides naturally carry traces of the manufacturing process: open pores, mineral inclusions, subtle firing marks and sand impressions. Together with the reduction-fired blue tones, they create a fine, organically developed grain structure that keeps the surface calm yet not homogeneous. The differing textures of the brick sides generate a façade that responds to close-up viewing and reveals the masonry as a hand-crafted, massive construction.
The urban villa is deliberately restrained in its proportions. Small shifts in the façade planes, clean edges, and a substantial wall thickness define its exterior appearance. The building aligns itself in height and depth with the surrounding structures and integrates naturally into the finely grained, historically shaped neighborhood. The reductive design approach—volume, opening order, material—results in an architecture that does not rely on expressive gestures, but on measure, rhythm, and material depth.
The outcome is a new building that respects the built structure of Alt-Niederkassel while offering a contemporary interpretation of classical urban-villa typologies. The combination of a clear architectural language and a brick façade that, through its alternating bond, reveals the traces of its own making, defines the house on Heinsbergstraße as a building grounded in substance and precise craftsmanship.
