House from Hungen

Built: circa 1585/86
Dismantled: 1977
Reassembled: 1979 to 1980

This former municipal building from Hungen, a town in today’s Gießen county, is one of museum’s oldest and most elaborate examples of a secular building. With its impressive dimensions, the house features a jutting out street facing oriel and colourful carved timber ornamentations. To the right of the house are a wall with a small door and a sandstone segmental arch with the chiselled inscriptions 1589 and two coats of arms. At its original location, the dwelling and administrative building had been part of a farmstead that included a tithe barn for storing the farmers’ tithe dues to the sovereigns.

The house was occupied by the bailiffs of the Counts of Solms-Braunfels and Solms-Hungen and their families. For over two hundred years, they would work from here as the administrators and representatives of the ruling sovereigns. In 1819, the farmstead was sold by contract to a wealthy farmer and the house was used exclusively as a private residence. Since its reconstruction at the Open Air Museum, the House from Hungen is once again an administrative facility and is therefore not open to the public.