Lenzburg

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Lenzburg
Coat of arms of Lenzburg
State : SwitzerlandSwitzerland Switzerland
Canton : Kanton AargauKanton Aargau Aargau (AG)
District : Lenzburgw
BFS no. : 4201i1 f3 f4
Postal code : 5600
UN / LOCODE : CH LBG
Coordinates : 656 004  /  248767 coordinates: 47 ° 23 '14 "  N , 8 ° 10' 49"  O ; CH1903:  656004  /  248767
Height : 407  m above sea level M.
Height range : 358-570 m above sea level M.
Area : 11.31  km²
Residents: i10,829 (December 31, 2019)
Population density : 957 inhabitants per km²
Proportion of foreigners :
(residents without
citizenship ) 		28.4% (December 31, 2019)
Website: www.lenzburg.ch
Old town and Lenzburg Castle

Old town and Lenzburg Castle
Location of the municipality
Hallwilersee Kanton Luzern Kanton Solothurn Bezirk Aarau Bezirk Baden Bezirk Bremgarten Bezirk Brugg Bezirk Kulm Bezirk Muri Bezirk Laufenburg Bezirk Zofingen Ammerswil Boniswil Brunegg Dintikon Egliswil Fahrwangen Hallwil Hendschiken Holderbank AG Hunzenschwil Lenzburg Meisterschwanden Möriken-Wildegg Niederlenz Othmarsingen Rupperswil Schafisheim Seengen Seon Staufen AGMap of Lenzburg
About this picture
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Lenzburg (in the Swiss German local dialect: ˈlænːtsbrɡ ) is a small town and municipality in the Swiss canton of Aargau . The main town of the centrally located Lenzburg district is on the Aabach in the northern Seetal , around three kilometers south of the Aare .

The northeastern part of today's urban area was the site of an important settlement, the Vicus Lindfeld , during Roman times . Mentioned for the first time in 893, Lenzburg was initially a village settlement. Lenzburg Castle was built on the Schlossberg in the 11th century . The settlement at the foot of the hill was fortified and received in 1306 by the Habsburgs , the town charter . After the conquest by the Confederates in 1415, Lenzburg belonged to the Bernese Aargau , a subject area of ​​the city of Bern , for almost four centuries . The city has been the district capital in the canton of Aargau since 1803. As a result, it developed into an important transport hub and business location.

geography

The urban area is characterized by two molasse hills , which rise around a hundred meters above the otherwise largely flat terrain. While the Schlossberg ( 508  m above sea level ) is approximately circular and only about 250 meters in diameter, the Goffersberg next door ( 507  m above sea level ) is elliptical and has a plateau almost five hundred meters long and fifty meters wide . The medieval old town lies between the Schlossberg with Lenzburg Castle and the Aabach . The north-eastern part of the municipality consists of a flattened terminal moraine that was created during the Würme Ice Age when the Reuss Glacier advanced . There are two striking boulders , the small and the large Roman stone.

In the southeast rise the "mountain" ( 560  m above sea level ) and the Lütisbuech ( 538  m above sea level ), two foothills of the Rietenberg. This chain of hills forms the border between the Seetal and the Bünztal . Lenzburg has grown together with its surrounding communities Niederlenz and Staufen to form a coherent agglomeration with almost 23,000 inhabitants, the boundaries between the once separate places are hardly recognizable in the settlement structure.

The area of ​​the municipality is 1131 hectares , of which 554 hectares are forested and 360 hectares are built over. The highest point is at 560 meters on the summit of the "mountain" on the southern border of the municipality, the lowest at 390 meters on the Aabach. Neighboring communities are Rupperswil in the northwest, Niederlenz and Möriken-Wildegg in the north, Othmarsingen in the northeast, Hendschiken in the east, Ammerswil in the southeast, Egliswil in the south, Seon in the southwest and Staufen in the west.

history

The oldest finds date from the Neolithic Age , including a burial ground that is over 5000 years old. In the first half of the 1st century a Roman settlement was built on the Lindfeld, northeast of the city center on the high plateau between Aabach and Bünz . This vicus had the shape of a 400 meter long street village and had about 500 inhabitants in its heyday. The most important building known today was a theater with over 4000 seats. The settlement, whose name is not known, seems to have been a religious center for the nearby region (see Vicus Lindfeld ). The decline began at the beginning of the 3rd century, and the settlement was abandoned at the latest with the incursions of the Alemanni (259 to 270 AD).

After the area had remained uninhabited for more than 200 years, an Alemannic settlement developed in the 5th and 6th centuries . Lencis was first mentioned in a document in 893 in a toboggan run by the Fraumünster in Zurich . Whether the name of the place is actually derived from the old European river name Lentia , which means “the flexible one” or “the curved one”, remains to be clarified. In fact, the Aabach was called Lenzbach in the Middle Ages . The part of the name -burg is a clear reference to Lenzburg Castle, which was first mentioned in 1036 .

View of the town and castle of Lenzburg by Matthäus Merian , around 1642
Aerial photo of Lenzburg from 1951

The castle was the ancestral seat of the Counts of Lenzburg , who were important feudal lords in the Swiss plateau in the 11th and 12th centuries . Count Ulrich IV died in 1173 without heirs; he bequeathed the castle to Emperor Barbarossa . The emperor gave it as a fiefdom to the Counts of Kyburg , who later bought the castle. Around 1230 a fortified market settlement was built between the village of Oberlenz am Aabach (which was abandoned a little later) and the Schlossberg. When the Kyburgs were also extinct, the Habsburgs took over the castle and rule over the settlement in 1273. On August 20, 1306, the City Lenzburg received by Duke Frederick the Fair , the city charter . When the Guglers invaded at the end of 1375, the Habsburgs left the city razed and then rebuilt.

Lenzburg Castle

In April 1415 the Bernese conquered the western part of the Aargau. Lenzburg became a subject town in the so-called Bernese Aargau , but was largely allowed to keep its previous freedoms. The city authorities consisted of two alternating mayors , the small and the large council. Bern bought the castle in 1433, in which the governor of the Lenzburg Oberamt resided from 1444 to 1798 . In a city fire in 1491, only 15 houses remained unscathed, after which the city was rebuilt with the help of the Bernese.

In 1528 the Bernese introduced the Reformation in Lenzburg . Until 1565, the city was part of the parish of Staufberg , whose parish church is located on the hill of the same name to the west of the city. In the 16th century, Lenzburg gradually changed from a farming community to a craft settlement. In 1744, the city's customs rights were ceded to Bern; in return, the city's residents were now allowed to build houses outside the fortifications. This favored the growth of the cotton industry . The first factory was built in 1732 .

In March 1798 the French took Switzerland and proclaimed the Helvetic Republic . Since then, Lenzburg has belonged to the canton of Aargau and became the district capital in 1803. A year later, the canton acquired the castle without, however, having a specific purpose for the large complex. Like other cantons, they did not want to use the castle as a symbol of the old rule for government purposes, and so the canton rented it out as an educational institution until it was able to sell it again in 1860. It subsequently had several owners, including the father of the poet Frank Wedekind and the polar explorer Lincoln Ellsworth . In 1956, the castle finally became the property of the canton, which set up the cantonal historical museum in it.

Borrower's note from the local community of Lenzburg dated August 10, 1885

In the 19th century Lenzburg developed into a supraregional cotton publishing and shipping center. Many homeworkers throughout the canton worked for the Lenzburg "cotton gentlemen". On June 23, 1874, the city was connected to the railway network with the Aargau Southern Railway . On September 6, 1877, followed by railway line Zofingen-Wettingen the National Railway . The bankruptcy of this company in the following year brought Lenzburg to the brink of economic ruin, as the city had become heavily involved financially. The reduction in debt burdened the city's finances for over half a century.

Nevertheless, Lenzburg quickly recovered from this setback and developed into an industrial center. On October 15, 1883, the English company Lake Valley Railway opened a railway line through the Seetal to Lucerne , today's Seetalbahn , and the section from Lenzburg to Wildegg followed on October 1, 1895. Between 1900 and 1970, the population tripled. Since then, however, it has been stable because growth has increasingly shifted to neighboring communities. The railway line to Wildegg has not been used continuously since June 2, 1984 and until 2005 was only used as a siding for goods traffic to Lenzburg Industrie. Then it had to give way to the tunnel of the old town bypass.

Attractions

Part of the old city wall

The town's landmark is Lenzburg Castle , which was built in the 11th century and has since been expanded several times. The Lenzburg is one of the oldest and most important hilltop castles in Switzerland and is located on the Schlossberg, a molasse hill that towers over the plain by about a hundred meters. On the Goffersberg, directly opposite the castle, is the “Gofischlössli”, a three-storey hunting castle with an attached stair tower, built in 1644.

Old town

The horseshoe-shaped old town at the foot of the hill is well preserved. It consists of a main street, two parallel side streets and a cross street. The city ​​wall has only been partially preserved, but the remains are under monument protection. Most of the old town got its present appearance in the 17th and early 18th centuries, when the wooden houses were gradually replaced by stone buildings in the Baroque style .

Dating back to the 15th century parish church was in 1667 in a hall church expanded and has a Rococo - stucco ceiling dating from 1760. The town hall was built in two stages instead of medieval predecessor (1677 and 1692) and received a clock tower in the middle of the building. The city library (the former hospital for the poor and old) was created in 1638 through the merging of several houses and was rebuilt in 1792 in a transition style between baroque and classicism . The former office building is a late classicist building with two Doric columns, built in 1845 . The oldest preserved fountain is the Chlausbrunnen from 1572, which stands on Metzgplatz.

Outside the old town

Group of houses on the Burghalde

On the edge of the old town, several historically important buildings in the Rococo, Late Classicist and Biedermeier styles were built in the 18th and early 19th centuries . Particularly noteworthy is the Hünerwadelhaus from 1759, the largest preserved trading house in Aargau from the early industrial age. The Müller-Haus from 1784, a manorial factory owner's estate, looks more monumental; it now houses a cultural institution.

The so-called Burghaldenhäuser are located on the southwest flank of the Schlossberg. The Alte Burghalde is a three-story house built in 1628 in the late Gothic style with a half-timbered extension and the former Trotte . Today it houses the Burghalde Museum . Next to it is the Neue Burghalde (1794), a strictly symmetrical early classicist building with a spacious outside staircase and richly forged wing gate.

When the motorway slip road was being built in 1964 , archaeologists discovered a well-preserved Roman theater from the 1st century AD. Although the existence of a settlement had been known for a long time, this find turned out to be a minor sensation. The theater had over 4000 seats and was probably the cultural center of the wider area. The 48-meter-high Esterliturm stands at the highest point in the city . The first wooden tower from 1905 was replaced by a concrete structure in 1974. A staircase with 253 steps leads up to the viewing platform ; the view extends to the Black Forest and the Central Swiss Alps .

Landmarks

Since 1956 there have been three boundary stones on the main arterial roads to the neighboring communities, which were created by the Lenzburg sculptor Peter Hächler (1922–1999) as part of a competition. They represent a stylized sphere - the city's coat of arms - and the silhouette of the castle, but do without the usual coat of arms of the respective neighboring community. The concrete from which they were poured is already weathered, despite a repair. The year 1956 can no longer be read. The stones are on Hendschiker Strasse in Gewann Hornerfeld , on Aarauerstrasse in the Fünflinde corridor towards the municipality of Staufen and in the south on Seoner Strasse on the border to the municipality of the same name in the Tafelt corridor . A fourth stone on Niederlenzerstrasse is missing.

coat of arms

The blazon of the city coat of arms reads: "In white, blue ball." This very simple coat of arms first appeared on the city seal in 1333 and has remained unchanged since then.

population

The population developed as follows:

year 1850 1900 1930 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Residents 1957 2588 4131 4949 6378 7594 7585 7530 7568 8341

On December 31, 2019, 10,829 people lived in Lenzburg, the proportion of foreigners was 28.4%. In the 2015 census, 29.5% described themselves as Reformed and 28.1% as Roman Catholic ; 42.4% were non-denominational or of other faiths. In the 2000 census, 78.0% stated German as their main language, 8.7% Italian , 2.1% each of Albanian and Turkish , 1.8% Serbo-Croatian , 1.7% Portuguese , 1.0% Spanish , 0, 8% French and 0.6% English .

Politics and law

The Political Municipality (called community of residents in the canton of Aargau) performs all municipal tasks that have not been declared to be the sphere of activity of another type of municipality (for example, the parishes of the regional churches ) by superordinate law . The current municipal code dates from 1983.

legislative branch

2
10
2
4th
3
9
1
9
2 10 2 4th 3 9 1 9 
A total of 40 seats

Instead of a community meeting that is common in smaller communities, the community parliament elected by the Lenzburg voters, the residents' council , has represented the concerns of the population since 1972 . It consists of 40 members who are each elected for four years by proportional representation. He is responsible for approving the tax rate , the budget, the annual accounts, the annual report and the loans. It also issues regulations, controls the conduct of office of the executive and decides on naturalizations . The residents' councils can submit parliamentary proposals ( motion , postulate , small questions ).

The graphic on the right shows the distribution of seats after the election on November 26, 2017. In previous elections, the parties achieved the following number of seats:

Political party 2001 2005 2009 2013 2017
SP 10 9 8th 9 10
SVP 11 10 10 10 9
FDP 11 10 10 8th 9
glp - - 2 4th 4th
CVP 4th 4th 4th 3 3
Green - 3 3 3 2
EPP 4th 4th 3 2 2
BDP - - - 1 1

Various elements of direct democracy can also be found at the level of the resident community . The population is entitled to optional and compulsory referendums as well as the popular initiative .

executive

The executing authority is the five-member city ​​council . He is elected by the people for four years in a majority process . The term of office is four years and the people are elected in a majority procedure ( majority voting procedure ). The city council leads and represents the community. To this end, it implements the resolutions of the residents' council and the tasks assigned to it by the canton.

The five city councils for the 2018-2021 term are:

  • Daniel Mosimann ( SP ), City Mayor
  • Franziska Möhl-Wey ( CVP ), Vice-Minister
  • Andreas Schmid ( FDP )
  • Martin Steinmann (FDP)
  • Martin Stücheli ( SVP )

Judiciary

The District Court of Lenzburg is the first instance responsible for legal disputes . Lenzburg is the seat of the Friedensrichterkreis XI, which covers the northern part of the district. In addition, the city has been the seat of the public prosecutor's office for the districts of Lenzburg and Aarau since 2011 .

National elections

In the 2019 Swiss parliamentary elections, the share of the vote in Lenzburg was: SP 21.7%, FDP 18.1%, SVP 18.0%, glp 12.7%, Greens 12.0%, CVP 8.3%, EPP 3, 8%, BDP 2.8%.

economy

Lenzburg is an important business location. According to the company structure statistics (STATENT) collected in 2015, there are over 950 companies, most of which are active in the service sector. Mainly they are SME companies . Large international companies have also settled in Lenzburg. These include the technology group ABB (formerly CMC ), the meat processor Traitafina , the plastics producer Quadrant , the oxygen plant and the jam manufacturer Hero . Other important employers are the Hypothekarbank Lenzburg and the Lenzburg correctional facility , the largest prison in the canton of Aargau. In total there are around 9200 jobs in Lenzburg, less than 1% of them in agriculture, 28% in industry and 71% in the service sector.

Viticulture has a certain importance in Lenzburg . In 2018, an area of ​​2.5 hectares was planted with vines on the exposed southern slopes of Schlossberg and Goffersberg. Five different varieties are grown, with Pinot Noir and Riesling × Sylvaner predominating.

traffic

Lenzburg station with Seetalbahn

Lenzburg is an important traffic junction. This is where three major main roads intersect, Hauptstrasse 1 from Zurich to Bern , Hauptstrasse 25 from Lenzburg to Zug and Hauptstrasse 26 from Brugg to Lucerne . In 2006 the partially underground core tangent was completed. Previously, the traffic had been routed through the old town and north around the Schlossberg . Inner-city streets such as Schützenmattstrasse were freed from through traffic. The A1 motorway, the most important east-west road connection in Switzerland, passes north of the city . It is connected to the urban road network with a junction and a motorway slip road.

The Lenzburg Station is an express stop on the main railway line Bern-Zurich . Other railway lines lead to Brugg , Lucerne ( Seetalbahn ), Zofingen and Rotkreuz . The connection to Wettingen was discontinued on December 12, 2004, as compensation the S11 line of the Zurich S-Bahn runs through the Heitersberg tunnel via Lenzburg to Aarau . Bus company Region Lenzburg lead to Bettwil , Brunegg , Dintikon , Möriken-Wildegg , Schafisheim and Teufenthal . Within Lenzburg, a city bus line runs from the Langsamstig district to the palace car park. In addition, there is a night S-Bahn ( Winterthur - Zurich HB - Baden - Lenzburg - Aarau) and several night bus routes to the surrounding communities on weekends .

education

Lenzburg offers a wide range of educational opportunities with a kindergarten , primary school , secondary school , secondary school and district school . There are also two vocational schools for the commercial and technical areas, a special educational school and two private schools . The commercial vocational school offers an extensive program in adult education . The closest grammar schools are the Alte Kantonsschule and the Neue Kantonsschule , both in Aarau .

Culture

Folk Festival Lenzburg, 1975

Although Lenzburg is rather small, the city has a rich cultural offer. The Historical Museum of Canton Aargau in Lenzburg Castle is of supraregional importance ; it includes several temporary exhibitions with cultural and art history content as well as a permanent exhibition on the living culture of past centuries. The institution Stapferhaus Lenzburg , which organizes interdisciplinary cultural events, exhibitions and meeting projects, is also domiciled in the castle . From 1972 to 1980 there was an annual international folk festival at Lenzburg Castle, the Lenzburg Folk Festival . The Lenzburg Musical Encounters are a music festival that has been taking place annually since 1984 under a different motto.

The Burghalde Museum in the "Alte Burghalde" building shows the city's history with excavated objects from the Neolithic , Roman and early Middle Ages as well as other evidence of the city's history; a specialty is the collection of 65 Russian icons .

Further cultural institutions are the Aargauer Literaturhaus , the “Netzwerk Müllerhaus”, the Art Atelier Aquatinta ( gallery ), the Randolph gallery and the sculptor's studio . The «café literaire» takes place once a month in the Hirschen restaurant, an event with renowned readers such as B. Peter Bieri . Various cultural events take place in the Tommasini cultural center. The baronessa culture bar also offers an interesting range of events.

regional customs

Every year in Lenzburg there are important traditional events with a national appeal. For more than 400 years, the youth festival has been the biggest event in Lenzburg. It takes place every year on the second Friday in July and includes a parade as well as a recreational free rally maneuver every two years . On the following Saturday, the open-air festival “Metschgplatsch” with young musicians from the region takes place on Metzgplatz in the old town. During the “Jogging Parade” at the end of October, riflemen wrapped in white cloaks with lanterns parade through the old town. This custom originated around 1450 and goes back to a pre-Reformation brotherhood. In November and December there is the chopping , which has the purpose to wake up Santa Claus. A more recent custom is the juggler festival in August. In the alleys of the old town, small artists from all over the world perform all kinds of tricks; this event always attracts thousands of visitors.

Personalities

See also

literature

  • Elisabeth Bleuer and Heidi Neuenschwander: Lenzburg (municipality). In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  • Fritz Stuber, Jürg Lang et al .: Cityscape study of the old town of Lenzburg . Urbanistics, Zurich 1976, ISBN 3-85957-001-3 .
  • Michael Stettler , Emil Maurer : The art monuments of the canton of Aargau . Ed .: Society for Swiss Art History. Volume II: The districts of Lenzburg and Brugg. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 1953.
  • Heidi Neuenschwander: History of the city of Lenzburg from the middle of the 16th to the end of the 18th century. On the way from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age , Aarau 1984, pp. 7–396. on-line

Web links

Commons : Lenzburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Lentzburg in the Topographia Helvetiae, Rhaetiae et Valesiae (Matthäus Merian)  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cantonal population statistics 2019. Department of Finance and Resources, Statistics Aargau, March 30, 2020, accessed on April 2, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Cantonal population statistics 2019. Department of Finance and Resources, Statistics Aargau, March 30, 2020, accessed on April 2, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b Beat Zehnder: The community names of the canton of Aargau . In: Historical Society of the Canton of Aargau (Ed.): Argovia . tape 100 . Verlag Sauerländer, Aarau 1991, ISBN 3-7941-3122-3 , p. 247-250 .
  4. ↑ a b National map of Switzerland, sheets 1089 and 1090, Swisstopo.
  5. ↑ Standard area statistics - municipalities according to 4 main areas. Federal Statistical Office , November 26, 2018, accessed on May 23, 2019 .
  6. ^ Martin Hartmann, Hans Weber: The Romans in Aargau . Verlag Sauerländer, Aarau 1985, ISBN 3-7941-2539-8 , p. 179-181 .
  7. ↑ Grenzstein Hendschikerstrasse, 1956 (Dossier (building inventory)) , online inventory of the Cantonal Monument Preservation Aargau
  8. ^ Joseph Galliker, Marcel Giger: Municipal coat of arms of the Canton of Aargau . Lehrmittelverlag des Kantons Aargau, book 2004, ISBN 3-906738-07-8 , p. 201 .
  9. ↑ Population development in the municipalities of the Canton of Aargau since 1850. (Excel) In: Eidg. Volkszählung 2000. Statistics Aargau, 2001, archived from the original on October 8, 2018 ; accessed on May 23, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Resident population by religious affiliation, 2015. (Excel) In: Population and Households, Community Tables 2015. Statistics Aargau, accessed on May 23, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Swiss Federal Census 2000: Economic resident population by main language as well as by districts and municipalities. (Excel) Statistics Aargau, archived from the original on August 10, 2018 ; accessed on May 23, 2019 .
  12. ↑ City Council . City of Lenzburg, November 26, 2017, accessed on June 20, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Minutes of the election of 5 members of the municipal council for the 2018/21 term of office on September 24, 2017. (PDF) City of Lenzburg, September 24, 2017, accessed on September 29, 2017 .
  14. ↑ circles of justice of the peace. Canton of Aargau, accessed on June 20, 2019 .
  15. ^ Public Prosecutor's Office Lenzburg-Aarau. Department of Economics and Home Affairs of the Canton of Aargau, accessed on June 20, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Results of the National Council elections 2019 - Canton Aargau. Retrieved August 2, 2020 .
  17. ^ Federal Statistical Office : NR - Results parties (municipalities) (INT1). In: Federal Elections 2019 | opendata.swiss. August 8, 2019, accessed August 1, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Statistics of the corporate structure (STATENT). (Excel, 157 kB) Statistics Aargau, 2016, accessed on May 23, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Grape harvest control 2018 Canton Aargau. (PDF, 2.4 MB) Agricultural Center Liebegg, 2019, accessed on June 19, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Museum Burghalde ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.museumburghalde.ch
  21. ^ Müllerhaus network
  22. ↑ Aquatint
  23. ↑ Tommasini
  24. ↑ baronessa