Stairway

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The EAM skyscraper at the top of the street
Germany's first pedestrian zone, stairs street in 1969
The street with seasonal greening in 2002
Preserved historical neon sign

The stairs street in Kassel is the first planned and executed pedestrian zone in Germany.

history

As an axis, it connects Kassel's main train station with Friedrichsplatz from Kurfürstenstraße to Königsstraße . Due to the extensive destruction of the Kassel city center in World War II , planning could be done relatively freely through former urban structures. The Nahl'sche Haus with its rococo facade , the reconstruction of which had already started, had to give way to the construction of the stairs street and was demolished. The first plans for such an axis through the old town already existed in the 19th century and in the 1930s when Kassel was to be expanded into the Gau capital .

After an urban planning competition in 1947, Werner Hasper began planning the stairs street . The construction work was finished in 1953. The road was inaugurated on November 9, 1953. The background to the construction project was that pedestrians were only given priority in road traffic in the road traffic regulations in 1964. In the middle of the post-war construction period, when the car-friendly city was in the foreground, stairs street was therefore a structural exception.

In 1956, the street served as the backdrop for the film Without you, it will be night with Curd Jürgens , in 1959 the film Rosen for the Public Prosecutor with Walter Giller and Martin Held followed , and it was also in the 1960 film The Last Pedestrian with Heinz Erhardt and in 2019 in Tatort To see the monster of Kassel .

The relocation of the long-distance train station to Wilhelmshöhe, the decline in the number of specialist shops in the city center, and the concentration of chain stores on the main axis Königsstraße and some shopping centers have significantly reduced the importance of the street. The neon-lit shop fronts and the lavish shop window decorations of the post-war period can no longer or hardly be experienced. Numerous businesses suffer from the frequent change of tenants.

layout

The stairway follows the slope of the slope and is divided alternately into platforms and stair sections . With 104 steps it overcomes a height difference of approx. 15 m. In the middle there are cascading green spaces and two fountains. The perimeter development, with predominantly two-storey, elongated buildings in the shape of a comb, follows the sober, formal structure of the street in the style typical of the 1950s. The dominant feature of urban planning is the former headquarters of the then Elektrizitäts-Aktiengesellschaft Mitteldeutschland ( EAM ). The building is used by the youth welfare office of the city of Kassel.

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

A few renovations in recent years disrupt the otherwise closed appearance of the listed complex. An entrance to the now closed tunnel station of the Kassel tram was filled in.

From a commercial point of view, the design with stairs is considered a hindrance today, because access with a wheelchair or walker is not possible because the central ramps are too steep.

In April 2019, the obelisk by Olu Oguibe , an exhibit from documenta 14 , was installed in stairs street.

Other stairways

The concept of Kassel staircase street was basically an urban planning premise of the German post-war period. For example, from 1965, in what is now the Brackwede district of Bielefeld, stairs were also built.

Web links

Commons : stairs street (Kassel)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 18 ′ 55 "  N , 9 ° 29 ′ 40"  E

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Roland König: Designing traffic areas, traffic systems and means of transport to be barrier-free
  2. ↑ http://www.kassel.de/kultur/film/filme/infos/12463/index_print.html
  3. ↑ http://www.hna.de/nachrichten/stadt-kassel/kassel/goldene-zeiten-sind-vorbei-treppenstrasse-leidet-unter-haeufigen-geschaeftswechseleln-1336361.html report of the HNA
  4. ↑ http://www.wz-newsline.de/home/panorama/die-aelteste-deutsche-fussgaengerzone-wird-60-1.1473908
  5. ↑ https://www.stadt-kassel.de/aktuelles/mektiven/24244/index_print.html
  6. ^ Structure of the documenta work of art: The obelisk is back in Kassel. In: hna.de. April 18, 2019, accessed April 18, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Günther, Anna: 60 years and a bit dreary. Süddeutsche Zeitung, accessed on December 27, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Beckmann, Karl / Künnemeyer, Rolf: 1151-2001 Brackwede - stations of a 850-year history. Publishing house Thomas P. Kiper, Bielefeld 2001, p. 284