Old Post Office (Potsdam)

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The Nauensche Bridge, the Post House and the Wilhelms-Platz in Potsdam. Colored etching by Johann Friedrich Nagel , around 1796

The Alte Post was a late baroque building in the area of ​​the first baroque city expansion of Potsdam . It was located on the corner of today's Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse and Yorckstrasse on the west side of Platz der Einheit . The main facade of the building faced the city ​​canal that ran past to the south . The Alte Post was largely destroyed in the air raid on April 14, 1945 and the ruins were removed in the post-war period. After the high-rise apartment building built on the property in 1968/69 was demolished in 2009, a new building was erected between 2015 and 2016, the facade structure of which takes up elements of the Alte Post.

history

Previous construction

In the course of the first city expansion under King Friedrich Wilhelm I, the property of the Alte Post was built with a bourgeois house that was representative for Potsdam conditions at the time. This two-storey building had seven window axes in what was known as the “Nauensche Plantage” today. The massive facade was structured by pilaster strips , plastered mirrors and simple window frames. A gable dormer and a two-flight flight of stairs emphasized the central axis of the house. The mighty mansard roof and the plinth, which is provided due to a complete basement, are typical of the Potsdam houses from the reign of the soldier king, which were awarded to "notable persons", as they have only survived in isolated cases, especially along the city canal. According to Heinrich Ludwig Manger's “Building History of Potsdam”, the inner walls and the courtyard side of the building were made of half-timbered houses . Manger gives the dimensions of the house with 94.5 feet (corresponds to approx. 29.60 meters) on the south side to the city canal and 75 feet (corresponds to approx. 23.50 meters) on the east side to the Nauenen plantation.

Redesign of Potsdam under King Friedrich II.

King Frederick II. Left off in 1748, starting from the City Palace which houses the royal residence after his architectural sense build largely new. After the Seven Years' War , the planned renewal of the street fronts reached the Nauensche Plantation. In 1765 the first three-storey town houses according to plans by Carl von Gontard were built on the west side of the square immediately north of the previous building of the Alte Post instead of two-storey half-timbered buildings from around 1722.

A renovation of the corner house was not carried out for the time being, as the king initially only sought to replace the older buildings with visible half-timbered facades with massive buildings. However, despite the concerns of his experts, by order of the king, in order to save costs, the pile foundations , which were already inadequate for the much lighter previous structures, had to be reused. Shortly after the completion of the new buildings, damage caused by the insufficient foundation became apparent. After years of efforts by the house owners towards the king and in view of the constantly deteriorating state of the building, Frederick II had a cost estimate made for the demolition and rebuilding of the three damaged houses and the adjacent buildings in autumn 1782, as it was foreseeable that the driving of new stakes would also be irreparable would harm.

In 1783, the complete renovation of the west side of the Nauenen Plantation began, from the city canal to today's Ebräerstrasse, which could not be completed until the following year due to the complicated foundation work. Manger dedicated a separate publication to this engineering achievement. The three houses that have survived to this day including the foundations created in 1783 (today Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 112, 113 and 114) were again built according to plans by Carl von Gontard during the reconstruction, with changes to the facade details and possibly even the number of axles.

The new building of the "Schlinckschen Eckhaus", later known as the "Alte Post", was designed by Georg Christian Unger , a pupil of Carl von Gontard, who was also responsible for the building on Am Kanal 20 (today Yorckstrasse 2), which is adjacent to the west. The corner house was used as a post office when it was rebuilt: In Potsdam, no public building is intended as a post office, but the postmaster every time has to get the necessary space to the post office for a certain payment. In accordance with the purpose of the house, the façades were given putti reliefs created by the brothers Johann Christoph and Michael Christoph Wohler with post scenes turned into playful and crowned with "mile pointers". These were flanked by sculptures that represented personifications from the four continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and America as well as Mercury and Fama .

History of the house until it was destroyed

Due to its use as a post office, which was initially not tied to a specific building, the representative building from the late days of Frederick II only fulfilled this purpose for a relatively short time. In 1828 the corner house on the opposite side of Wilhelmsplatz was acquired for the post office. After the Oberpostdirektion was founded in 1850, extensions were made in the vicinity of the southeast corner of Wilhelmsplatz for use by the post office, which finally culminated in 1900 with the completion of the new " main post office ".

In the 19th century, the Alte Post was used as a residential and commercial building in line with its representative location. The three distinctive “mileage indicators” or obelisks on the attic were removed early due to structural damage. The use of the first floor as a bank branch by Deutsche Bank at the beginning of the 20th century led to the enlargement of the windows on the first floor and the installation of billboards on the house. In addition, two balconies were added in the 19th century. The high architectural value of the Alte Post was recognized early on. In 1915, Hans Kania praised Unger's creation in his book Potsdamer Baukunst as “wonderful”.

The old post office was badly damaged in the bombing raids on Potsdam in April 1945, and the facade was largely preserved. According to the initial reconstruction plans, the house was to be rebuilt behind the facade analogous to the simultaneous construction projects in the neighboring Wilhelm-Staab-Straße. However, in 1958 the ruins were completely demolished. The Potsdam architect Christian Wendland managed to salvage part of the building jewelry that was also intended for removal.

New construction of the residential high-rise in 1968/1969

High-rise residential building 2007

At the end of the 1960s, the site of the Alte Post, which now had the address Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 115, was rebuilt with a nine-story high-rise building designed by the architect Dietrich Schreiner. The two lower floors were used by the GDR's state travel agency and as the control center for the Potsdam transport company . The seven floors above were divided into four small apartments each facing the square with access to the arcade on the west side.

A two-storey extension on the west side led to the baroque building Yorckstraße 2 (formerly Am Kanal 20), which was restored in 1965. The closed south facade of the high-rise was given the metal sculpture "Flugschiff" by the artist Peter Rohn, which referred to the function of the house as a travel agency.

Together with the corner building of the “Potsdamer Autosalon” located in the south on the other side of Yorckstraße and the scientific general library diagonally opposite, this area of ​​downtown Potsdam was redesigned in line with the spirit of the 1960s.

Current situation

FinanzCenter of the Berliner Volksbank in Potsdam. The facade was modeled on the former old post office.

Due to the critical to negative attitude towards the GDR-era redesigns of the Potsdam cityscape and post-war modernism, as well as the necessary medium-term renovation of what is now known as the "House of Travel", it was demolished in 2009. The metal sculpture "Flugschiff" has been secured and is now located at the parking garage in the culture and experience center "Schiffbauergasse". In 2014, the municipal Pro Potsdam GmbH sold the property to Berliner Volksbank , which was planning to set up its Brandenburg headquarters there. The facade structure of the new building, which began in 2015, follows the design of the historical model without reconstructing it in detail.

description

The Alte Post was a two-and-a-half-story corner building with nine window axes to the city canal (Yorckstrasse) and seven window axes to the Nauenschen Plantage (square of unity). The façades were structured by strongly sculptural protruding colossal pilasters with composite capitals that combined the ground floor and first floor, while the lower third floor was housed as a mezzanine in the attic zone . The third and seventh window axis of the wider south facade and the central axis of the east facade protruded as risalits , which were crowned on the attic with two "eight-footed", that is about 2.50 meter high, sandstone figures next to a "mile pointer" or obelisk . The two figures on the risalit facing Unity Square showed Mercury with a winged helmet and an envelope and a winged Fama with a horn. The two risalits to the city canal were provided with female personifications of the continents: Europe with a crown and scepter as well as balls and on one Book with a globe at her feet, Asia with a crescent moon in her hand and a turban on the ground, Africa with a bow in her hand and an arm band, and America with a clothing made of feathers and a quiver with arrows.

The low plinth was banded and had only small rectangular openings for cellar windows. Between the ground floor and the first floor there was a zone with putti reliefs , which were embedded in the plastered surfaces and were framed by them. Above the reliefs, a cornice with a lattice-like ornament formed the lower end of the upper floor window. The pilasters ended with a simple main cornice, which was only decorated in the area of ​​the narrow risalites by consoles with hangings in between.

In the attic zone, the pilasters on the lower floors continued as flat pilaster strips. The windows on the second floor had brackets in the corners. Above it was the eaves cornice. The roof of the building was a relatively flat pitched gable roof. Unger based his design on the architecture of palaces, which corresponded to the prominent urban location of the house.

literature

  • Astrid Fick: Potsdam - Berlin - Bayreuth. Carl Philipp Christian von Gontard (1731–1791) and his bourgeois houses, immediate buildings and city palaces. Imhof, Petersberg 2000, ISBN 3-932526-42-2 .
  • Jutta Götzmann (Ed.): Friedrich and Potsdam. The invention of his city. Exhibition catalog, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-7774-5541-9 .
  • Hans Kania: Potsdam architecture. Reprint Barleben 2008, ISBN 978-3-939665-70-0 .
  • Heinrich Ludwig Manger: Heinrich Ludewig Manger's building history of Potsdam, especially under the government of King Frederick the Second. Second volume, Berlin and Stettin 1789, reprint Leipzig 1987.
  • Friedrich Mielke : The community center in Potsdam. Tübingen 1972, ISBN 3-8030-0017-3 and ISBN 3-8030-0016-5 .
  • Friedrich Mielke: Potsdam architecture. Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-549-05668-0 .
  • Friedrich Nicolai : Description of the royal residence cities Berlin and Potsdam, Berlin 1786, Leipzig 1993, ISBN 3-379-01465-6 .
  • Paul Sigel, Silke Dähmlow, Frank Seehausen, Lucas Elmenhorst: Architectural Guide Potsdam. Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-496-01325-7 .
  • Christian Wendland: Georg Christian Unger. Master builder of Frederick the Great in Potsdam and Berlin. J. Strauss Verlag, Potsdam 2002, ISBN 3-929748-28-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Alte Post is gray - not ocher Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung from August 11, 2016.
  2. ↑ Manger 1789, p. 465.
  3. ↑ Manger 1789, pp. 292, 466.
  4. ^ Heinrich Ludwig Manger: News of the new foundations for a number of houses in Potsdam ... 3 volumes, Potsdam 1783, Dessau / Leipzig 1784, Potsdam 1786.
  5. ↑ Fick 2000, p. 209 f.
  6. ↑ Nicolai 1993, p. 268.
  7. ↑ Illustration in Mielke 1972, plates 204 cf and 205 cf
  8. ^ Illustration in Mielke 1972, plates 226 ad and 227 ab
  9. ↑ Mielke 1998, p. 374.
  10. ↑ Kania 2008, p. 61.
  11. ↑ Friedrich and Potsdam 2012, p. 134 f.
  12. ↑ Sigel 2006, p. 24.
  13. ↑ PRO POTSDAM: “House of Travel” falls ( memento from February 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung from February 12, 2009.
  14. ↑ Alte Post: Property sold to bank Potsdamer Latest News from April 19, 2014.
  15. ↑ Alte Post: The start of construction is getting closer Potsdam's latest news from May 8, 2015.
  16. ↑ Mielke 1972, p. 485 f.

Coordinates: 52 ° 23 '51.1 "  N , 13 ° 3' 28.4"  E