Old indoor swimming pool (Heidelberg)
| Old indoor swimming pool | |
|---|---|
 South side |
|
| Data | |
| place | Heidelberg |
| builder | Franz Sales Kuhn |
| Construction year | 1903-1906 |
| Coordinates | 49 ° 24 '28.5 " N , 8 ° 41' 18.8" E |
The old indoor pool is a former indoor pool in the Bergheim district of Heidelberg . The Art Nouveau building opened in 1906 was closed in 1981. After years of vacancy, it was used for gastronomy, retail and events from 2013 to 2016.
history
As in many other German cities, plans were made for an indoor swimming pool in Heidelberg around 1900. The carpenter Alois Veth came before the city and had the first indoor swimming pool in Heidelberg built on his property between Bergheimer Straße and the tracks of the main train station at that time . The plans for this came from the Heidelberg architect Franz Sales Kuhn, based on the model of the Müller Volksbad in Munich built by Carl Hocheder . The building combines classicism and art nouveau elements with forms based on antiquity. Construction began in February 1903 and the bath was opened on June 24, 1906. Since Veth had miscalculated and went bankrupt, the indoor swimming pool was taken over by the city of Heidelberg a year later for 521,000 marks. In 1950 it was extensively renovated, whereby the originally colored design had to give way to a uniform white.
In 1967 the bathroom was converted into a family bathroom and the gender segregation was lifted, which made it necessary to build a connecting wing. The bathroom was modernized, but the urgently needed basic renovation was not carried out. In the 1970s, many, in particular the mayor of the time, Reinhold Zundel , advocated the demolition of the building, which was no longer up-to-date in terms of hygiene and safety, but which was listed as a historical monument in 1978.
In 1981 the swimming pool was closed for safety reasons. As a result, there were numerous plans and attempts to use the building for other purposes. For a while, the two swimming pools served as rehearsal rooms for the theater and orchestra. Suggestions ranged from using it as a theater with a café, shops and offices to converting it into a synagogue with a mikveh in the old steam bath. The fate of the indoor swimming pool caused controversial discussions both in politics and among the population. A citizens' initiative as well as the State Monuments Office advocated a reopening as a bath.
In 1989 the local council decided to renovate the indoor swimming pool, but the implementation failed for financial reasons. In 1997, several interested parties with different usage concepts applied to a supra-regional tender, but none of the projects was implemented. From 1998 the roofs and the roof structure were secured, from 2006 the rooms were used as a theater and a disco. In 2007 the old indoor pool was advertised for sale; Due to legal formal errors, the tender had to be repeated across Europe. As a result, the Heidelberg real estate entrepreneur Hans-Jörg Kraus bought the building as the only remaining bidder in 2008 for 600,000 euros and a neighboring house for around 470,000 euros. Kraus had the ensemble renovated from 2010 for around 28 million euros and converted for use as a market hall, hotel and event venue. In the spring of 2013, the old indoor pool was reopened with around 9,000 square meters of rental space for commercial tenants.
The former men's swimming pool used as a market hall was rebuilt in December 2013 and reopened in November 2014. Instead of a food court with various snack stands, food and furnishings were now offered.
After the market hall had to close in December 2016, the men's pool has been used for a permanent exhibition since September 2017 by Body Worlds , a traveling exhibition of plastinated , predominantly human bodies that has existed since 1996 .
The women's pool, the arcades and the roof lounge, which also houses the 1st Heidelberg cooking and grill school, are now a conference and event center.
description
Indoor swimming pool
The building complex stands on an irregular plot of land that was bordered by residential buildings on Bergheimer Strasse. The representative main entrance should be on the south side. Since the long-planned demolition of the railway facilities there did not take place until after the Second World War, a temporary solution remained. The south facade was relatively poorly structured, the planned arcade corridor was not implemented. The entrance was from Bergheimer Strasse, through an inner courtyard one reached the entrance vestibule with the cash desk , which is centrally located between the swimming pools .
Inside, the men's swimming pool was on the east, the smaller women's pool on the west. The swimming pools each comprised a pool surrounded by yellow sandstone, with wooden changing rooms on the walls, and a gallery above. The coffered ceilings were made of concrete using a technique developed and patented by Kuhn.
The first and second class baths and the steam bath were located on the ground floor and first floor, with a flat dome in the women's bathroom and a barrel vault in the men's bathroom. In the central room with Doric columns there were showers and a plunge pool under a dome.
The third-class cleaning baths and the dog bath were in the basement. This was also where the state-of-the-art technology with pumps and a sophisticated ventilation system was housed. The bath had a coal-fired boiler system that not only generated heat, steam and hot water, but also electricity for the electrical lighting.
After the renovation in 2013
The south side facing Poststrasse now forms the main facade, it was given a single-storey vestibule, as was already provided for in Kuhn's plans. On the access level from the south, the former basement, there is an organic supermarket and a restaurant. The men's pool served as a market hall with gastronomic offers until the end of 2013. The hall with the gallery and the coffered ceiling was retained and a new structure was added in the middle of the room, the market stalls were located in the places of the former changing rooms. The renovated women's pool and the roof lounge are used for events; the former steam bath is now a salt oasis. The old access from Bergheimer Straße leads into an inner courtyard, into which a mezzanine floor has been drawn and which has been provided with a glass roof. Further rooms and modern extensions house a hotel, restaurants and offices.
literature
- Sabine Arndt: The old indoor swimming pool in Heidelberg. A temple of the people. dpunkt.verlag, Heidelberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-86490-295-6 .
- Claudia Baer-Schneider: A long period of suffering is coming to an end. The old indoor swimming pool in Heidelberg - and what was left of it. In: Monument Preservation in Baden-Württemberg , 2013 year, issue 2, pp. 95–101. ( PDF; 7 MB )
- Kai Budde: The architect Franz Sales Kuhn (1864–1938). (= Publications on Heidelberg Old Town , Volume 18.) Heidelberg 1983, pp. 119–127.
- o. V .: The indoor swimming pool in Heidelberg. In: Deutsche Bauzeitung , 42nd year 1908, No. 46 (from June 6, 1908), pp. 309–313. ( Digitized version )
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hotel, gastronomy and wellness in the Art Nouveau baths In: Immobilien Zeitung March 7, 2013. Accessed September 29, 2015.
- ↑ Micha Hörnle: Old indoor swimming pool: The market hall is back. Opening in the old men's pool with a new concept. Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung from December 1, 2014
- ↑ Old indoor swimming pool must close Report swr.de from November 4, 2016. Accessed June 8, 2017.
- ↑ Body worlds report rnz.de from June 8, 2017. Accessed on June 8, 2017.