Old Town Hall (Pirmasens)
| Old Town Hall | |
|---|---|
 The old town hall in Pirmasens |
|
| Data | |
| place | Pirmasens |
| builder | Rochus Pfeiffer |
| architect | Friedrich Joachim Stengel |
| Architectural style | Late baroque |
| Construction year | around 1770–1774 |
The old town hall is a listed late Baroque building in the center of Pirmasens , which served as the town hall from 1771 to 1945 . Today it is one of the last remnants from the time when Pirmasens was the residence of Landgrave Ludwig IX. from Hessen-Darmstadt and is used as a museum.
location
The building is located in the middle of the Pirmasens pedestrian zone at Hauptstraße 26. It is located on the west side of the lower Schlossplatz, which is bordered to the east by the castle stairs with their large fountains. Above the stairs the double tower facade of the St. Pirmin Church rises, which is exactly opposite the town hall.
history
After Pirmasens received city rights in 1763, the landgrave appointed a city council of eight citizens in 1769 and appointed the previous mayor Johann Heinrich Schneider as the city's first mayor. At the same time, however, he made it a condition for the population to build a new town hall. The previous town hall was behind today's Luther Church in Schäfergasse and was no longer able to cope with the demands of the growing military town. Construction work began around 1770 by the Tyrolean foreman Rochus Pfeiffer according to plans by the Saarbrücken construction director Friedrich Joachim Stengel . In 1772 the bell tower was placed on the mansard roof, in the following year cast bells were used in Zweibrücken and in 1774 the construction was finally completed.
The Pirmasenser Castle was at the time it was built opposite the town hall at the site of today's castle stairs. The castle was exactly on the slope and had four floors to the lower, but only two floors to the upper castle square.
Towards the end of the Second World War , the building was hit by bombs and burned down to the outer walls. The city administration moved to the less damaged and first rebuilt parade ground school, which has since served as the new town hall . The facade of the old town hall was secured and remained in place until reconstruction began before the city's 200th anniversary. In 1963 the restoration of the old town hall was completed. The building was raised by a fourth floor in order to adapt it to the surrounding post-war buildings.
The building has been used as a museum since the reconstruction. To this day, the focus is on the presentation of the local history and the history of the city. There is also a small shoe museum with a collection of historical shoe models and machines as well as the paper cutting cabinet with works by the artist Elisabeth Emmler. In addition, the large municipal collection of works by Heinrich Bürkel , an important painter of the Biedermeier period, was exhibited in the Bürkelgalerie until the gallery moved to the newly opened Forum Alte Post in 2014.
architecture
The building was obviously inspired by the former town hall of Old Saarbrücken on the Saarbrücken Schlossplatz, which Stengel designed two decades earlier. Just like this, the old town hall in Pirmasens was placed opposite a castle and should refer to it.
The original three floors, the central projection with coat of arms and the central bell tower on the hunched mansard roof correspond to the model, but the building in Pirmasens also has two side projections and has eight instead of six window axes. Thus, the Pirmasens old town hall appears more powerful than its Saarbrücken model - especially due to the addition of storeys during the reconstruction - although it has a significantly longer facade due to its three-storey side extension.
To this day, the town hall reminds of the Landgrave and Darmstadt's rule over the city with the Hessian lion coat of arms in the segmental arch of the central projection.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. Vol. 1 (740-1790). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3920558006 , p. 127.
- ↑ a b Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. Vol. 1 (740-1790). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3920558006 , p. 145.
- ↑ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments in the district-free city of Pirmasens (PDF; 6.3 MB). Mainz 2016.
- ↑ a b c d https://regionalgeschichte.net/pfalz/staedte-doerfer/orte-p/pirmasens/kulturdenkmaeler/altes-rathaus.html , accessed on December 14, 2016 at 8:29 p.m.
Coordinates: 49 ° 12 ′ 1.3 ″ N , 7 ° 36 ′ 15.8 ″ E