Old town house (Bonn)
The old town house in Bonn was planned by the Munich architect German Bestelmeyer in 1922. The building on Bottlerplatz was intended as an administrative building for the French occupying forces, which had occupied the Rhineland in the wake of the First World War . 1924–1925 the construction was completed as a town house for the city of Bonn. Today the building serves as a city library and city administration building. Plans expressed by the mayor and the SPD in the summer of 2006 to sell the town house in order to create a retail space there were not implemented. At the end of October 2006, a citizens' initiative came into being which campaigned for the preservation of the listed building as municipal property and as a “House of Education”. In January 2007, the city council decided by a large majority to convert and renovate the building and not to sell it. The conversion to the House of Education was completed in summer 2015 and the opening took place on August 21.
location
With the old town house, the architect planned a representative access to the city from the north. The building was erected on a preserved bastion of the baroque city fortifications - opposite the university , the former electoral residence , on the south bastion, which is no longer visible. "The former Electoral Palace as's then administrative center of the electorate he opposed the townhouse as a confident symbol of the city [...]. [...] "
A curved tract gives the southern Windeckstrasse urban development contour and defines the preserved bastion of the baroque fortifications as a garden-like open space. Along with the Old Customs, this area is one of the few areas of the fortification that is accessible to everyone. In the 1980s, a new entrance from the Florentiusgraben was created there with public funds, the inner courtyard was landscaped and a row of trees was planted. At the end of the 1990s, part of this small park was converted into a playground.
architecture
Bestelmeyer's building was to become the nucleus of future development of the Bonn center, but was only continued in the construction of the tax office (corner of Mülheimer Platz / Münsterstraße, 1937) and on Bottlerplatz. “The building, which is committed to the“ Heimatschutz ”idea, is based on the scale and architectural attitude of the electoral residential buildings . At the same time, its simple architectural language, corresponding to a baroque stables building, pays attention to the "decorum" of the building tasks. "
The building is grouped around two rectangular inner courtyards. The front of the mansard-roofed main building on Mülheimer Platz is framed by four-story corner towers with bell roofs . With the main entrance, a recessed component encompasses the south-west corner of Bottlerplatz and bridges Windeckstrasse with two flat arches.
The facade of the old town house is structured by flat striped rustics on the ground floor , cornices , tall rectangular windows and portal walls.
After the construction of the new town house , the raised ground floor zone of the Mühlheimer Platz wing was rebuilt for the town library. In the course of this renovation, the two open inner courtyards were closed with a light ceiling and the closed wall surfaces were replaced in large areas by a support structure. The remaining floors, the stairwells and entrance areas remained in a structurally unchanged condition.
The east wing of the building was demolished during the construction of a department store (C&A).
history
After the Second World War
After Bonn was designated the seat of government of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, the town hall - especially the part now demolished ("Siemens House") - was temporarily quarters for parts of some federal ministries, especially after the city administration decided to use parts of the building in the summer of 1950 in favor of the rebuilt Old Town Hall could vacate. These included the Federal Ministry for Affairs of the Marshall Plan (ten rooms from November 1949), the Federal Ministry for Post and Telecommunications (from summer 1950) and from 1949 the Federal Ministry for all-German issues (400 m² until summer 1950, later 1005 m²) was housed in the old town house until 1957. This provision of part of its own administrative building by the city was considered to be a core element of the housing plan for the establishment of the federal institutions in the Bonn area.
Sales plans
In the summer of 2006, the mayor and the spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group announced plans to sell the old town house. According to these plans, the city library housed there was to be housed together with the adult education center and the city museum in a new building to be built near the train station - in Quantiusstrasse. The building on Bottlerplatz could then have been used as a sales area.
"House of Education"
Immediately after the announcement of the sales plans in the summer of 2006, a heated public debate began. The Greens, at that time still in a coalition with the SPD, immediately rejected the plans. The CDU held a hearing in October 2006 and prominent Bonn celebrities spoke up. The director of the women's museum, Marianne Pitzen , accused the initiators of selling out public real estate and disregarding the importance of culture in Bonn. The photographer Hans Schafgans pointed out that “Bottlerplatz forms an urban unit with the main building of the university, the historic Bonn town hall, Münsterplatz with the Beethoven monument, and many other spiritual and historical places, so structurally very well there in the educated civic tradition of the city would be integrated. ”A“ House of Education ”fits in perfectly.
The sales plans received approval from the FDP and the Bonn Retail Association. It also became clear from other parties that the old town house should be used for retail purposes. The SPD parliamentary group supported the demands of the retail trade association and the "city-marketing eV" Bonn. Approval also came from the IHK Bonn. Representatives of the adult education center and the city library confirmed their position that the old town house was not sufficient for the necessary plans.
At the end of October 2006 a citizens' initiative was founded for a "House of Education" on Bottlerplatz. Your most important demands are the termination of all plans to accommodate a "House of Education" on Quantiustraße, the retention of the city library at its previous location in the pedestrian zone on Bottlerplatz and "the functional and monument-worthy renovation of the old town house".
The citizens 'initiative, for which it is incomprehensible, "why the investor's bill for the city should have a more favorable result than the use of an own, self-renovated building", announced a citizens' petition for the preservation and use of the old town house as Library. This would be tackled if the city council in its session on December 14, 2006 does not reject the plans for a “House of Education” on Quantiusstrasse. The city council did not make a decision in December and the decision was postponed to the next meeting.
Management opinion
At its meeting on November 23, 2006, the planning committee commissioned the administration to examine how the old town house can be used for a large-scale retail concept, taking into account the preservation of historical monuments.
At the end of December 2006, the administration submitted a statement in which it announced that, from the point of view of the preservation of monuments, those interior areas “that have already been changed in the past by interventions in the historical building fabric are suitable for conversion. In order to create a larger contiguous area, it would therefore be possible to use the area that is now occupied by the city library for a new use. A lowering of the floor to street level would be conceivable, since this lowering is possible without structural interventions in the area of the main entrance including the adjoining staircase and the area of the secondary staircase. ”As part of such a conversion measure, a coherent area of approx. 1600 m² could be on the ground floor be created.
“The lowering of the floor, however,” continues the administration, “has no design effect on the facade area. Enlarging the windows or lowering the parapets cannot be approved from the point of view of the monument authority, as this would break a fundamental design principle of the building. The striking effect of the town house is based on the uniform arrangement of the windows, which are combined by cornices on each floor. This horizontal structure is taken up in the basement by the rusticated ribbon ashlar and reinforced again. This closed, block-like design of the basement is typical of the administrative buildings of the 1920s. "
An additional entrance for a new use would have to fit into the structure of the basement and be restrained in terms of both size and design.
As far as a possible extension is concerned, the administrative draft goes on to say: “The old town house was designed as a free-standing building, the facade design of which extends uniformly around the entire structure. Direct, seamless cultivation is unthinkable. If an extension should be necessary for a new use, it must correspond to the old building as an independent building. The two structures can possibly be connected by a link. "
From the point of view of the monument authority, the area between the town house and the neighboring bunker on Windeckstrasse or today's inner courtyard area could be considered as a location for such an extension. In order not to impair the dominance of the town house, the extension in the inner courtyard should not protrude beyond the ground floor. If such an extension were to be built, the lowered ground floor area of the wing in the direction of the bunker could also be accessed from there.
If you want to get closer to the idea of an extension in this area, it is, according to the administration, “necessary to move the new structure at least 5 meters away from the bastion wall”. An extension or extension between the town house and the bunker can accommodate the eaves height of the old town house from the point of view of the monument authority . An extension at this point would take up a design idea by the architect, which provided for the extension of the building to the bridge over the Florentiusgraben.
The monument authority does not see the possibility of intervening in the upper floors of the building, which are still largely in their original state, and of making areas available for large-scale use.
"House of Education" in the old town house
On January 21, 2007, the parliamentary groups of the SPD and CDU announced that they too had agreed to accommodate the “House of Education” in the old town hall. Since the planned space requirement for a modern "House of Education" in the current old town house could not be realized, extensions should be built in the direction of the Windeck bunker. On January 31, 2007, the city council decided with the votes of the Greens, Citizens Association, CDU and SPD to set up a “House of Education” in the old town hall. The cost of the necessary conversion and renovation should be more than 20 million euros.
In an architectural competition that was concluded in October 2008, there were 15 selected designs. The plans of the Berlin architectural office Alexander Koblitz were ranked first. The “Siemens-Haus” necessary for the realization of this plan took place at the end of 2010. Instead of the “Siemens-Haus” at the corner of Münsterstrasse and Mülheimer Platz, a new building was built (the foundation stone was laid on April 29, 2013) as an entrance area intended for the House of Education.
Old town house after the “Siemens House” was demolished; in the background (left): the new town house
Old town house after the conversion to the House of Education, behind it the new entrance building
literature
- Andreas Denk, Ingeborg flag : Architectural guide Bonn . Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-496-01150-5 , p. 12.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ List of monuments of the city of Bonn (as of March 15, 2019), p. 12, number A 363
- ↑ The Hidden Large Construction Site , General-Anzeiger , February 5, 2013
- ↑ Completion of the House of Education is delayed , press release from the City of Bonn, February 26, 2014
- ↑ The VHS is being postponed to the House of Education , press release from the City of Bonn, November 21, 2014
- ^ City of Bonn - The House of Education is open
- ↑ Heijo Klein: An ideal “house of the citizens”. General-Anzeiger Bonn, December 5, 2006
- ^ Andreas Denk / Ingeborg Flagge: Architectural Guide Bonn. P. 12.
- ^ City of Bonn, City Archives (ed.); Helmut Vogt: "The Minister lives in a company car on platform 4". The beginnings of the federal government in Bonn 1949/50 , Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-922832-21-0 , pp. 196, 204.
- ^ Marianne Pitzen: Red card for banausen. General-Anzeiger, November 30, 2006
- ^ Letter to the editor from Hans Schafgans, September 27, 2006 (PDF; 40 kB)
- ↑ Retail is looking for magnets in the city , in: Kölner Stadtanzeiger, November 18, 2006
- ↑ For a “House of Education” on Bottlerplatz - no expensive rental in Quantiusstrasse
- ^ Controversy over the House of Education In: General-Anzeiger. December 14, 2006, p. 7.
- ↑ Statement of the administration: Printed matter no. 0611268ST17
- ↑ House of Education: Opinions are divided at the entrance , General-Anzeiger, October 21, 2008
- ^ City of Bonn: Building diary House of Education
Coordinates: 50 ° 44 '3.47 " N , 7 ° 5' 50.61" E