Old Town (Darmstadt)

The old town was an old district in the center of Darmstadt .

history

The term old town appears for the first time in the early 19th century and describes the old town center of Darmstadt east of the castle and the market square. The old town center had been surrounded by the town wall since the 14th century. Since the Middle Ages, construction has been carried out exclusively within the city walls. In the beginning there were still many gardens and other open spaces in the old town. The development consisted for the most part of simple wooden or half-timbered houses. There were only a few stone buildings in the old town. The old town center has been expanded several times since the late 16th century. In order to make room for the growing urban population, the old suburb was built first, and then the new suburb in the west from the end of the 17th century . Then in the 19th century, west of the Neue Vorstadt , the Mollerstadt was built . From 1860, the old city limits were also overcome in the east and south. The city expansion according to plans by Georg Moller also represented the beginning of the end of the old town. With the construction of the New Suburb and the Mollerstadt, the center of Darmstadt moved to the new Luisenplatz .

Even then, Darmstadt's old town was viewed as a narrow, angled and built-up redevelopment area. The first city guide from 1815 says: “The old town does not have a friendly view, it is laid out in the old way; the streets are narrow and no house is characterized by architecture. ” Citizens who could afford it financially moved to the new city district. From the old town, which was still characterized as bourgeois in 1820, a quarter of the precariat developed with increasing density and neglect . This led to the gradual impoverishment of the old town, in which many large families lived in a confined space. The few open spaces and courtyards that still existed were gradually completely built over.

The city administration began a renovation of the old town by demolishing houses and breaking streets.

In the years 1885/86 the island was created by demolishing a block with six houses . The island was subsequently the most famous square in the old town - and for many citizens the epitome of the old town.

In 1902, when the house was demolished, the Schillerplatz was created on the southeast corner of the Residenzschloss . In the years 1904/05, after further house demolitions, Landgraf-Georg-Strasse was built right through the old town . The Landgraf-Georg-Straße was with the old main street Large Ochsengasse the main east-west route through the old town of Darmstadt.

However, these renovation measures could not stop the further decline of the old town - in principle, Darmstadt's old town had already been abandoned at that time.

After 1933, the city administration began to buy up houses and land that became vacant in order to demolish them and to fundamentally redesign the old town area.

In 1944, Darmstadt's old town was almost completely destroyed in an Allied air raid .

In the vicinity of the Krone restaurant , several old town houses survived the British air raid in World War II . With the exception of the Krone building, however, all other surviving buildings were demolished in the course of the construction of the Cityring

The old town today

Landgraf-Georg-Strasse , the building of the Technical University of Darmstadt , the Justus-Liebig-Haus with the modern extension for the Darmstadt city library , commercial buildings and residential developments are located on the area of the former Darmstadt old town .

The closed character of the former old town area is hardly recognizable today.

Picture gallery

The oldest city map of Darmstadt from around 1759 by (Kaspar Ludwig) Bettenhäuser. (Note: East is up here.)
Historical city map of Darmstadt (1776); the old town can be seen in the right half of the picture
Fürstenhof, White Tower and Post Office (around 1800)
Old town and White Tower (around 1863)
Old town and White Tower (around 1896)
Ernst-Ludwigsplatz with the White Tower after a postcard from around 1899
Model of the old town at the Hinkelsturm (2014)