Architecture in Koenigsberg

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Pre-war photo: Three neo-Gothic towers define the cityscape: the castle tower (right), the old town church (center) and the telegraph office (left).

Architecture in Königsberg describes the architecture in the different epochs from the Gothic to the fall of the former East Prussian capital Königsberg in 1945. After it was conquered by the Red Army in April 1945 and annexed with the northern part of East Prussia by the Soviet Union , the old Teutonic order town Koenigsberg renamed Kaliningrad on July 4th 1946 in honor of Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin , the shortly before deceased president of the USSR.

Architectural history

Königsberg goes back to Twangste , a Prussian castle north of the middle Pregelinsel. Twangste, also Tuwangste, Twangst, Twongst, Twoyngst refers to the Königsberger Schlossteich : Prussian "tuwi, tauwan": near and "tuwangste": pond. These included the fishing village of Lipnick with an anchorage and the villages of Tragheim and Sackheim . In addition to the Truso trading center, the castle was the starting point for several amber roads . In 1255 the Teutonic Order built a castle called Conigsberg on the Pregel in honor of the Bohemian King Ottokar II Přemysl . This was followed by the founding of cities: Below the castle hill, on the Pregelufer, the old town was founded in 1286 , to the east of it the Löbenicht in 1291 , and the Kneiphof in 1327 on the Pregelinsel . In 1330 the construction of the Königsberg Cathedral began .

After the Treaty of Krakow , the palace was expanded in the Renaissance style. After 1525, Königsberg was the capital of the Duchy of Prussia . The founder of the state was Albrecht (Prussia) , who appointed Hans Wagner as a court carpenter in 1543 , who furnished the tiled hall with wooden ceilings based on "Italian-South German models". The stone fireplace in Duke Albrecht's writing room came from the workshop of the Flemish sculptor Cornelis Floris . The portrait of Albrecht and his wife Dorothea in Königsberg Cathedral was also created by Floris. The paneling in the writing room was designed in the “style of the Dutch-influenced, German early Renaissance”. The Königsberg castle church of the Renaissance was a “large church building. Mainly for this last reason, the Königsberg Castle Church can actually - as Grashoff claims - be called the first new Protestant church! "The Königsberg Castle of the Renaissance was also a model for the Weikersheim Castle in Württemberg:" For the first time the Königsberg Castle had an influence on the southern German art ”. In 1549 the proportion of ships from the Netherlands in the Königsberg port was about 25% of all ships, from 1581 to 1602 the proportion of Dutch in the Königsberg port rose to 60% to 75%. Königsberg exported grain, wood, ashes, tar, leather, hides, flax, tallow, wax and amber.

The baroque period was an era of great economic prosperity and at the same time also of political importance. Königsberg was spared the Thirty Years' War , and its trade flourished very quickly in the post-war years. On January 18, 1701, Elector Friedrich III was crowned . in the castle church (Königsberg) as Friedrich I (Prussia) as king, with which the former Duchy of Prussia was elevated to a kingdom. Königsberg thus became the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia and at the same time the Prussian residence and coronation city. Joachim Ludwig Schultheiß von Unfriedt was appointed as Memhardt's successor to “highlight Königsberg's importance as a coronation city” in order to give the city a “baroque appearance”. Almost all houses were redesigned or rebuilt. The gable of the town houses ranged from ornate with tail plant decorated tail gable of a three-window façade to simple, only curly gables of simple houses. The facade of the Kneiphöfisches Rathaus was also redesigned in the Baroque style.

From 1705 to 1713 Unfriedt led the renovation of a side wing of the Königsberg Palace . King Friedrich Wilhelm I appointed Unfriedt on November 18, 1721 as successor to John von Collas as chief rural building director in the Kingdom of Prussia . In addition, Unfriedt was the chief building officer and councilor in the War and Domain Chamber founded in 1723. In 1724 the three cities of Altstadt, Kneiphof and Löbenicht became part of the Prussian coronation city. Around 1800 Königsberg was one of the largest German cities with around 60,000 inhabitants ( Cologne and Frankfurt / Main each had around 50,000 inhabitants).

In the Peace of Tilsit of 1807, the area of ​​Prussia and the number of inhabitants were reduced by more than 50%: the area was reduced from 323,408 km² to 158,867 km², the population decreased from 9.75 million inhabitants to around 4.5 million inhabitants . The period of classicism and late classicism began together with the slow economic recovery after the Napoleonic Wars and lasted until the Biedermeier period . The architecture was characterized by “thrift and sobriety”. According to the Franco-Prussian Agreement , Prussia had to make contribution payments of over 32 million Prussian Reichstalers . By way of comparison, in the year of peace in 1805, Prussia's state spending was almost 27 million Reichstaler. The state treasure that had been saved up to that point had amounted to almost 3 million Reichstaler. This impoverished the province. They reflected on ideal values ​​and in the field of architecture they looked for them in antiquity: for example, the application of antique column arrangements, cornices and decorative forms borrowed from antiquity. On October 18, 1861, Wilhelm I was crowned in the castle church .

After the victory of the North German Confederation under Prussian leadership in the Franco-Prussian War and the subsequent continuous French reparation payments , there was an economic upswing and a building boom in Germany in the style of historicism . After the establishment of the empire , the Italian Renaissance style was promoted as a national style . The Italian Neo-Renaissance was based on Renaissance architecture . The essential design elements of Roman antiquity were adopted.

In the interwar period , Königsberg was by no means isolated from current developments in architecture. This was shown by the head of the technical department at the trade fair office, Hanns Hopp . Hopp built the Handelshof (today town hall), the House of Technology and the main hall of the East Fair. After the construction of the Ostmesse in 1926, there were no government contracts. From the mid-1920s, Hoppe appeared as a representative of functionalist modernism in East Prussia. In the context of inflation and urban financial policy under Hans Lohmeyer , numerous properties were bought very cheaply. Many municipal and state projects have now been implemented or built on to existing ones: port, airport, trading yard, warehouse, east fair. The city bought over 1,300 hectares of land, increasing the property of the city of Königsberg from 1,742 to 3,122 hectares. After the inflation, it had almost 70% of the entire urban area, 2,885 of which was undeveloped, and at the beginning of the 1920s the urban area was largely owned by the municipality.

During the Nazi era, Königsberg was the capital of the Gau , and new residential areas consisting of small single-family houses were built on the outskirts: Kummerau and Quednau in the north, Charlottenburg and Westend on both sides of General- Litzmann- Strasse, in Friedrichswalde , Rathshof and Juditten in the west, Rosenau and Speichersdorf in the South of Königsberg. In April 1939, the urban area was again enlarged by incorporations by a total of 7,416 hectares with 13,190 inhabitants. The Königsberg district thus had an area of ​​19,281 hectares.

The Otto Braun House of the SPD became the "Brown House". The architect Kurt Frick made a complaint to Goebbels about his colleague Hanns Hopp , who built the building on behalf of Lohmeyer. Frick then became the preferred architect of the National Socialists in Königsberg.

Gothic

Thirty Years War and the Baroque

Empire

Weimar Republic and the Nazi era

Destruction of the city

Königsberg was wiped out like only Carthage in world history . The air raids on Königsberg at the end of August 1944 and the battle for Königsberg that began four months later destroyed 90% of the area within the ramparts. Amalienau in the northwest was 65% destroyed. Maraunenhof and Quednau in the northwest to 55%, Kalthof and the area around Devau Airport in the northeast to 45%. The north-west with Juditten and Metgethen was preserved.

  • Painting, burning lock

  • Painting, burning Albertina, Paradeplatz

  • Cranzer Allee cemetery, memorial for soldiers and bomb victims in Koenigsberg

  • Cranzer Allee cemetery for soldiers and bomb victims in Koenigsberg

literature

  • Herbert Meinhard Mühlpfordt : Immortal Königsberg Castle . P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2004, OCLC 56686151 .
  • Christofer Herrmann: The beginnings of the Königsberg cathedral building , in: Bernhart Jähnig (Hrsg.): 750 years Königsberg: Contributions to the history of a residence town for a time . Elwert, Marburg 2008, OCLC 281162800 . Pp. 327-352.
  • Tomasz Torbus: History of the Deutschordensburg Königsberg , in: Bernhart Jähnig (Hrsg.): 750 years Königsberg: Contributions to the history of a residence town for a time . Elwert, Marburg 2008, OCLC 281162800 . Pp. 353-384.
  • Wulf D. Wagner : The Königsberg Castle - A short building history from the end of the order to the accession of Friedrich Wilhelm I (1525-1713) , in: Bernhart Jähnig (Hrsg.): 750 years of Königsberg: Contributions to the history of a residence town for a time . Elwert, Marburg 2008, OCLC 281162800 . Pp. 385-416.
  • Heinrich Lange: Friedrich August Stüler's drafts of the neo-Gothic city gates of Königsberg in the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage , in: Bernhart Jähnig (Ed.): 750 years of Königsberg: Contributions to the history of a residence town for a time . Elwert, Marburg 2008, OCLC 281162800 . Pp. 417-462.
  • Adolf Boetticher (Ed.): The architectural and art monuments of the province of East Prussia . On behalf of the East Prussian Provincial Parliament . Booklet VII. The architectural and art monuments in Königsberg. Bernhardt Teichert, Königsberg 1897, OCLC 312871065 .
  • Baldur Köster = Балдура Кёстера: Königsberg: Architecture from the German era = " Здания Кёнигсберга " . Booklet VII. The architectural and art monuments in Königsberg. Husum Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Husum 2000, OCLC 237377396 .
  • Markus Podehl: Architektura Kaliningrada: how Königsberg became Kaliningrad. Materials on the art, culture and history of East Central Europe, 1 . Herder Institute, Marburg 2012, OCLC 816472756 .
  • Bert Hoppe: On the ruins of Königsberg. Kaliningrad 1946–1970 , Munich 2000.
  • Willi Scharloff: Königsberg - then and now: Pictures from a forbidden city . Rautenberg, Leer 1982.
  • Dimitri Konstantinowitsch Navalichin = Дмитрий Константинович Навалихин: K voprosu re Konstrukcii goroda Kaliningrada [On the question of the reconstruction of the city of Kaliningrad] = К вопроцу реконст . Moscow 1954.
  • Dimitri Konstantinowitsch Navalichin = Дмитрий Константинович Навалихин: K voprosu re Konstrukcii centra goroda Kaliningrada [On the question of the reconstruction of the city of Kaliningrad] = Кикоцру реконсту цикоцрд . Moscow 1958.
  • Walter Franz: History of the city of Königsberg . Unchanged reprint of the 1934 edition as a licensed edition by Graefe and Unzer, Munich. Weidlich, Frankfurt / Main 1979.
  • Karl von Bauriedel: Sung from the bottom of my heart . In: Merian. The monthly issue of cities and landscapes · 8th year · Issue 12 · Königsberg , Hoffmann and Campe, 1955, pp. 3–10.
  • Agnes Miegel : My cathedral . In: Merian. The monthly issue of cities and landscapes · 8th volume · Issue 12 · Königsberg , Hoffmann and Campe, 1955, pp. 11–16.
  • Ulla Stöver: Duke Albrecht's silver library . In: Merian. The monthly issue of cities and landscapes · 8th volume · Issue 12 · Königsberg , Hoffmann and Campe, 1955, pp. 17-18.
  • Josef Nadler : Chronicle of the Albertina . In: Merian. The monthly issue of cities and landscapes · 8th year · Issue 12 · Königsberg , Hoffmann and Campe, 1955, pp. 74–79.
  • Walter Neegeln: Königsberg 1955 . In: Merian. The monthly issue of cities and landscapes · 8th volume · Issue 12 · Königsberg , Hoffmann and Campe, 1955, pp. 88–94.
  • Martin A. Borrmann : The Königsberg castle pond . In: Heinrich Leippe (Ed.): Merian. The monthly issue of cities and landscapes · 6th volume · Issue 3 · OSTPREUSSEN / DIE STÄDTE , Hoffmann and Campe, 1953, pp. 11–13.
  • Hanna Stephan : The Angel of Königsberg . In: Heinrich Leippe (Ed.): Merian. The monthly issue of cities and landscapes · 6th volume · Issue 3 · OSTPREUSSEN / DIE STÄDTE , Hoffmann and Campe, 1953, pp. 65–68.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, this section follows the work of Podehl, p. 46f: Modern Architecture and City Criticism .
  2. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the article follows the work of Podehl, p. 62f: Königsberg Perspectives of the 1930s .
  3. ↑ Unless otherwise indicated, this section follows the work of Podehl, p. 51f: Traditional Architecture .
  4. ↑ Unless otherwise indicated, the article follows the work of Wagner, p. 327 f: Architectural History from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hoppe, p. 27.
  2. ↑ cf. Borrmann, pp. 11-13.
  3. ↑ Podehl, p. 27.
  4. ^ Wagner, p. 390.
  5. ↑ cf. Wagner, pp. 385-416, here p. 392.
  6. ↑ cf. Wagner, pp. 385-416, here pp. 400-401.
  7. ↑ cf. Wagner, p. 403.
  8. ↑ cf. Wagner, p. 183: The port in Königsberg .
  9. ↑ a b c cf. Köster, p. 216
  10. ↑ a b cf. Wagner, pp. 385-416, here p. 410.
  11. ↑ Adelheid Simsch: The economic policies of the Prussian state in the province of South Prussia 1793-1806 / 07th Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1983, pp. 45 ff. ( Google Books ).
  12. ↑ Podehl, pp. 50–51.
  13. ↑ Podehl, pp. 62f.
  14. ↑ Podehl, p. 86.
  15. ↑ a b Podehl, p. 390.