Augsburg old town
The Augsburg Old Town includes the historic center within the city walls . It is an area with around 217 hectares in the Augsburg city center district, St. Ulrich Cathedral . This means that Augsburg has the third largest old town in Germany alongside Cologne and Hamburg .
When people from Augsburg speak of their "old town", they usually mean the medieval maze of alleys that extend over an area of around 30 hectares between Maximilianstrasse and the city moat or the outer city moat. In the old town renovation article of the Augsburg city lexicon , the use of the term is limited to parts of the old town with actually predominant old buildings, i.e. Lechviertel and Ulrichsviertel as well as parts of Jakobervorstadt .
geography
The area within the medieval city fortifications is divided into several historical sub-areas that clearly trace the history of the origins of the old imperial city, presented in detail in the article “Augsburg city fortifications”, section “Overview” ; In the center is the so-called Episcopal City with the Augsburg Cathedral . To the north is the Lower City , which was only walled with the second city expansion (i.e. the city located downstream ). Both are on the site of the former Roman city , which, however, had extended further north. To the south of the episcopal city is the Upper City (i.e. the city located upstream ). This first city expansion from the 12th and 13th centuries is also known as the citizen town. It is not only located on the Augsburg high terrace , but also extends into the Lechviertel with the Lechviertel . In the 14th century the Jakobervorstadt was included in the east , which - between the inner and outer city moats - lies entirely in the Lech lowland.
Augsburg has been divided into official city districts since 1938. The old town extends over six of these 41 districts: District 1 (Lechviertel and eastern Ulrichsviertel), District 2 (inner city and St. Ulrich Cathedral), District 4 (Georgs- and Kreuzviertel), District 7 (Bleich and Pfärrle) as well Districts 8 and 9 (Jakobervorstadt – North and Jakobervorstadt – South).
Structural aspects
Augsburg's old town is characterized by a slope edge that runs parallel to the Maximilianstrasse-Karolinenstrasse-Hoher Weg-Frauentorstrasse axis across its area. This edge not only influences the spatial perception of the Augsburgers, who linguistically like to divide the city center into "above" on the Augsburg elevated terrace (especially the shopping areas in the city center) and "below" (the narrow streets of the Lechviertel ), it is also unmistakable for Augsburg City silhouette responsible. The most important buildings - the cathedral , the town hall with the Perlach tower and the mighty church of St. Ulrich and Afra , the burial place of the city saints - are lined up like a string of pearls and tell of the formative powers of Augsburg's city history: bishop , citizen and emperor ( Maximilian I laid the foundation stone for the choir of St. Ulrich and Afra , which is why the building was also called the “Reichsgotteshaus”).
District
The streets of the "upper" Augsburg old town are gently curved, those of the "lower" areas are narrow and angled. The Lechviertel is also traversed by numerous canals, the Lech and Wertach canals, which once ensured the supply of water and energy in the area, which was once characterized by handicrafts.
Differences in the development can also be seen in the individual sub-areas of the old town: in the historically upper class residential areas above the slope edge, large-scale buildings with wide facades that are painted or provided with flat stucco predominate . Usually flat or corner oriels are the only strong plastic features of the predominantly eaves-standing houses. The highlights of the imperial city architecture are the Fugger houses , the Maximilian Museum , the Roeck House , the Köpf House and the Schaezler Palace with its exquisitely furnished rococo hall . Garden walls and canon houses determine the surroundings of the former prince-bishop's residence with its courtyard garden . In contrast, the artisan quarters in the "lower" old town are much more closely parceled out than the upper town. A special feature of the cityscape is the Fuggerei as a "city within the city".
Places
Squares develop from the street spaces in both upscale and simple areas, such as the spatial expansion of Philippine-Welser-Strasse called “Heumarkt” or Holbeinplatz on the Vorderen Lech.
Unlike most German cities of medieval character, Augsburg's old town also does not have a central market square . Markets with special offers stretched along many streets, some of which can still be found in the city map today as the “fruit market”, “Kitzenmarkt” or “fish market”. The largest and most important of the Augsburg squares, the “Weinmarkt”, has risen in Maximilianstrasse . This may have restored the state of the early High Middle Ages.
The Rathausplatz, on the other hand, which is now the attractive center of the old town, has only gained its present form after the destruction of the Second World War because the stock exchange, which was located opposite the town hall, was neither rebuilt nor replaced by another building. The facade of the town hall has only come into its own since it was rebuilt.
Secular public buildings
In addition, representative secular buildings from the Renaissance period characterize the cityscape (such as the town hall , the armory or the city butcher ). Despite the razing in the 19th century, impressive parts of what was once the most extensive structure in the old town - the medieval city wall - are still preserved: In addition to the Vogeltor , Jakobertor , Rotem Tor and Wertachbrucker Tor , the fortifications in the area around the Lueginsland bastion still bear witness to the defensive strength of the old imperial city.
Churches
Some of the churches in Augsburg's old town form the center of a district, others were only important for the monastery to which they belonged. Several of the numerous monasteries in medieval Augsburg have survived telis as church foundations, sometimes even as monasteries. Although Augsburg was one of the parity imperial cities , there was and is much more church space available to the Catholics in the old town than to the Protestants.
Starting with the oldest, the cathedral , the large churches of the city have side main towers, with one exception: St. Peter am Perlach has a symmetrical west tower, but this Perlach tower was already before the founding of the church. In several churches, including the cathedral, the tower position is at the transition from the nave to the choir. The small churches, however, including the Ev. Holy Cross Church and the Ev. Ulrichskirche as a small Protestant church next to a large Catholic church of the same name, have a turret-like turret in the middle of the gable.
construction materials
The old town of Augsburg is largely made of brick , which can only be seen in parts of the city fortifications and two of the churches. Otherwise the brickwork is hidden under plaster and was often already in the Middle Ages. Even today's exposed masonry was plastered on the cathedral until the beginning of the 20th century.
Furthermore, numerous houses are built entirely or partially from half-timbered houses, but this is almost always hidden under plaster in Augsburg. It can only be recognized from the outside by the protruding walls.
Destruction and rebuilding
Augsburg's old town was badly damaged in the Second World War. Thanks to careful and cautious reconstruction planning, however, Augsburg was spared a radical redesign based on the principles of the immediate post-war period . So the old town was rebuilt mainly on the historical parceling out and during the new development the identity of the two thousand year old town was largely taken into account. Only two interventions have significantly changed the traditional structure of the old town: the greatly enlarged town hall square , on which the Augsburg Stock Exchange stood until it was destroyed , as well as the "east-west axis" from the city theater to the Mittleren Graben, which was planned for the time being declining before World War II.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Hermann Kießling: Towers - Gates - Bastions. Brigitte Settele Verlag, Augsburg 1987, p. 15
- ↑ Augsburger Stadtlexikon: Altstadtsanierung ( Memento of the original from December 29, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Heiner Seybold: Goldenes Augsburg , Perlach Verlag, 1957, page 21 ff
- ↑ http://ulrichsbasilika.de/st-margareth.html
- ^ Walter Gross: Medieval masonry in Augsburg (17th report by Naturf.Ges.Augsburg / pages 43–78 / December 25, 1964, PDF)
Coordinates: 48 ° 22 ' N , 10 ° 54' E