Bahnhofstrasse (Zurich)

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The Bahnhofstrasse as seen from the Credit Suisse headquarters towards Lake Zurich
The Bahnhofstrasse seen from the Paradeplatz

The Bahnhofstrasse is an approximately 1.4-kilometer street in Zurich . It is internationally known as one of the most expensive and exclusive shopping streets in the world. There are numerous department stores, boutiques of major fashion designers, jewelry and watch stores and luxury hotels on it. The Paradeplatz , which the Bahnhofstrasse crosses, is considered to be the center of the Swiss banking center. The Bahnhofstrasse is largely a pedestrian zone closed to regular car traffic .

Bahnhofstrasse street sign

With record values ​​of up to 15,000 francs per square meter per year, rents for retail space on the ground floor on Bahnhofstrasse are the highest in Europe. That is a quarter more than what you have to pay in central locations in Basel and Bern , and exceeds Kaufingerstrasse in Munich , Germany's most expensive street, by 50 percent. But sales per square meter are higher than anywhere else in the world - only in New York City and Hong Kong are similar values ​​achieved.

course

Bahnhofstrasse is located in the center of the city ​​of Zurich . It is 1.4 kilometers long and leads north from Bürkliplatz on Lake Zurich to Zurich Main Station . The Paradeplatz lies on its course . The street forms the border between the City and Lindenhof quarters. It thus encloses the old town on the left of the Limmat in a slight arc . The part from the lake to the Paradeplatz is called the upper Bahnhofstrasse, the section from the Rennweg to the lower Bahnhofstrasse station.

Zurich Bahnhofstrasse

history

In the first half of the 19th century, the route from Paradeplatz to the small Nordostbahn station led over a narrow footpath along the Fröschengraben to the Rennwegtor and from there through the Werdmühletunnel under a sawmill over the Gedeckte Brüggli and the Sihlwiesli to the train station since 1847 the Spanish-Brötli-Bahn went to Baden.

Paradeplatz with the Hotel Baur, built in 1838, around 1890

As early as 1849, the train station was to be connected to the so-called “Little Town” at Paradeplatz, where the post office was located, by a path that ran along the western city wall and the moat in front. The hotelier Johannes Baur , who opened the elegant Hotel Baur on today's Paradeplatz in October 1838, was interested in improving the access to the train station . Financial reasons and fundamental discussions about whether the train station should remain at its previous location prevented the implementation of the first project for a Fröschengraben-Strasse. It was not until 1854 that the decision was made to leave the station as it was, that the city building committee started planning the street. Difficulties were already evident in determining the future width of the road. Those who were reluctant were of the opinion that significant traffic would never develop here, the opponents wanted a luxury road. Ultimately, the metropolitan solution was chosen.

But that was only when the difficulties began. The construction of the new boulevard required either the expensive purchase of the patrician houses on the frogs' moat or the roofing of the old city moat. In order to compensate for a reduction in water runoff, the Schanzengraben should be diverted into the Sihl instead of the Limmat and the abandoned canal bed should be filled. Government permission to level the frog pit was only given after research showed that it would not cause serious harm. The width of the street was set at 22 to 24 meters. The carriageway accounted for 9 meters, the rest on the sidewalks. However, there were two obstacles in the way of a straight line from the lake to the train station: between the lake and Paradeplatz was the scratching area and at the other end, directly in front of the train station, were the cantonal armories . A first project to run Bahnhofstrasse around the armories was rejected and a decision was made to relocate the military facilities to the Syzische Gut in Oberer Kräuel, today's barracks area in Aussersihl. In January 1864 the contract between the city and the canton was signed, the canton approved a contribution of CHF 250,000.

Lower and middle Bahnhofstrasse

Construction work on Bahnhofstrasse began in early May 1864. After a drainage channel had been drawn into the frogs' ditch for the wastewater from the city on the left bank, filling began in spring 1865. The channel was filled with gravel from the temporarily drained Schanzengraben and the road bed was created. The bridge in front of the Rennweg bulwark and the Augustiner bridge built in 1813 disappeared . The Sihl Canal in front of the train station was crossed on a 24 meter wide stone bridge. Difficulties arose in view of the numerous differences in level between the existing facilities and buildings.

1864: The frog pit is filled in

In autumn 1865 the Bahnhofstrasse between Paradeplatz and the train station was opened to traffic. In the middle section in particular, it looked like a wide country road lined with front gardens, and Bahnhofstrasse was not transformed from a residential area to a commercial street until shortly before the First World War . The planned paving has been waived for the time being. In order to protect the linden trees planted on both sides of the street from the road dust, they were surrounded with baskets. The mighty walls of the Rennweg bulwark, a relic of the medieval city ​​fortifications , were painstakingly removed completely in 1867. The “Haus zum Rennwegtor” commercial building was built in its place in 1878. The actual start of building development on Bahnhofstrasse was the expansion of the small train station, which was last expanded in 1856, into “one of the most beautiful train stations in Europe”. It was opened on October 16, 1871.

Untere Bahnhofstrasse at the beginning of the 1920s
Villa Windegg 1910
Villa Windegg today

The first businessman to build a modern residential and commercial building on the little-used street was the photographer Johannes Ganz. During the excavation, the strong foundations of the Augustinian tower, demolished in 1811, were discovered, which could only be removed by blasting. The city council refused permission for security reasons. Ganz, who wanted to speed up construction, had the tower blown up at his own risk before he received the ban. The house at Bahnhofstrasse 40, built in 1868, is still standing today, all the others from that time have long since disappeared. Striking private houses on Bahnhofstrasse were the "Villa Windegg", built in 1870 on the site of today's Grieder house at Paradeplatz. It was dismantled in 1910 and rebuilt brick by brick at 10 Bellerivestrasse. The patrician house "Zum Brunnen", which was demolished in 1911 at Bahnhofstrasse 32 and rebuilt as "Brunnenhof" at Steinhaldenstrasse 73, experienced a similar fate. The "Grabenegg" house at Bahnhofstrasse 57 was also rebuilt on Freiestrasse. The classicist villa “Zum neue Grabenhof”, built in 1862, had to give way in 1925 to the Orell-Füssli-Hof. The house "Zum Grabengarten" was sold to the Swiss Bank Corporation and demolished in 1914. Mayor Melchior Römer lived in the "Haus zur Trülle", where wrongdoers used to be exhibited in a rotating cage . It was opposite the Rennwegtor and was demolished in 1897, two years after Römer's death. The "Kleine Farbhof" at Pelikanstrasse 1 gave way in 1904 to the remarkable Art Nouveau house "Mercatorium", which in turn fell victim to the extension of the bank in 1954. The house "Zum Mühlestein" at Bahnhofstrasse 39, in which the circumnavigator and astronomer of the Russian fleet Johann Kaspar Horner lived at the beginning of the 19th century , had to give way in 1911 to a commercial building with the Café Huguenin, later called "Kranzler". The Jelmoli department store was opened on September 16, 1899 .

Meisenbank was the first of the numerous banks that are still located on Bahnhofstrasse today . It established itself in 1872 on the square in front of the old university; In 1875 Leu & Cie. their first construction. The Schweizerische Kreditanstalt , which was housed in the old post office building "Zum Zentralhof" until 1868, built its palace on Paradeplatz from 1873 to 1876, which is still standing today.

  • Rennwegtor house in 1880

  • Haus zur Trülle around 1895

  • House Mercatorium around 1905

  • Haus zum Mühlestein 1910

  • Haus zum Brunnenhof 1911

  • Haus zum Graben 1911

  • Grabengarten house around 1912

  • House at Grabenhof 1918

Upper Bahnhofstrasse

Site plan of the area of ​​the upper Bahnhofstrasse; before and after the modifications

After the middle and lower Bahnhofstrasse had been built, the upper part between Paradeplatz and Lake Zurich was built in the early 1880s. The building garden at the intersection with today's Börsenstrasse proved to be an obstacle to the extension of the road to the lake. The building garden was a popular meeting place and seat of the building garden society, an association of respected citizens. Its landmark was the scratching tower , part of the old city fortifications on the left bank. Above all, the Baugartengesellschaft resisted the construction of the upper Bahnhofstrasse and wanted to prevent the city from careless, rapid action in building development . The voters, however, decided to build the continuation of Bahnhofstrasse. A petition from the Baugartengesellschaft, which wanted to postpone the eviction date, was rejected. The decisive factor in building the stretch of road was the project to build the Old Stock Exchange: A private individual was willing to donate CHF 500,000 for it, provided that construction began within a very short time. Demolition work on the building garden began in the spring of 1877.

Construction of the Sprünglihaus , which still exists today, on the corner of Paradeplatz began in 1856. The old stock exchange was built between 1877 and 1880. In addition, the Prussian silk manufacturer and art patron Karl Gustav Henneberg built his palace-like office building in 1882. The « Kappelerhof » square of houses built in 1878/79 extended far into the former Kratzquartier. The associated new magnificent house "Gryffenberg" with a tower-like corner bay window on the corner of Bahnhofstrasse and Börsenstrasse belonged to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nordostbahn Adolf Guyer-Zeller . The name “Gryffenberg” reminded the client of his youth, when he often visited the castle ruins of the same name in Bauma . At the beginning of 1914 the pocket watch manufacturer Caesar Türler set up his horlogerie soignée on the ground floor of the Hotel Baur am Paradeplatz, which was now called “Baur en Ville” to differentiate it from “ Baur au Lac ” .

  • Building garden and scratching tower around 1871. Hotel Baur au Lac on the right

  • Obere Bahnhofstrasse 1870. Sprünglihaus on the right, building garden and scratching tower in the back

  • Sprünglihaus 1857

  • House to Gryffenberg 1907

  • Obere Bahnhofstrasse around 1900.

  • Obere Bahnhofstrasse 2009

Christmas lights

Christmas lighting "The World's Largest Timepiece" 2005–2009

In 1971, Bahnhofstrasse was given uniform Christmas lighting for the first time, with 20,640 lights on 215 garlands with twelve 2.5 meter long fairy lights with eight lamps each.

On November 23, 2005, the previous canopy was replaced after 34 years: from around 60 teams of architects from all over the world, ten were able to submit a competition project. The jury declared the two Zurich architects Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler the winner with the project: “The World's Largest Timepiece” (the world's largest clockwork). 275 glow sticks with a total of almost 250,000 individual light sources formed a 1.4 kilometer long light band that stretched from the station square to the lake. A computer program specially developed for this lighting controlled the light sources and always provided new impressions and moods. For large parts of the population and many tourists, however, the new lighting was unable to awaken a Christmas mood. The glow sticks were used for the last time in 2009 because of the many criticisms they received and then sold.

At the end of November 2010, the new "Lucy" Christmas lights went into operation for the first time. It consists of small, different colored lights that hang in several horizontal layers across the entire width of the street.

Development

Central station and station square

The Bahnhofplatz and the main train station as seen from Bahnhofstrasse

The elongated, rectangular Bahnhofplatz was created on the occasion of the planning of the station district and the construction of the main station and was completed in 1871. Gustav Albert Wegmann built the first train station in the city of Zurich on what was then the north-western outskirts of the city - as the terminus of the Spanish-Brötli-Bahn, which opened on August 9, 1847 . In 1871 the train station gave way to a new building designed by the architect Jakob Friedrich Wanner at the same location in order to meet the increased traffic requirements. Its main entrance was a triumphal arch at the end of the then new Bahnhofstrasse. In front of it, in the axis of Bahnhofstrasse, is the monument to the railway pioneer Alfred Escher . To the west of this is the Bahnhofplatz tram stop. The station square received its current appearance with the construction work completed in 1970. Since then, it has been heavily influenced by traffic: four parallel tram tracks, the tram stop and the four-lane street take up large parts of the square.

Pavilion sculpture by Max Bill

Granite sculpture (1983) by Max Bill

The Swiss artist Max Bill created the walk-in “pavilion sculpture” in 1983, an example of clear lines. The strictly conceived, logic and clarity-based construction made of highly polished, gray granite elements was initially extremely controversial. It is located on Bahnhofstrasse next to the Zurich headquarters of the major bank UBS.

Pestalozziwiese

The Pestalozzi facility is a small park named after Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi . The Pestalozziwiese was the place of execution for the city of Zurich until around 1860. In 1899 Hugo Siegwart created a monument to Pestalozzi, which was erected in the complex. Since the Pestalozzi plant no longer meets the current requirements, a redesign was suggested. In May 2007 the winning project of a project competition was announced. New solutions should be found for traffic management around the facility. The renovation planned for 2012 was not started until 2020.

Paradeplatz

Paradeplatz is located on Bahnhofstrasse in the City district in Zurich. It is a junction for tram lines 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 13.

Rösslitram on Paradeplatz, late 19th century

In 1642 a new city fortification was built for Zurich. The square moved into the city and became livelier. In 1819 the then nameless square was given the name "Neumarkt". It was not renamed Paradeplatz until 1865. Two Rösslitram lines ran across Paradeplatz for the first time in 1882, the Tiefenbrunnen – Nordostbahnhof – Paradeplatz – Enge and Helmhaus – Paradeplatz – Aussersihl lines. The first electric tram did not cross Paradeplatz until 1897. In 1900 the entire square was rebuilt when the Rösslitram lines were electrified between mid-June and early October and narrowed to meter gauge. In 2000 the square was completely renovated.

Bahnhofstrasse as the seat of well-known companies

Banks and department stores

UBS , Credit Suisse , Zürcher Kantonalbank and Swiss National Bank have their headquarters on Bahnhofstrasse and Paradeplatz, respectively, where the UBS administration building (Zurich headquarters of the former Swiss Bank Corporation ) and the portal of the main Credit Suisse building are located.

There are also large department stores such as Globus , Manor (until the end of January 2020), Jelmoli and Coop (in the former St. Annahof ) on Bahnhofstrasse.

International luxury brands

Since practically only international luxury labels and watch brands can afford a location on Bahnhofstrasse, they are well represented here and on the cross streets. These include high-priced fashion and accessories brands such as Giorgio Armani , Boss and Dior as well as watch and jewelry stores such as Beyer Chronometrie , Blancpain and Cartier .

As a result of the accumulation of international chains, traditional stores such as the specialist toy store Franz Carl Weber or Türler Uhren & Juwelen, the developers of the Türler clock , have been and are being ousted from Bahnhofstrasse. Franz Carl Weber moved to Bahnhofplatz near the main train station at the end of 2016 .

traffic

Cars next to tram tracks on Bahnhofstrasse

The shopping street is largely car-free or heavily traffic-calmed. The livelier lower Bahnhofstrasse and the middle section in several places as well as the entire Paradeplatz are completely free of traffic. The construction of the first tram line through Bahnhofstrasse began in 1881, at that time as a horse-drawn tram. This was operated by the private Zürcher Strassenbahn AG, which was taken over in 1897 by the Zurich public urban tram (StStZ), the predecessor company of the Zurich public transport company . In 1900 it was decided to discontinue the horse-drawn tram lines and convert them into electric tram lines. The line through Bahnhofstrasse was reopened as an electric tram line on October 1, 1902. Tram lines 6, 7, 11, 13 and at rush hour line 17 run on the section between Paradeplatz and the main train station. Here are the only traffic lights. Trams 2, 8, 9 and 11 run on the section between Paradeplatz and Bürkliplatz . VBZ trams have priority along the entire length of the street .

From 2013 to 2014 the whole street was renovated in four stages. In the process, the tram tracks and some of the lines were replaced, the stops were converted to make it accessible for the disabled, and the street, including planting and lighting, was redesigned.

Everyday life and celebrations

The Bahnhofstrasse as a shopping mile and seat of banks and law offices is very busy during the day. But it gets quiet in the evening after business hours. Parts of Bahnhofstrasse are on the traditional route of the parade of the guilds on Sechseläuten . Bahnhofstrasse is also marginally included in other major events such as the Street Parade .

Bahnhofstrasse magazine

Under the title The (Zurich) Bahnhofstrasse publishes Association Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse , a network of local shops and businesses twice a year a publication with tourist and cultural references.

literature

  • Christine Barraud Wiener, Peter Jezler , Regine Abegg: The City of Zurich. Volume 1: City in front of the wall, medieval fortifications and the Limmatraum . Wiese, Basel 1999, ISBN 3-909164-70-6 (= The Art Monuments of the Canton of Zurich , published by the GSK , Bern).
  • Walter Baumann: Bahnhofstrasse. In: A guest in old Zurich. Memories of guild houses and grand hotels, beer halls and wine bars, cafés and excursion restaurants. Hugendubel, Zurich 1992, ISBN 3-88034-594-5 .
  • Walter Baumann: Zurich - Bahnhofstrasse. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1972, DNB 740604937 .
  • Jürg Fierz (Ed.): Zurich - Who else is there? Orell Füssli, Zurich 1972, DNB 573940630 .
  • Thomas Germann, Jürg E. Schneider: Zurich in fast motion. Volume II: From 1621 to the first city association in 1893. Werd, Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-85932-322-9 .
  • Werner Huber: Bahnhofstrasse Zurich. History - Buildings - Shops. Edition Hochparterre, Zurich 2015, ISBN 978-3-909928-29-3 .

Web links

Commons : Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Bahnhofstrasse in facts and figures. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . November 27, 2014.
  2. ↑ Expensive pavement on Bahnhofstrasse. Highest rents in German-speaking countries, best sales worldwide. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 5th / 6th January 2008, p. 52 (with reference to a report by Location Services AG as the source).
  3. ^ A b c d Walter Baumann: Zurich - Bahnhofstrasse . Orell Füssli, Zurich 1972.
  4. ↑ Thomas Germann: Zurich in fast motion . Vol. II. Werd, Zurich 2000, p. 55.
  5. ^ Pestalozziananlage. In: City of Zurich. Retrieved May 11, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Michael von Ledebur: Manor closes its department store on Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . September 23, 2019. Retrieved September 23, 2019.
  7. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger from November 20, 2010
  8. ↑ View from June 3, 2016
  9. ↑ Irène Troxlerf: Banks sell real estate: Who owns the Zürcher Bahnhofstrasse In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of April 18, 2017
  10. ↑ Jan Hudec: Traditional company leaves Zürcher Bahnhofstrasse In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of May 17, 2017
  11. ↑ Flagship store - in Zurich's new Franz Carl Weber. In: Tages-Anzeiger , December 28, 2016.
  12. ^ Hans-Rudolf Galliker: Tramstadt . Chronos Verlag, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-905312-02-6 , pp. 21-28, 97-99.
  13. ↑ Renovation / redesign of Bahnhofstrasse. In: City of Zurich Civil Engineering and Waste Management Department. Archived from the original on December 9, 2014 ; retrieved on May 28, 2013 : “ In April 2013, the tram tracks in Bahnhofstrasse will be renewed and the stops will be made accessible to the disabled. At the same time, the use of new and uniform design elements should give the Bahnhofstrasse an appearance that corresponds to a visiting card of our city. »

Coordinates: 47 ° 22 '17.4 "  N , 8 ° 32' 19.2"  E ; CH1903:  683084  /  247323