Bastion Alexander

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bastion Alexander, called the Bastion
The 16 bastions of Johann Philipp von Schönborn in: Siège de Mayence en l'année 1689 . Engraving, Paris, 1756

The Alexander Bastion is a listed historical fortress in the former garrison town of Mainz . It was named after Pope Alexander VII and is located at the northern end of the Kästrich . In the city itself one usually speaks of the "bastion".

history

Around 1619, the Elector of Mainz, Johann Schweikhard von Kronberg, had the first modern fortifications built. After the end of the Thirty Years War , Elector Johann Philipp von Schönborn expanded Mainz into a fortress . Between 1655 and 1675, presumably according to the plans of fortress engineer Johann Baptist von der Driesch, 16 bastions were built, which formed a star-shaped belt around Mainz. In the later construction phase (1668–73), the Alexander bastion was built from sand and limestone blocks. In the Topographia Hassiae from 1655, the main stone is still a solitary bastion in front of the city walls, while the complete regular inner bastion (Tracé) is already visible on a French drawing of the state of 1689. The bastion Alexander (H) is located there between the bastions “Bonifaz” and “Georg” between the “Gautor” and the “Münstertor”.

The Alexander Bastion is the height and pivot point where the slope of the mountain begins towards the west and towards the northwest. The bastion face to the northwest dominates the exit of the Zahlbacher Grund in the Rhine Valley and the streets converging there.

In 1913 an ensemble of a single villa (No. 2, former villa of the master brewer of the Mainzer Aktien-Bierbrauerei , Kommerzienrat Dr. Otto Jung) and the twin villas No. 1 and 3 (former villas of the building contractors Ernst and Otto Behnke) was built on the bastion ) built mirror-symmetrically related to each other in a dominant position in the southern part of the former Alexander bastion. The architect of the single villa No. 2, named Haus “Liebe Erde”, was Albin Müller from the Darmstadt artists' colony. In contrast to the neo-baroque villas 1 and 3, this building was built in Art Nouveau style. The houses form the "monument zone on the bastion". Remnants of the wall in the New Prussian polygonal fortification from 1876, the Rheingauwall , are on the nearby green belt.

today

Today the foundation of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the Südwestrundfunk for the promotion of young musicians, Villa Musica , is on the bastion.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Alexander Bastion
  2. ^ Heinrich Bruehl: Mainz: Historically, topographically and painterly, represented. Publisher Florian Kupferberg, Mainz, 1829
  3. ^ Karl Anton Schaab : The history of the federal fortress Mainz, historically and militarily based on the sources. Self-published by the author, Mainz, 1835
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Brönner : On the bastion 3 - To the history of the house
  5. ↑ Michael Bermeitinger: City Walk Part 74 in: Allgemeine Zeitung from June 15, 2020
  6. ^ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - district-free city of Mainz. Mainz 2020, p. 9 f. (PDF; 5.4 MB).

Web links

Coordinates: 49 ° 59 ′ 48.9 "  N , 8 ° 15 ′ 41.4"  E