Beethoven Hall

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Beethovenhalle Bonn

The Beethovenhalle is a listed concert and event venue in Bonn . It is the third hall there that bears the name of the Bonn-born composer Ludwig van Beethoven .

Beethovenhalle, aerial view from the east
Refurbishment September 2018, aerial photo

The first Beethoven Hall was built in 1845 on the occasion of the inauguration of the Beethoven monument on Münsterplatz, the second in 1870 on Ludwig van Beethoven's 100th birthday. After the destruction of this hall in the Second World War , the first activities for the new building began in 1950. The third Beethoven Hall was built according to the plans and under the direction of Siegfried Wolske . It was completed in September 1959 and has since been a landmark of the city and one of the most important buildings in the young Federal Republic. The most important task of the Beethovenhalle is to look after the music of Ludwig van Beethoven. It is the "home hall" of the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn . The opening and closing concerts of the Beethovenfesttake place in their great hall. In addition to being used as a concert hall for classical music, the hall also hosts carnival meetings, exhibitions, parties, congresses and celebrations.

During Bonn's time as the federal capital , the Federal Assembly was convened four times in the Beethoven Hall from 1974 to 1989 to elect the German Federal President .

location

Remains of the baroque city fortifications - bleached wax

The Beethoven Hall stands on the banks of the Rhine in the north of Bonn. The inner northern part of the city and the center of Bonn are just a few minutes' walk from there. The hall was built on the remains of a bastion that was part of the baroque city fortifications . In the 19th century, the clinic building of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn was built on the site between the banks of the Rhine and Wilhelmsplatz , and the women's clinic stood on the site of today's Beethovenhalle. In 1944, like the other clinic buildings, it was largely destroyed by air raids and was not rebuilt after the Second World War.

The area on which the Beethoven Hall is located extends almost rectangularly in an east-west direction between Welschnonnenstrasse and the banks of the Rhine.

The outdoor facilities include a parking lot in the north-western part, followed by a green area designed by the Bonn landscape architect Heinrich Raderschall with trees, some of which date from the 19th century. In the east, the green area slopes down into a steep embankment towards the Rhine. The building has been shaping the city for half a century due to its elevated position and its architecture, especially with the green dome that can be seen from afar. In addition to numerous sacred buildings, the Beethoven Hall is the only significant secular cultural building that has a direct connection to the river in the cities north of Lake Constance on the Rhine .

story

The plenary hall of the Bundeshaus planned by Hans Schwippert in 1949 was not followed by any noteworthy representative new building in Bonn for 10 years. That only changed with the construction of the Beethoven Hall. Its construction was a nationally and internationally recognized achievement for the “provisional capital”, in which the citizens of the city played an essential role. The initiative to build the new hall came from Bonn citizens and initiatives from the ranks of Bonn citizens organized a fundraising campaign that raised more than one million DM .

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View from the right bank of the Rhine

The civic engagement therefore resulted in providing an appropriate concert venue for the performance of the music by the Bonn-born composer. In addition, the spirit of the young Federal Republic was to be shown in the new house. As in Bonn, in the post-war period numerous municipalities issued tenders for cultural buildings that were supposed to "give shape to the new spirit". In Bonn, this intention was realized with the Beethovenhalle in a way that, according to the art historian Jörg Rüter, "is an example of a democratic decision-making process that ranges from the formulation of competition demands to the question of the items of equipment."

Today's Beethovenhalle is the third concert building in the history of Bonn to bear this name. The following presentation of the history of the two halls built in the 19th century is based on the study by Jörg Rüter The Bonn Beethoven Hall .

The first Beethoven Hall

The first Beethoven Hall was built in 1845 as a “temporary festival architecture and backdrop” for Franz Liszt . He had been invited to Bonn to thank for his generous donation of money for the erection of the Beethoven monument and was supposed to direct the celebrations for the unveiling. He rejected the Academic Riding School, which had already been converted for 2,000 visitors, as an event location. Instead, a new building was built on the private property of the Räss'schen Garten next to the Franciscan Church . The plans for this were drawn up by 14 foremen from Bonn. Today the Viktoriabad is located there . The construction took place under the direction of the Cologne cathedral builder Ernst Friedrich Zwirner and the architect Vincenz Statz.

The first Beethoven Hall was built in the basilica style (consisting of a central and two side aisles ) as a wooden structure and could accommodate 3,000 people. It was praised for its acoustics and was an “achievement of handcrafted piecework”. Within twelve days, 95 carpenters, joiners and decorators had created a festival building with capital decorations , painted friezes and wall cladding. Two months after the Beethoven Festival in 1845, a notary put the hall up for "sale for demolition". Fire police reasons played an important role. The resulting building material was auctioned off to the highest bidder .

The second Beethoven Hall

Beethovenhalle built in 1870 - entrance
Beethovenhalle built in 1870 - interior view

On the occasion of the 100th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven , a new hall was built 25 years later on Vierecksplatz in Brückenstraße, today Berliner Freiheit 20-24 . The city council decided on February 4, 1870 for the new building on Vierecksplatz. A search for alternative locations to hold the planned festival for the composer's 100th birthday had previously taken place. The Evangelical Kreuzkirche on Kaiserplatz was shortlisted (which was not completed until August 1870); the university auditorium and the arcade courtyard of the university. The industrialist Joseph Drammer as well as the Bonn citizens' association and a Beethoven share association that was being establishedhad negotiated with the city on the basis of different ideas as potential financiers of this project. The new building, which began on March 3, 1870, took place on the basis of a financing plan that had been drawn up by a Beethoven committee made up of 38 Bonn citizens, the city administration and the building contractor Joseph Engelskirchen. The foundation stone was laid on April 2, 1870 . Engelskirchen supplied the design for the Beethoven Hall.

The building was mainly made of fir wood with a free-standing stucco facade, which, on a single storey in neoclassical style and with a gable-topped arched portal, concealed the shape of the actual hall. The building was a three-aisled basilica with a longitudinal gallery . It held around 1500 visitors. The inauguration took place on the occasion of Beethoven's 100th birthday on December 17, 1870.

In the course of the next few decades the hall became an “internationally respected center of musical life praised for its acoustics”. However, the building was not only used to maintain classical music. Their use ranged from poetry readings to boxing matches, of Max Reinhardt Oedipus -Masseninszenierung and the Oberammergau Passion Play to agricultural exhibitions and charity bazaars with Budenzauber and Rhenish church fairs, University celebrations and Rector transfers up to carnival sessions and masked balls, of Catholics days to party events of the Nazi Party . On June 12, 1938, a marble bust created by Richard Lange was shownBeethoven, which Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick had donated.

During the Second World War , this second Beethoven Hall was destroyed by a bomb attack on October 18, 1944.

New construction of the third Betthoven Hall

Beethovenhalle shortly after it opened in October 1959

In 1950 the first activities to build a new hall began. In May of this year there was a festival screening of the Austrian feature film Eroica in the Metropol for the benefit of the reconstruction of the Beethoven Hall. On June 10, 1950, the Bonner Rundschau set up a wooden replica of the Bonner bridge man on the Münsterplatz and had it nailed in exchange for a contribution to the fundraising that has now started. From 1951 the Stifterverband Beethovenhalle Bonn played an important role in the support campaigns for the new building. Numerous support actions took place in the following years at home and abroad. Prominent artists who took part included Elly Ney and Andor Foldes . The high point of international fundraising was a special concert by Andor Foldes on December 5, 1956 at Carnegie Hall in New York City .

When looking for a location for the hall, the location of the second Beethoven Hall, which was destroyed in the war, was no longer an option. This made the reorganization of the east-west axis in the Bertha-von-Suttner-Platz / Berliner Freiheit area impossible. On January 19, 1952, the building committee of the city council recommended that the hall be built on the site of the destroyed university clinics on the northern edge of the old town. The city council followed this recommendation with a resolution of March 21, 1952.

In January 1954, the architects' competition to obtain designs for the new hall was announced. 109 architects took part in an international competition. After a preliminary examination of the designs, the jury met in August 1954 under the leadership of Otto Bartning and Paul Bonatz . In the corridors of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasiumthe models were exhibited and could be examined there. Six drafts were eliminated from the first orientation course due to missing documents. After a tour of the competition site, a further 42 models were unanimously removed from further assessment on a so-called “first tour”. After four tours, 14 drafts remained on the shortlist. Until then, kept anonymous by camouflage numbers, the first prize was awarded to the design by the then 29-year-old architect and Scharoun student Siegfried Wolske when the participants' envelopes were opened . The second prize went to the Berlin architect Willy Kreuer and his colleague Heinz Weden.

The city council passed the building decision on June 8, 1955. The foundation stone was laid on March 16, 1956 by the then Federal President Theodor Heuss . In the certificate signed by Heuss for the laying of the foundation stone, the Lord Mayor of Bonn, Peter Maria Busen, and the members of the city council expressed the wish that the new hall would become “an international center for the care of Beethoven's music” . In 1959 the new building was completed under the direction of Siegfried Wolskes. The cost was 9.5 million. DM. The fundraising brought in more than 1 million DM, federal governmentand the state of North Rhine-Westphalia each gave one million, the city of Bonn 6.5 million marks. The enclosed space measured 73,000 m³ and the large hall offered 1,402 seats.

The new Beethovenhalle was opened with a ceremony on September 8, 1959, starting with Beethoven's On the Consecration of the House . Speeches were given by Federal President Theodor Heuss, the Minister of Culture of North Rhine-Westphalia, Werner Schütz , and Lord Mayor Wilhelm Daniels . Paul Hindemith personally conducted his Nobilissima Visione . Ten days later, on September 18, 1959, the city of Bonn 's Beethoven Festival took place in the new concert hall for the first time . Most prominent artist of this XXII. Beethoven Festival was Yehudi Menuhin .

Monument protection

Night view

The Beethoven Hall was entered in the list of monuments of the city of Bonn in 1990. According to the justification of the monument property, "(structural) artistic, scientific, in particular architectural-historical and urban planning reasons" speak in favor of the preservation and use of the building. The monument property includes the entire building of the Beethovenhalle - including the restaurant wing with terrace and staircases - consisting of a large hall, studio, chamber music hall, lecture room, ticket hall and cloakroom as well as the various (smoking) foyers. The Beethovenhalle “embodies the direction of organic building in terms of architectural history", Which stands out from the purely" functional building ". “It belongs nationwide”, the reason continues, “in the group of concert buildings from the post-war period, such as the Philharmonie in Berlin or the Liederhallein Stuttgart. Plastic structural elements based on Expressionist architecture will be further developed there. Exterior and interior design are a successful synthesis in terms of material, shape and color with the function, which to this day give the building its unmistakable artistic individuality in its unchanged form the former bastion fortification of Bonn in the 17th century and the city expansion in the 19th century. In an exposed location, on the elevated bank of the Rhine, it is part of the unmistakable skyline of Bonn. ”Another aspect that establishes the hall's monumental quality is its artistic furnishings.

In February 2011, state curator Udo Mainzer applied to the Bonn city administration to place the entire area around the Beethoven Hall under protection. "He means the overall picture with meadow, paths, parking lot and driveway, which represents a conscious unity with the building - similar to the outdoor facilities of the palaces in Brühl."

Modernization and expansion

Site plan of the Beethoven Hall (2009)

In the summer of 1985 the Beethovenhalle had to be closed and renovated due to fire damage caused by arson . The acoustic ceiling, the organ and the eastern part of the hall were particularly affected. In the 1980s the hall was so heavily used that it sometimes had to be booked three years in advance. Plans to build a conference center in the vicinity of the hall were not implemented. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s there were several plans to rebuild the hall. After it was listed as a historical monument in 1990, the city refrained from doing so. In 1996 the hall was modernized under the planning of Siegfried Wolske for 22.6 million DM (equivalent to 11.35 million euros) and extended by three seminar rooms in the southern area.

After the expansion, the Beethovenhalle will consist of four event areas:

  • Great Hall (1980 seats)
  • Studio (487 seats)
  • Chamber music hall (240 seats)
  • Forum Süd (congress center with seminar rooms)

In 2005, the city administration considered optimization measures amounting to 1.9 million euros, including measures to optimize the hall acoustics. These measures were not carried out. Fire protection measures were taken in 2007 and amounted to 1.5 million euros. Investments totaling 2.8 million euros for the years 2011 and 2012 were decided by the City Council of Bonn on April 14, 2011. a. Air conditioning and sound technology are modernized.

In June 2012, the city administration announced the result of an expert opinion on the renovation of the Beethoven Hall: A complete renovation for a “multifunctional hall” would then cost almost 30 million euros; around 43 million euros would have to be invested if the Beethoven Hall is to be converted into a “high-quality concert hall”. In July 2013, the City Council of Bonn decided to commission the administration with the creation of a cost and time schedule for upgrading the Beethoven Hall, based on a multifunctional use. On April 7, 2016, the CDU, Greens, FDP, Left and AfD voted for the renovation, which was originally supposed to cost 60.7 million euros. SPD, social liberals and the Citizens' Federation of Bonnvoted against the renovation. In mid-August 2016, the cost forecast rose by 5.5 million euros before the renovation began. The renovation of the Beethoven Hall began in mid-November 2016. At the end of August 2017, a delay in the completion originally planned for March 2019 became apparent for the first time. By June 2018, the cost forecast had already risen to 79 million euros. In October 2018, the city administration announced that the costs would rise to around 94 million euros due to the "poor and unpredictable" subsoil under the Beethoven Hall. In March 2019, the completion date was postponed to 2022 and the cost forecast rose to 102 million euros. On March 7, 2019, the city announced in a statement on a request from the SPD parliamentary group, that the problems underground had been known since 1996. At the end of June 2019, the city administration announced in a press release that the costs of the renovation would rise to around 166 million euros in the worst case. At the same time, completion is not expected before mid-2022.

architecture

building

The building complex of the Beethovenhalle consists of a group of irregularly shaped cubes with different roof pitches, which are arranged around the domed hall building. The central structure is the dome , which rises like a wave from the Rhine. Its height is 25 meters above the foundation. It spans the 36 meter wide and 49 meter deep hall. It is a self-supporting steel structure covered with copper. The roof, which was re-covered in 1975, covers an area of ​​2000 square meters. Water damage made the renovation necessary. A wooden structure was installed under the roof, the height of the eaveschanged insignificantly. Since then, the roof surface has had seven steps parallel to the Rhine, which cross the curve of the dome that runs from east to west. The middle step, the center of the dome, has been partially covered with a temporary covering since a storm in 2007, the material and color of which is not adapted to the surroundings.

The components of the complex are separated from each other and subordinate to the dome. The center of the hall complex has an asymmetrical, non-axial floor plan. To the south of the Great Hall there is a transverse, 500-square-meter, eastern studio above a fan-shaped floor plan, and a 192-square-meter chamber music hall over a trapezoidal floor plan to the west. To the south, on an irregularly elongated, square floor plan, there is a 145 square meter lecture hall. This part of the building complex was expanded in the mid-1990s by adding three seminar rooms.

  • entrance

  • View from the west

  • Rhine side

  • Rhine side

Interior design

The architect opened up the main foyer in front of the Great Hall through a finger-like, elongated low-rise building in which the entrance hall, the ticket office and the cloakroom are housed. The brick-walled checkout hall, which hardly lets in daylight, tapers to the east and ends in the cloakroom area, which is four steps lower. The south side of this area is completely dissolved in glass.

The main foyer itself is characterized by stairs to the gallery of the 977 square meter hall, which are freely positioned in the room . The floor plan of the hall is curved elliptically , cut straight or curved in several places. The large hall, which is “almost expressionistic” thanks to its wooden paneling and tinted with a uniform matt ocher, is located in the center of the building and has a 280 square meter orchestra platform and when it opened it had seating for 1,400 visitors. The parquet floor shows no rise.

The “flat spheroid” ceiling under the dome has an attached surface formed from stereometric relief bodies on the inside . With portals between the gill-like side walls, the Great Hall opens up to a colonnade and the main foyer, which gives access to two smoking foyers .

Great Hall - Concert during the Beethoven Festival 2007

The main foyer, walkway, chamber music and lecture hall enclose a small inner courtyard in which there is a plane tree . The halls and studios are interconnected so that it is possible to get from the northern gallery and the foyer via the restaurant on the Rhine to the southern rooms and from there back to the western entrance hall.

When it comes to building materials, Wolske tried to use the finest raw materials from all over the world. The city listed them in Bonn Beethovenhalle and names u. a. Granite from Sweden , glass mosaic from Italy , marble from Italy, teak parquet from Burma , afrormosia -Parkett from West Africa and the wood paneling in the Great Hall of Japan .

  • Cloakroom wing

  • Main foyer

  • Lecture hall (photo from 1959)

  • Studio (recording from 1959)

organ

The stage is equipped with an organ with 5258 pipes and 67 registers (+ one transmission ) on four manuals with mechanical tone and electrical register action . It was built in 1959 by the Klais organ manufacturer and has the following disposition :

I upper unit C–
Principal 8th'
Lead-covered 8th'
octave 4 ′
Reed flute 4 ′
Nasat 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Super octave 2 ′
third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
Seventh 1 1 ⁄ 7  ′
Scharff V – VI 1 ⁄ 4 ′
Quintzimbel II 2 ⁄ 3 ′
Dulcian 16 ′
Krummhorn 8th'
tremolo
II main work C–
Principal 16 ′
octave 8th'
Reed flute 8th'
Willow pipe 8th'
Super octave 4 ′
Coupling flute 4 ′
Hollow flute 2 ′
Cornet III 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Rauschpfeife IV 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Mixture V 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Trumpet 8th'
Trumpet 4 ′
III Swell C–
Pommer 16 ′
Wooden principal 8th'
Pointed 8th'
Viola di gamba 8th'
Beat 8th'
octave 4 ′
Flute 4 ′
Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Schwegel 2 ′
Sesquialter II 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Mixture V 2 ′
Nonenzimbel IV 2 ⁄ 7 ′
Bombard 16 ′
Trumpet 8th'
oboe 8th'
Clairon 4 ′
tremolo
IV breast positive C–
Wooden dacked 8th'
Quintadena 8th'
recorder 4 ′
Principal 2 ′
Reed flute 2 ′
Pointed fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Sif flute 1'
Acuta IV-VI 1
Third cymbal III 16 ′
Holzschalmei 8th'
Vox humana 8th'
tremolo
Pedal C–
Pedestal 32 ′
Principal bass 16 ′
Sub bass 16 ′
Pommer (from III) 16 ′
Octave bass 8th'
Wooden flute 8th'
Tube bare 8th'
octave 4 ′
Pointed flute 4 ′
Night horn 2 ′
Non cornet V 2 ′
Backset V 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Counter trumpet 32 ′
trombone 16 ′
Trumpet 8th'
Clarine 4 ′
Singing cornet 2 ′


Acoustics

The first and especially the second Beethoven Hall were famous for their good room acoustics . That should also apply to the construction of the new hall. The builders commissioned the Göttingen physicist Erwin Meyer with the acoustic design of the large hall. He was faced with the task of creating good acoustic conditions for a room that was intended both as a concert hall for music, especially classical music, as well as for events in which speeches were in the foreground - such as congresses and carnival events.

“Can we still leave the acoustics to architectural chance today?” Asked Meyer in an article for the volume on the Beethoven Hall published by Gert Schroers, head of the Bonn cultural office at the time. “This question,” continues Meyer, “can be answered with a straight no. Scientific acoustics is so advanced that the basic requirements for good acoustics are known and can be taken into account. Numerous concert halls, theaters and opera houses built in all countries after the war show that it really is. "

One of the most important goals that Meyer and the architect strived for was to use building materials - in the Beethoven Hall, for example, B. the wood paneling on the side walls and the design of the ceiling - to ensure that the proportion of direct sound is balanced against the reflections , large enough to still perceive the music clearly and transparently, but not too large not to create a spatial impression to reduce. The reverberation should be spatially well distributed, make a noticeable contribution to the overall sound and not be too short in order to envelop the listener as well as possible in the music. The best reverberation times are 1.5 to 2 seconds.

Since the existence of the Beethovenhalle there have been several examinations and reports of its room acoustics. In 1988 a team from the Japanese University of Osaka tested the acoustics in several European concert halls, in addition to the Beethoven Hall, the Concertgebouw Hall in Amsterdam, the Munich Philharmonie am Gasteig and what is probably the most famous classical hall, the Great Music Association Hallin Vienna. According to the General-Anzeiger in an article under the heading “Beethoven Hall has first-class acoustics”, the Bonn hall had the best reverberation times. In the standard work "Acoustics and Musical Performance Practice" by Jürgen Meyer, the Beethoven Hall ranks among the best among the "newcomers", that is, the concert halls built between 1951 and 1986 with much better values ​​than the Royal Festival Hall in London - before they were modernized , which was completed in 2008 - and slightly better than the Cologne Philharmonic .

Against the background of increased competition with newly built concert halls in neighboring cities, the city commissioned Graner & Partner in 2005 to provide an expert report on the acoustics. The proposals for "room acoustic improvement" presented on February 17, 2005 are based on measurements of the reverberation timeand measurements of the room impulse response determined deficiencies in the area of ​​the podium and the front audience area. The report suggested two options for eliminating the defects, with a cost of 800,000 euros for the more extensive version. “With this variant”, so the final assessment of the report, “very good concert acoustics can be achieved. The reverberation time is increased to a level that corresponds to today's listening habits and the reflection image is compensated. ”The proposed improvements were not implemented.

The sound experience of concert-goers corresponds to these expert results. “In most seats you can hear good to very good,” writes the Cologne musicologist Michael Gassmann , “only on the far right and in the very front parts of the sound miss the audience. But in which hall in the world - with the exception of the eternal reference building Wiener Musikverein - wouldn't there be dead corners? Even in the Cologne Philharmonic , those sitting on the sidelines hardly notice the soloists standing on the ramp. This is different in the Beethovenhalle: the sound of a large orchestra and the soloists mixes into a homogeneous whole. Piano recitals show that even a single instrument can make the room vibrate as a whole. "

While Leonard Bernstein praised acoustics in the 1980s, his colleague Kurt Masur criticized it in March 2010. “Do you hear this dry acoustics?” The General-Anzeiger Bonn quoted him on March 29, 2010, “you don't notice that the sound is moving.” The Beethoven Hall was not built as a pure concert hall, “today you reckon with a volume of ten cubic meters of air space per visitor in order to have good acoustics, that is not achieved here ”. A few days later, Masur's criticism was contradicted by Heribert Beissel , director of the Bonn Classical Philharmonic. “The Bonn Classical Philharmonic,” said Beissel, “has the best opportunities for comparison with the Bonn Beethoven Hall thanks to the regular monthly concerts in the eleven largest concert halls in Germany, and thus a well-founded assessment competence. Compared to the ideal case of the Hamburger Musikhalle , other halls, such as B. the Gasteig in Munich to show greater acoustic defects than the Bonn Beethoven Hall. "

Indoor and outdoor art

Main foyer with the wall designed by Joseph Fassbender - in front of it the Beethoven bust by Émile-Antoine Bourdelle

When the hall opened on September 9, 1959, the exhibition Berlin Contemporary Artists a . a. with works by Bernhard Heiliger , Hann Trier , Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Hans Uhlmann . Heiliger and Uhlmann contributed to the artistic design of the hall with their own work. An abstract sculpture by Hans Uhlmann has stood on the Rhine side since 1959. A sculpture by Bernhard Heiliger was exhibited in the inner courtyard of the hall for many years.

The participation of visual artists in the design of the Beethovenhalle corresponded to Siegfried Wolskes idea of ​​the hall as a total work of art with the connection of art and architecture. Wolske himself worked as an artist: At the main entrance, a colored window varies the floor plan of the hall. By Joseph Fassbender are the wall paintings in the Grand Foyer a mural without a title and little-smoking lobby Vihaminazhera to see. France gave Émile-Antoine Bourdelle 's Beethoven portrait, which is displayed in the main foyer. The Beethon concrete sculpture has been in front of the hall since 1986by Klaus Kammerichs. On the Rhine side, some distance from Uhlmann's sculpture , you can see a work by Alexander Wahl with the title Trust in the Future .

classification

Siegfried Wolskes work is decisively influenced by Hans Scharoun . Scharoun had held the chair and management of the Institute for Urban Development at the Technical University of Berlin since 1946 . Wolske was one of the group of students who discussed Scharoun's designs and developed them further.

With his floor plans of round and curved shapes, Scharoun opposed Bauhaus architecture and turned to organic architecture , of which he was the most important representative in Germany. At the Bauhaus architects were geometry and proportionsScharoun wanted to find an “individual” form in the planning practice that determined the form-determining basis of her architecture projects, which not only took into account the functionality of the building but also the physiological and psychological effects on the user. Scharoun granted the "organ form" of his projects an "autonomous law that reflects an intellectual attitude that also contains irrational elements and does not necessarily have to correspond to the purely fulfilling purpose".

In this sense, Siegfried Wolske strived for a special shape for the Beethovenhalle, a very individual "organ shape" whose essence is linked to culture, a culture whose aim is "to bring people together". And like Scharoun, Wolske wanted a mediation between the individual and society through “spaces in the middle” as an environment for collective action. In a speech he gave on the evening of September 7, 1959, the day before the ceremonial inauguration of the Beethoven Hall, at the handover of the keys to the then Mayor of Bonn, Wilhelm Daniels, he said:

“The essence of this building is connected in a special way with society in the broad sense of the word - and its specific tasks in its own cause, culture. If the goal of culture is not an aesthetic one, it can only be to bring people together. "

- Siegfried Wolske : in: The consecration of the house , Bonn 1960, p. 12

In another place it says:

“Building not for the sake of building, not for the sake of an aesthetic conception, not to create a well-functioning technical apparatus alone is the task! Rather, it should read: to make connections between the individual and society, between production and reception, playing music and recording music, between representation and viewing, between movement and rest, concentration and relaxation. "

- Siegfried Wolske : in: The consecration of the house , Bonn 1960, p. 13

Architectural projects that are closely related to the Beethovenhalle on a national level are the concert hall of the Berlin University of Music , built between 1952 and 1954, and the Stuttgart Liederhalle , built in 1955/1956 . The concert hall in Berlin, built by Paul Baumgarten , is characterized on the outside by the parabolic curvature of its dome protruding from a cube . The dome of the Beethoven Hall resembles it in terms of its basic shape and architectural arrangement. Erwin Meier, who advised Wolske (see chapter “Acoustics”), had examined the acoustics of the concert hall at the Berlin University of Music. At that of Adolf Abel and Rolf GutbrodBuilt in the Liederhalle in Stuttgart, the floor plan is similar to the floor plan of the Beethoven Hall. “There is a contrast of curved and straight lines in both of them, which is even more emphasized in Stuttgart,” says Jörg Rüter, summarizing the similarities between the two projects. “Avoiding right angles,” he continues, “is common to both floor plans. Another relationship shows the choice of building materials. As in the Beethoven Hall, independent works of art are also integrated in the Liederhalle in the form of building sculptures. "

Media coverage

The construction of the Beethoven Hall received a wide range of echoes in national and international media. This applies to radio and television as well as to the daily and specialist press.

A few days before the inauguration, on August 29, 1959, one of the editors of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) at the time, Karl Korn, in a post of the event and portrayed the new building. “The contribution of the new architecture (in Bonn),” he writes, “which until now consisted of ministries and housing estates was not exactly a sheet of fame. In a fortnight it will be different. The Beethoven Hall will be mentioned and noticed in the discussion about new architecture. "Korn praised the initiative and the courage that Bonn" allowed such a young, so inexperienced architect to tackle this enormous task. "And finally:" Bonn has to record a high architectural and urban development gain. ”“ The hall itself ”, so Richard Biedrzynski in the Stuttgarter Zeitungon September 3, 1959, “adheres to the dimensions of the human.” For the author it is “already certain” that the new building “gives the provisional federal capital an accent that will have an effect beyond the day if Bonn doesn't should be more of the federal capital. Bonn is a replacement for Berlin. But his Beethoven Hall will survive the change of times and systems. It is better than anything that has been done before and otherwise on behalf of the city's greatest son. ”On September 18, 1959, Vorwärts was busywith the new building, especially with the acoustics. It "is brilliant" writes the author. "As Professor Dr. Dr. Erwin Meyer stated ", according to Vorwärts," the alternative for the Beethoven Hall was either optimal acoustics for speech or for music. The decision was made in favor of the latter because, given all the prevailing circumstances, the two could not be combined. ”As far as the architecture is concerned, says Vorwärts,“ the Beethovenhalle is a great achievement. One should be pleased with the courage that Siegfried Wolske, who was only 28 years old at the time, was offered this great opportunity. Hats off to this city council! "

use

AnimagiCs in front of the hall (2009)
AnimagiCs in front of the hall (2009)

The city of Bonn owns the Beethovenhalle. It supports the operator of the hall with grants and reimburses personnel and management costs of around one million euros. The World Conference Center Bonn Management GmbH has been the operator since 2008. At the same time this company operated the World Conference Center Bonn (WCCB). After the company had to file for bankruptcy in connection with the WCCB disaster in October 2009 , the Beethovenhallen operation threatened at the end of 2009. In February 2010, the city council decided to ensure continued operation that the hall should again be run by the city.

The Beethovenhalle is still used today for numerous musical performances, as well as for other events. With the Great Hall, the Beethovenhalle has, according to the operator, a concert and congress hall "of international format". The podium leaves plenty of space for "generous presentations". If necessary, the gallery can be separated from the hall by lowerable ceiling elements. In addition to the Great Hall, the South Forum is now an essential part of the usage concept. According to the “Annual Report of the Beethovenhalle 2007”, 119 events with 246,000 participants took place this year. 170 events were "sold" by the operator. This does not include the 118 rehearsal days of the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn .

Concert hall

The Beethovenhalle is the "home hall" of the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, which from 1945 to 2003 was called the Orchestra of the Beethovenhalle Bonn . The most important performances of the orchestra take place in the great hall of the house. The Classical Philharmonic Bonn gives concerts several times a year . The opening and closing concerts of the Beethoven Festival take place in the great hall, as does the closing concert of the Beethoven Competition Bonn for Piano . Prominent musicians and orchestras from all over the world make guest appearances in the hall. These included Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan , the pianists Hélène Grimaud and Lang Lang , theNew York Philharmonic Orchestra under Lorin Maazel , the London Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding , the Orchester National de France under Kurt Masur and the Gewandhausorchester under Riccardo Chailly .

One of the works that premiered in the Beethoven Hall is Karlheinz Stockhausen's “Fresco”. For the five-hour performance in 1969, the four orchestral groups were distributed in the hallways. Stockhausen called the project, of which “Fresco” was a work, “Music for the Beethoven Hall”.

Since its inception, the Beethovenhalle has been used as a location for recording classical music performances. In recent years, this includes productions for the CD market such as Leonore 1806 , a special early version of Beethoven's opera Fidelio , which was performed and produced for the first time at the 35th Beethovenfest 1997 in cooperation with the Beethoven Archive in Bonn, the Lukas Passion by Krzysztof Penderecki and Ernst Krenek's opera Karl V. In 2009, a DVD with Beethoven's symphony cycle was created. The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen played under the direction of Paavo Järvi .

"Bonn's largest disco"

Proclamation of princes 1961

In addition to concerts, meetings and conferences as well as evening events, parties and guest performances take place in the hall. The proclamation of the Bonn Carnival Prince Couple is just as much a part of these events as The Final - Abiparty with around 4500 visitors or the Fun Kölsch Carnival , where the Beethoven Hall becomes “Bonn's largest disco”.

AnimagiC , one of the largest German-language anime conventions, has been taking place annually in the Beethovenhalle since 2006 . In 2009 around 15,000 manga and anime fans took part.

Historic meeting place

Election party in the Beethovenhalle for the 1965 federal election

During the time when Bonn was the federal capital, the Beethovenhalle was a place where numerous representative and historical events of the Federal Republic of Germany took place. The Beethoven Hall was of particular importance from 1974 to 1989 as the location of the Federal Assembly . The 6th Federal Assembly met on May 15, 1974. Its president was Annemarie Renger . The assembly elected Walter Scheel as the fourth Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany. On May 23, 1979 the 7th Federal Assembly met in the Beethoven Hall. Its presidents were Richard Stücklen , Hermann Schmitt-Vockenhausen and Liselotte Funcke. In the election, Karl Carstens was elected Federal President. The 8th Federal Assembly took place on May 23, 1984. Its president was Rainer Barzel . In the election was Richard von Weizsacker elected President. He was re-elected on May 23, 1989 at the 9th Federal Assembly, the last in Bonn. It took place under the direction of Rita Süssmuth . In addition, the Federal Press Ball took place in the Beethoven Hall from 1959 to 1989 , making it by far the longest venue for this event.

Important events in the Beethovenhalle (selection)
date event Remarks
21-23 March 1966 14th CDU Federal Party Congress Farewell to Konrad Adenauer as party chairman, election of Ludwig Erhard
22.-24. June 1970 21st FDP federal party conference
18.-20. November 1971 Extraordinary federal party conference of the SPD Topic: tax policy
June 12, 1973 21st CDU federal party conference First election of Helmut Kohl as party chairman
June 14, 1987 Extraordinary federal party conference of the SPD Farewell to Willy Brandt as party chairman, election of Hans-Jochen Vogel
November 9, 1987 35th CDU Federal Party Congress
16./17. November 1992 Extraordinary federal party conference of the SPD Topic: Asylum policy ( asylum compromise )
October 9, 1993 Extraordinary federal party conference of Alliance 90 / The Greens Subject: War in the former Yugoslavia
August 29, 1998 Extraordinary federal party conference of the FDP
23-25 October 1998 11th federal party conference of Alliance 90 / The Greens Decision on first-time government participation at federal level

various

Postage stamp pad of the Deutsche Bundespost (1959) for the inauguration

In honor of the inauguration, the Deutsche Bundespost issued its first block of stamps with five German composers: Ludwig van Beethoven, Georg Friedrich Handel , Louis Spohr , Joseph Haydn and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy .

The Beethoven Hall is the ninth station on the Beethoven tour in Bonn , which has been in existence since 2006 . On a board in front of the main entrance it says: “With the new Beethoven Hall designed by the architect Siegfried Wolske in September 1959, Bonn entered the series of the world's most important, regular music festivals. Paul Hindemith inaugurated it with his own composition Nobilissima visione . Today's Beethoven Hall is the third in Bonn; the first was built in 1845 to celebrate the first Beethoven Festival. "

In Mord am Funkenmariechen - A Bonn Crime Story, crime novelist Peter Assion tells of a crime in the Beethoven Hall.

50th birthday

The city of Bonn was not present at the celebrations for the 50th birthday of the Beethoven Hall. In response to an inquiry from May 2009 to the city about the preparations it was making to celebrate its 50th birthday, the head of the cultural affairs department in Bonn replied that the Beethoven Hall could not fulfill the “perspective of a top-class, internationally recognized concert hall” and that it was “the administration from the 50th anniversary of the Beethovenhalle on 7./8. September 2009 to celebrate with events ”.

Beethoven Hall (1959)

In order to draw attention to the social and artistic importance of the Beethovenhalle, the “Initiative Beethovenhalle” organized the exhibition “The Bonn Beethovenhalle in photo documents of the time it was built. Recordings by Hans Schafgans ”in the rooms of the Kunsthistorisches Institut of Bonn University, which was then shown in the second station from November 25th to December 3rd, 2009 in the Beethoven container on the courtyard garden side of the main university building. For this exhibition, Hans Schafgans opened his archive and provided pictures from the construction period and from the completion of the hall.

For the 50th birthday, guided tours inside and outside the hall - for example on the Open Monument Day on September 13, 2009 - took place. The CDU and the Greens held birthday parties in front of the hall . As part of these actions, the Greens announced in the Bonn City Council that they would advocate the preservation of the Beethoven Hall in the upcoming coalition negotiations. In the coalition agreement with the CDU that was passed in December 2009, the Greens also expressed their negative attitude towards demolishing the hall, while this is "basically not shared by the CDU".

On November 28, 2009 the “Initiative Beethovenhalle” held the colloquium “Brennpunkt beethovenhalle”. In the anniversary year of the monument, the attention of Bonn citizens should be directed to their important legacy. According to the organizers, the focus of the lectures was the desire “to convey the qualities and importance of the Beethoven Hall to a broader public”. The potential of the building for another fifty years of successful use was illustrated by means of various reference buildings that also date from the 1950s and have since been renovated, according to the Liederhalle in Stuttgart.

Demolition debate

In January 2009, the Bonn-based DAX companies Deutsche Post , Deutsche Telekom and Postbank chose from ten submitted architectural designs for a “ Festspielhaus Beethoven ” planned and sponsored by them“Selected four designs in a preselection. All four designs demand the demolition of the Beethoven Hall, although there was no decision by the competent council of the city of Bonn. When it passed its resolution in June 2007, the council assumed that the Beethoven Hall and the new Festspielhaus would coexist. "The Beethovenhalle built in 1959," said the sponsors in a brochure distributed free of charge for the exhibition of the Festspielhaus models in January 2009, "does not meet today's requirements for first-class acoustics and its functionality is no longer up to date."

Demolition advocates

The most prominent advocate of demolition was the then mayor of Bonn, Bärbel Dieckmann (SPD). In 2007, she agreed to the decision in principle that the Beethoven Hall and the Festspielhaus should coexist. A year later she campaigned for an "integrative" solution, for a connection between the (old) Beethoven Hall and the (new) Festival Hall. After the sponsors had decided in favor of four models that envisage the demolition of the hall, Bärbel Dieckmann stated in March 2009 that the decision to demolish the hall “was not easy for anyone”.

Jürgen Nimptsch also spoke out in favor of demolishing the Beethoven Hall before his election as the new mayor in August 2009. In an interview with the online magazine rheinraum , he admitted that “we should say goodbye to the Beethovenhalle”.

The association "Fest.Spiel.Haus.Freunde", founded in November 2009, is also one of those in favor of demolition. In a position paper, the association declares that it will follow the recommendation of the sponsors' selection committee for the Beethovenhalle location. "This is particularly because the immediate Rhine location with simultaneous proximity to the center is unrivaled."

For the preservation of the Beethovenhalle

State curator Udo Mainzer spoke out against the demolition of the Beethoven Hall, taking into account the existing Festspielhaus architectural designs, which also provided for the preservation of the Beethoven Hall. Regarding the improvement in the functionality and acoustics of the hall, he said: “All of this could be improved within the existing shell. Bonn can gladly get a festival theater, but not at the expense of the monument. "

Serenade for the preservation of the Beethovenhalle in front of the Beethoven monument on the Münsterplatz on April 20, 2010

At the Institute for Art History and Archeology at the University of Bonn, the “Initiative Beethovenhalle” emerged in May 2009 from Hiltrud Kier's senior seminar. Numerous employees and students of the institute joined in the initiative's open letter to Mayor Bärbel Dieckmann. With their action, the art historians turned against the demolition of the Beethoven Hall. The initiative evaluates the Beethoven Hall as "one of the first representative buildings that was erected in Bonn during what is now known as the Bonn Republic." The hall “with its distinctive outer shell characterizes its urban environment, which is quite difficult in terms of quality and sensitivity” and is “clearly recognizable as an architectural highlight” from the opposite bank of the Rhine.

On December 3, 2009, Bonn citizens and associations joined forces on the initiative of Sigrun Eckelmann and Hans Hinterkeuser to form the “ProBeethovenhalle Citizens' Initiative”, who had previously campaigned for the preservation of the Beethovenhalle in various individual campaigns. On May 19, 2010, the ProBeethovenhalle association was founded as a result of the citizens' initiative. It is non-partisan and non-denominational and advocates the preservation and maintenance of the Beethovenhalle monument in Bonn as well as its long-term use by the citizens of Bonn. In July 2011 the association put forward the plan to develop the Beethovenhalle location into a “multifunctional“ campus of music ”, in which the different currents of musical life can be united in one place.

Media coverage

The plan of the three Bonn companies to tear down the Beethoven Hall and build a new building in its place met with an echo in numerous German and European media.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)

Soon after the plan became known, the FAZ dealt with the sponsors' plans. In February 2009, the musicologist Michael Gassmann wrote in the FAZ-Net that demolishing the Beethoven Hall would be a “barbaric act”. In the article he paid tribute to Siegfried Wolskes' work and sees the Beethoven Hall as "the most important post-war building in the city of Bonn". In order to justify the construction of the Festspielhaus in place of the Beethoven Hall, "one talks", according to Gassmann, "the existing building is bad".

Monuments

For the first time, Carola Nathan put the demolition plan in the article “Milestones of Democracy”, which appeared in August 2009 in the magazine “Monuments” of the German Foundation for Monument Protection . Nathan compares the plan in Bonn with the plan in Hanover to replace the plenary hall built by Dieter Oesterlen between 1957 and 1962 as part of the conversion of the heavily war-damaged Leineschloss into the Lower Saxony state parliament. For the author, both buildings, the Beethoven Hall and the Landtag in Hanover, are central examples of post-war architecture - “milestones of democracy”.

Berlin newspaper

In December 2009, Nikolaus Bernau , in an article in the Berliner Zeitung entitled “The Great Waste”, put the plan to demolish the Beethoven Hall in connection with two comparable architectural projects: the planned demolition and rebuilding of the Cologne theater and the “total renovation “ Of the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden. "What characterizes dental care is often missing in the state construction industry: sustainability," writes Bernau. “Even the cultural sector, which is chronically tight financially, seldom carefully maintains its buildings and prefers to modernize in large batches rather than regularly. It is far easier to organize a large bite of money from finance and other politicians than the steady flow of small sums. In doing so, these made some new building projects smaller or even superfluous, especially if one did not give in to the influences of fashion. But who is interested in it? "

The author writes specifically about the Beethovenhalle: “It's less about acoustics than about a city's search for a new identity and the image needs of some state-owned companies that have their headquarters in Bonn on the basis of the Bonn-Berlin Act. Characteristic of this addiction to reputation was that four projects were selected in a competition, all of which originate from global architects such as Zaha Hadid. The project has only been put on hold thanks to the public protests. And the Greens explicitly wrote in the coalition agreement with the demolishing local CDU that they want to renovate the old Beethoven Hall. "

Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ)

Ira Mazzoni expressed incomprehension about the Bonn plan in the SZon February 18, 2010. In an article with five columns, the author dedicates herself to the demolition plans in Bonn, Cologne and Hanover under the photo of the Beethovenhalle and under the title “Modern demolition company - prominent buildings of post-war modernism are about to be destroyed - despite monument protection and sustainability requirements” . “When it comes to architecture and urban development in post-war modernism,” says Mazotti, “then the slogans of the regulars' table are shouted in the gazettes.” And further: “The aggression of a largely uninformed, instrumentalized public is not directed against the poor, mass-coping off-the-shelf goods Construction functionalism, but against monuments whose architectural quality, urban integrity, social responsibility and historical importance are attested. "Mazotti's proposal:

The time

Hanno Rauterberg had a lot of space in the issue of Die Zeitdated March 11, 2010 to depict - so the title - "How I tried to love the 60s". Rauterberg takes the demolition plans in Bonn, Cologne and Hanover as an opportunity to give an answer to the question of why architecture was “so foreign to us” at that time. He deals with the formal language of the architecture of the 1950s and 1960s and also finds many things that are worth criticizing and foreign. “But can tearing off be the solution?” Asks the Zeit author in conclusion. His answer: “Sometimes I do. [...] But to condemn the epoch as a whole and to want to put everything down, that means nothing else than to continue the sixties in their tabula-rasa-thinking and their mania for growth. It would be one form of repression that would replace another form of repression.

Council ends demolition debate

The demolition debate came to an end in April 2010. After a conversation on April 21, 2010, in which the chairmen of the board of the three sponsors and Lord Mayor Nimptsch and City Director Kregel took part, those involved declared that the “Beethoven Festival Hall project should not be pursued for the time being”.

On November 24, 2011, the City Council of Bonn decided that demolishing the Beethoven Hall in order to build a new festival hall was out of the question.

Since the end of the Beethoven Festival on October 9, 2016, the Beethoven Hall has been closed for a fundamental renovation and modernization, which according to the original plan would cost 60 million euros and take two years. After repeated complications during construction, the expected costs have risen to at least 102 million euros; After several craftsmen terminated their contracts at the turn of the year 2018/2019, the city of Bonn confirmed on March 7, 2019 that the completion will be postponed until at least 2022.

"Additional option"

After the demolition debate was over, proponents of a festival hall considered a new location in Bonn's Rheinaue. In January 2014, Lord Mayor Jürgen Nimptsch and Deutsche Post DHL brought an “additional option” into play: In addition to the further examination of the Rheinaue location, the Post announced in a communication dated January 30, 2014, “an alternative that preserves and includes the previous one To consider the Beethovenhalle for the Festspielhaus ”. "In the company's opinion," according to the announcement of January 30, 2014, "a realization of the project discussed so far in the Rheinaue would significantly exceed the original budget due to the rate of price increases and the structural requirements at this location." get ready

literature

  • Gert Schroers i. A. of the city of Bonn (Ed.): Bonn Beethovenhalle . 1959.
  • Theodor Anton Henseler: The musical Bonn in the 19th century . In: Bonner Geschichtsblätter . tape 13 . Bonn 1959.
  • Press office of the city of Bonn: The consecration of the house . Bonn 1960.
  • Jörg Rüter: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn . In: Bonner Geschichtsblätter . tape 39 (1989/1992) .
  • Andreas Denk , Ingeborg flag : Architectural guide Bonn . Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-496-01150-5 .
  • Andreas Schätzke: Fifty years of the Beethoven Hall . In: Bauwelt . March 2009.
  • Martin Bredenbeck (Ed.): Beethovenhalle Bonn - Konzerthaus. Ballroom. Monument . Weidle Verlag, Bonn 2010, ISBN 978-3-938803-28-8 .
  • Yvonne Leiverkus (Ed.): 50 Years of the Beethoven Hall - History and Significance . City of Bonn - City Archives, Bonn 2010, ISBN 978-3-922832-46-1 .
  • Wolfgang Pehnt : Built Icons - The Bonn Beethoven Hall and the “signature buildings” . In: INSITU. Zeitschrift für Architekturgeschichte 2 (1/2010), pp. 117–128.
  • Workshop Baukultur Bonn (Ed.): Beethovenhalle . Architectural guide of the Werkstatt Baukultur Bonn, Volume 1. Edition Critical Edition, Bonn 2014, ISSN  2196-5757 .
  • Katja Thimm: Beethoven 21 . In: Der Spiegel . No. 14 , 2011, p. 132-135 ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Beethovenhalle  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of monuments of the city of Bonn (as of March 15, 2019), number A 1720
  2. ^ Jörg Rüter: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn . P. 451
  3. ^ Jörg Rüter: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn . P. 454
  4. ↑ a b Jörg Rüter: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn . P. 471
  5. ^ A b c Anton Schindler :  The unveiling ceremony of the Beethoven monument in Bonn. In:  Illustrirte Zeitung , September 20, 1845, p. 180 (online at ANNO ).Vorlage:ANNO/Wartung/izl
  6. ↑ cit. in: Jörg Rüter: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn . P. 472
  7. ↑ Features. In:  Allgemeine Musikische Zeitung , November 19, 1845, p. 847 (online at ANNO ).Vorlage:ANNO/Wartung/aml
  8. ↑ News. In:  New musical newspaper for Berlin / Neue Berliner Musikzeitung , April 13, 1870, p. 118 (online at ANNO ).Vorlage:ANNO/Wartung/bmz
  9. ↑ Major and minor. :  Signals for the musical world , year 1870, p. 855 (online at ANNO ).Vorlage:ANNO/Wartung/smw
  10. ↑ Ludwig van Beethoven. On December 17, 1870. In:  Allgemeine Musikische Zeitung , December 28, 1870, p. 410 (online at ANNO ).Vorlage:ANNO/Wartung/aml
  11. ^ Jörg Rüter: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn . P. 468
  12. ^ Theodor Anton Henseler: The musical Bonn in the 19th century . Bonn 1959, p. 281
  13. ^ Johannes Peters:  VIII. Popular Beethoven festival of the city of Bonn. :  Magazine for music. Semi-monthly publication for musicians and music lovers / magazine for music. Half-monthly publication for musicians and friends of music art / musical review. Music reports from German and other cities / magazine for music. Kampfblatt für deutsche Musik und Musikpflege / magazine for music. Monthly for a spiritual renewal of German music , year 1938, p. 776 (online at ANNO ).Vorlage:ANNO/Wartung/nzm
  14. ^ Jörg Rüter: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn . Pp. 482/483
  15. ↑ Gert Schroers (Ed. On behalf of the city of Bonn): Bonn Beethovenhalle
  16. ↑ Manfred van Rey : On the history of the Beethovenhalle. Archived from the original on June 4, 2009 ; Retrieved July 22, 2014 .
  17. ↑ a b Annex to the entry in the list of monuments of the city of Bonn (PDF; 692 kB)
  18. ↑ Andreas Baumann: "Beethovenhalle: The whole area is a monument?" General-Anzeiger, 26./27. February 2011
  19. ↑ Overview of the Beethovenhalle measures (June 2012) (PDF; 201 kB)
  20. ↑ Expert opinion Graner & Partner Ingenieure: Expert opinion, May 16, 2012 (excerpt from the homepage of the city of Bonn) (PDF; 1.4 MB)
  21. ↑ Beethovenhalle notification template
  22. ^ Resolution of the council for the renovation and upgrading of the Beethovenhalle Bonn from July 18, 2013 (PDF)
  23. ↑ Meeting of the Bonn City Council - SPD votes against the renovation of the Beethoven Hall. April 8, 2016, accessed July 2, 2019 .
  24. ↑ Bonn's Beethoven Hall - renovation costs increase by 5.5 million. August 12, 2016, accessed July 2, 2019 .
  25. ↑ Bonn's Beethoven Hall is being refurbished - clearing the stage for the craftsmen. October 21, 2016, accessed July 2, 2019 .
  26. ↑ Modernization in Bonn - completion of the Beethovenhalle is delayed. August 31, 2017, accessed July 2, 2019 .
  27. ↑ Dispute with architects - renovation of Bonn's Beethoven Hall is becoming more expensive again. June 11, 2018, accessed July 2, 2019 .
  28. ↑ Renovation in Bonn - 1.3 million euros seep under the Beethovenhalle. October 8, 2018, accessed July 2, 2019 .
  29. ↑ Crisis construction site in Bonn - Beethovenhalle will not be finished until 2022 at the earliest. March 1, 2019, accessed July 2, 2019 .
  30. ↑ Chaos on the construction site in Bonn - problems in the grounds of the Beethovenhalle have been known for a long time. March 7, 2019, accessed July 2, 2019 .
  31. ↑ Breakdown construction site in Bonn - Beethovenhalle costs up to 166 million euros. June 28, 2019, accessed July 2, 2019 .
  32. ↑ Gert Schroers (Ed. On behalf of the City of Bonn): Bonn Beethovenhalle , p. 29
  33. ^ Jörg Rüter: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn . Pp. 458-460
  34. ↑ a b Andreas Denk, Ingeborg Flagge: Architekturführer Bonn , p. 17
  35. ↑ Gert Schroers (Ed. On behalf of the City of Bonn): Bonn Beethovenhalle , p. 30
  36. ↑ pipechat.org
  37. ↑ Memorial plaque for Erwin Meyer ( Memento from September 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  38. ↑ Gert Schroers (Ed. On behalf of the city of Bonn): Bonn Beethovenhalle , p. 52
  39. ↑ Beethovenhalle has first-class acoustics . In: General-Anzeiger, July 14, 1988
  40. ↑ cit. in: Oliver Curdt: Basics of Room Acoustics ( Memento from September 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.4 MB)
  41. ↑ Beethovenhalle Bonn - room acoustic improvement, 2 variants , February 17, 2005 (PDF; 268 kB) Graner & Partner
  42. ↑ a b Michael Gassmann: A barbaric act . In: FAZ.net , February 16, 2009.
  43. ↑ The Japanese tested: Beethovenhalle has the best acoustics . In: Express , June 24, 1988
  44. ↑ Thomas Kliemann: Conductor Masur criticizes the condition of the Beethoven Hall . In: General-Anzeiger , March 29, 2010
  45. ↑ Heribert Beissel contradicts Kurt Masur's criticism of the Beethovenhalle . In: General-Anzeiger , April 14, 2010
  46. ↑ Johann Christoph Bürkle: Scharoun and the modern age , cit. in Jörg Rüter: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn . P. 509
  47. ^ Jörg Rüter: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn . P. 505
  48. ^ Jörg Rüter: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn . Pp. 503/504
  49. ↑ an overview of the daily press gives Die Weihe des Haus , pp. 33–45; an overview of the trade press Jörg Rüter: The Bonn Beethoven Hall . Pp. 452/453
  50. ↑ Karl Korn: The Beethoven Hall in Bonn - The federal capital has created a new architectural center . In: FAZ , August 29, 1959
  51. ↑ cit. in: The consecration of the house , p. 37
  52. ↑ cit. in: The consecration of the house , p. 38
  53. ↑ Homepage of the Beethovenhalle (2009)
  54. ↑ Annual report Beethovenhalle 2007
  55. ↑ Martella Gutiérrez-Denhoff: Wolskes Beethovenhalle - A central space for classical and new music in Bonn . In: Yvonne Leiverkus (Ed.): 50 Years of the Beethoven Hall - History and Meaning , p. 53 ff.
  56. ↑ Fresco (Stockhausen) (English)
  57. ↑ Beethoven Orchestra: CD productions ( Memento from June 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  58. ↑ First the party, then the buffalo . In: General-Anzeiger , April 6, 2009
  59. ↑ 4,500 celebrate in the Beethovenhalle with DJ Ötzi . In: General-Anzeiger , February 23, 2009
  60. ↑ a b 35th Federal Party Congress of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany - Protocol (PDF)
  61. ↑ a b Nodding the head was enough , Der Spiegel , November 22, 1971
  62. ↑ a b Farewell speech by party chairman Willy Brandt at the extraordinary party conference of the SPD in the Beethoven Hall in Bonn on June 14, 1987 (PDF), p. 12
  63. ↑ a b Vera Gaserow: Lichterketten and SPD asylum seekers , Die Zeit , No. 49/2012, November 29, 2012
  64. ↑ "It tear me apart" , Der Spiegel , No. 40/1993, October 4, 1993
  65. ↑ Joschka Fischer : The red-green years: German foreign policy - from Kosovo to September 11 , Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-462-03771-5 , p. 73.
  66. ↑ Beethoven tour
  67. ^ Statement by the administration: Anniversary party for the 50th anniversary of the Beethoven Hall
  68. ↑ The Beethovenhalle in Bonn in photo documents of the time it was built (PDF; 3.0 MB) An exhibition by the Beethovenhalle initiative in the Art History Institute of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, September 11th – 8th. October 2009
  69. ^ Coalition agreement ( Memento of July 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 462 kB) p. 42
  70. ↑ Beethovenhalle initiative: "Brennpunkt Beethovenhalle" (PDF; 137 kB)
  71. ↑ Principle decision of the Council of June 13, 2007
  72. ↑ Bernd Leyendecker: Lord Mayor pushes the pace at the Bonn Festival Hall . In: General-Anzeiger , 19./20. April 2008
  73. ↑ cit. in Bernhard Hartmann: Program for the Beethovenfest presented . In: General-Anzeiger , March 7, 2009
  74. ^ Katrin Scholler: Bonn SPD candidate for the demolition of the Beethoven Hall . ( Memento from July 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) rheinraum: online, May 10, 2009
  75. ↑ "Fest.Spiel.Haus.Freunde" collect, in: rheinraum-online, November 29, 2009 ( Memento from July 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  76. ↑ http://www.festspielhausfreunde.de/fshf_positionspapier.pdf (link not available)
  77. ↑ Bonn's Beethoven Hall - just to be thrown away? In: General-Anzeiger (Bonn). February 13, 2009, accessed on September 7, 2017 (Interview with State Curator Udo Mainzer: The throw-away mentality is on the rise .).
  78. ↑ Open letter to the mayor of Bonn (PDF; 94 kB)
  79. ↑ Thesis paper "Campus der Musik" (PDF; 48 kB)
  80. ↑ Overview of newspaper reports on the topic
  81. ↑ Carola Nathan: Milestones of Democracy
  82. ^ Nikolaus Bernau: The great waste . In: Berliner Zeitung , December 31, 2009
  83. ↑ Ira Mazzoni: Demolition Company Modern - Prominent buildings of post-war modernism are on the verge of destruction - despite monument protection and sustainability requirements . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 18, 2010
  84. ↑ Hanno Rauterberg: How I tried to love the 60s . In: Die Zeit , No. 11, 2010
  85. ^ All quotations - City of Bonn: "The Beethoven Festival Hall project is not to be pursued any further for the time being", April 21, 2010
  86. ^ Federal city of Bonn amendment - printed matter no. 1113316AA2
  87. ^ Beethovenhalle: The big clearing out begins , City of Bonn
  88. ↑ Refurbishment costs for the Beethovenhalle are likely to rise again , General-Anzeiger , November 15, 2018
  89. ↑ Andreas Baumann: City confirms long delay in Beethovenhalle. In: General-Anzeiger Bonn. March 7, 2019, accessed on March 7, 2019 : “The background is that two companies canceled their orders for electrical, heating, refrigeration and ventilation technology at the turn of the year. The mere necessity of having to re-tender entire trades leads to months of delays. As a result, "almost all the interior finishing trades" would be delayed, according to the press office. "
  90. ↑ a b Deutsche Post DHL welcomes proposal for an alternative Festspielhaus solution , January 30, 2014
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on June 25, 2009 in this version .


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