Mining Directorate Saarbrücken

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The former Saarbrücken mining department as the entrance building of the Europa-Galerie , March 2011
South wing on Trierer Straße

The former mining directorate is a listed building in the center of Saarbrücken 's St. Johann district .

prehistory

With the expansion of coal production on the Saar after the Franco-Prussian War won by the Kingdom of Prussia , the administrative tasks of the authorities responsible for mining also increased. The old premises of the “Royal Prussian Mining Directorate” in the former Hereditary Prince's Palace on Saarbrücker Schlossplatz no longer met the new requirements. In the expanding neighboring town of St. Johann ad Saar in Saarbrücken, a suitable location was found in the immediate vicinity of the St. Johann station building, which was rebuilt in 1851/1852 . The planning for the new management building was entrusted to the Berlin architects Gropius and Schmieden.

History and design

construction

The house, built from 1877 to 1880 according to plans by the architects Martin Gropius and Heino Schmieden in the neo-renaissance style with echoes of the Florentine early renaissance , housed the central administration from 1880 to the early 1970s (until 1919 under the official name of the Royal Prussian Mining Directorate Saarbrücken ) of the respective operator of the mines in the Saar coal area , starting with the Royal Prussian Mining Treasury, through the French and German states, the Mission Française des Mines de la Sarre to the Saarbergwerke AG .

Palais Ferstel as an architectural model for the mine management, after Rudolf von Alt

The acute-angled plot of land between Trierer Strasse and Reichsstrasse required a two-winged complex with an additional narrow central pavilion, which represents the main viewing side of the building. This main viewing side forms the end point of the line of sight of St. Johanner Bahnhofstrasse and thus has a significant urban impact. The wing on the level Trierer Straße is twice the length of the wing on the ascending Reichsstraße, as the area towards the main station is steeply inclined here. The wing on Trierer Strasse is divided by a central pavilion, which has a second portal system. The architectural structure of the mine management building shows clear parallels to the building of the National Bank and the Stock Exchange (today Palais Ferstel ) built by Heinrich von Ferstel between 1856 and 1860 in downtown Vienna . Unlike the Palais Ferstel in the narrowly built Herrengasse in Vienna's old town, the similarly designed St. Johann main facade of the mine administration can achieve a point de vue effect several hundred meters long and thus crowns the street of Bahnhofsstraße, which was already designed by Saarbrücken Baroque architect Friedrich Joachim Stengel as a dead straight axis.

Mining Directorate Saarbrücken, facade decoration
Mining Directorate Saarbrücken, historical elevation of the facade of the central pavilion

Stone coats of arms with the names of the Saarland mines in cast-iron letters, portrait medallions with important personalities in the mining industry and six sculptures depicting people from the mining professions wearing typical professional clothing serve as ornaments on the facade of the mine administration. The pit names are grouped in such a way that the breakdown by mining inspection and pit departments is taken into account:

  • St. Charles
  • Kohlwald
  • Bexbach
  • Camphausen
  • Alsbach
  • Gottelborn
  • Victoria
  • Geislautern
  • Ensdorf
  • Dilsburg
  • von der Heydt
  • Gerhard
  • Prince Wilhelm
  • Hunting joy
  • Dudweiler
  • Altenwald
  • Sulzbach
  • Heinitz
  • Dechen
  • Talk
  • Itzenplitz
  • king
  • Friedrichsthal
  • Quiver
  • Merchweiler
  • Wellesweiler
  • Ziehwald
  • Richard
  • Gersweiler

The portrait medallions made in Bonn by the sculptor Albert Küppers represent the following personalities:

  • Heinrich Böcking (Lord Mayor of Saarbrücken from 1814 and Bergrat from 1838)
  • Ernst Heinrich von Dechen (Dechen was director of the Prussian Higher Mining Authority in Bonn, to which the Saarbrücken administration was subordinate, and held the title of chief miner at the time the mine management was built)
  • Otto Ludwig Krug von Nidda (Nidda was ministerial director at the head of the Prussian mining industry in Berlin since 1860. The Dechen mine is named after him.)
  • Leopold Sello (Sello was the first president of the newly founded Prussian mine administration on the Saar from 1816 to 1857.)

The sculptural jewelry in larger than life size (height approx. 2.50 m) on wall brackets represents the following professional groups in the central pavilion on Trierer Straße:

  • A coal miner leaning on his wedge hoe and wearing a manhole hat. A hammer and mallet can be recognized as hat emblems.
  • A mine director in an elaborate uniform with rich lacing on his skirt, a collar adorned with oak leaves and a manhole hat with flowing plumes. In his left hand he holds a saber, in his right a crack in a mine.
  • A climber who leans on a riser stick, and whose parade uniform and hat is similar to that of the mine director.
  • A rock cutter with a broad-brimmed hat, holding a hammer in his raised right hand and a rock drill in his left.

The figures each stand in front of piled rocks that indicate mining.

The following statues stand on wall brackets as sculptures in the corner pavilion:

  • A metalworker with a long leather apron to protect against flying sparks with a tapping iron in his left hand.
  • A miner who leans with both arms on a spiral rock drill.

The statues, like the heraldic shields on the facade, were made from French shell limestone in 1879 by the brothers Jakob (1846–1916) and Karl Menges (1853–1937) from Kaiserslautern, who were artistically trained in Munich .

The heraldic shields of the corner pavilion show the following heraldic symbols above the vestibule:

The keystone of the central arch shows a miner's lamp framed by a hammer, mallet and oak leaves. The Prussian royal crown rises above it .

The facade balcony of the corner pavilion bears the miner's greeting " Glück auf " as an inscription . He describes the hope of the miners , "it may be veins open up" (curtailment of the longer salutation "I wish you luck, do a new gear on"), for the mining of ores could be without prospecting only unsafe to predict whether the work of the Would lead miners to any wage at all. Furthermore, this greeting is linked to the wish for a healthy exit from the mine after the shift . The miner's greeting was also placed as an inscription on the balcony of the central pavilion on Trierer Strasse, which was destroyed in the war.

The loggias of the central pavilion are adorned with coats of arms of noble ruling families, which were of greater importance in the history of the Saarland:

The original color scheme of the facade, which was clad with sandstone blocks, was divided into three parts: the surfaces consisted of yellowish sandstone from the Saar region, the dividing elements and the coat of arms were made of red sandstone from Kaiserslautern, the figures and medallions were made of white French sandstone.

Since it was painted in light ocher and sandstone red in 1965, the original color of the stone has been hidden.

Cenotaph in the stairwell
Saarbrücken Mining Directorate, window system "Our dead miners" in the stairwell

The most important architectural feature of the interior and historical memorial of Saarland's history is the area of ​​the cast-iron staircase of the mine management. In 1964, the artist Ferdinand Selgrad designed the windows on the first landing of the stairs as a memorial for the victims of the Luisenthal mine accident and for all the miners who had died. On February 7, 1962, one of the worst mining accidents in the history of German mining occurred in the Luisenthal mine. 299 miners were killed in a firedamp explosion in the Alsbachfeld mining area. The colored leaded glazing with the title “Our Dead Miners” from 1964 (three arched windows, each 3.10 × 1.20 m) was made by the glass painting manufacturer Wilhelm Derix in Rottweil am Neckar .

A limited competition to which six Saarland artists and six artists from outside had been invited resulted in a total of 15 designs. From the preselection of the working group, the board of the Saarbergwerke AG decided in favor of Ferdinand Selgrad's design. Born in Neunkirchen (Saar) and trained in Kaiserslautern, Saarbrücken and Paris, Selgrad worked as a freelance artist and stood out for churches and public buildings through glass windows, mosaics, reliefs and wall paintings.

Selgrad places a dead miner in the center of the figurative representation, surrounded by his bereaved family and miner colleagues. In the middle window the wife holds the heavy, lifeless body of her dead husband, whose arms hang limply. His white hard hat and the fallen, extinguished miner's lamp lie on the ground. The composition is reminiscent of Christian Pietà depictions of Jesus removed from the cross in the lap of his grieving mother.

In the right window are the two grieving children, who are protected by the patron saint of miners, Saint Barbara . Since the saint was - according to legend - on the run from her pagan father was protected by a rock that opened and hid her, the miners chose her as their patron saint in the Middle Ages. Saint Barbara is one of the fourteen helpers in need , and her behavior in the face of danger and death is a symbol of resistance and steadfastness in faith. This is indicated by her depiction with her attribute , the tower in which her father locked her. In the seclusion of her prison, Barbara had professed Christianity against her father's will. According to legend, Barbara had a third window added to the tower as a symbol of the Trinity . As a result, Selgrad also depicts the saint in the mine management with a three-pronged tower. As if in a comforting and protective gesture of blessing, Saint Barbara holds her right hand over the entire scene.

In the left window two miners stand with lit miners lamps on guard duty for their dead buddy. They wear their holiday uniforms with high hats and red plumes; the figure on the right is also marked with a pickaxe. The predominant color of the glass triptych is intense blue. A dark red, introduced in two horizontal stripes for the background, connects the window strips. Headframes with wheels in black appear behind the heads of the figures shown. Selgrad contrasts the predominantly dark colors and the pale pallor of the faces, arms and hands with a comforting, hopeful, warm shade of yellow that shines particularly in the lamps of the miners and the tower of St. Barbara and illuminates the heads of the living. The courtyard, from which Ferdinand Selgrad's colored glass windows received sunlight, was converted into an interior space when the building was converted into a shopping gallery, which, like the staircase, is now artificially illuminated.

Destruction in World War II

On October 5, 1944, during the most violent night of bombing in Saarbrücken during World War II , the left wing of the mine management in Trier Strasse was hit by several bombs. The western wing between the middle and end pavilions was torn down into the basement. The upper floors of the pavilions were also badly damaged.

reconstruction

In the years 1946–1949 the damaged parts of the building were rebuilt in a simplified form. The portal was removed from the central pavilion on Trierer Strasse and the balcony above it was also removed.

Demolition planning and renovations

In 1971 the building was to be demolished and replaced by a department store. After protests by citizens and conservationists, these plans were abandoned and renovation work took place in 1974. In 1978 the former mining directorate was added to the Saarland monuments list. During renewed renovation work in the 1990s, the facade was given the light color that still exists today, which is based on the color scheme of the Palais Ferstel in Vienna . Even after the construction of a new administration building for Saarberg in the immediate vicinity of the mine management, the building was initially continued to be used by Saarberg and, after the merger of Saarberg with RAG Aktiengesellschaft, by the successor company RAG Deutsche Steinkohle AG .

Gutting and remodeling

Mine management with outside staircase and now destroyed black marble fountain basin

In 2006, the building, which was no longer used by RAG Deutsche Steinkohle, was sold to a private investor who wanted to make the facade part of a new shopping gallery in a completely gutted condition. Renewed protests by citizens and conservationists meant that inside the interior the staircase, the original Villeroy & Boch tiles , the former ballroom and the leaded-glass windows were preserved and can be viewed. In order to allow barrier-free access to the portal of the main entrance, the historic outside staircase was removed. Likewise, a modern oval fountain basin made of black marble that had been erected just a few years earlier as part of the conversion of Bahnhofstrasse to a pedestrian zone in front of the portal of the mine management had to give way because the investor wanted a completely free access axis to the new shopping center. In autumn 2010, the gutted mine directorate became the entrance facade of the new Europa-Galerie .

The ensemble of buildings on today's Trierer Straße in Saarbrücken, consisting of the mine directorate, the former Saar College of Mining and the former administration building of the Saar miners' association , represents an important architectural culmination point of the historical mining tradition of the 19th and 20th centuries in Saarland.

literature

  • Hartwig Beseler, Niels Gutschow: War fates of German architecture, losses - damage - reconstruction, a documentation for the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vol. II: South. Wiesbaden 2000, pp. 1075-1076.
  • Hans-Christoph Dittscheid: The mine management - a testimony to Prussian architecture in Saarbrücken. In: Saarbrücker Hefte, 43, 1976, pp. 19–34; also published in: The main administration of Saarbergwerke AG. Saarbrücken 1981, pp. 21-58.
  • Jo Enzweiler (Ed.): Art in Public Space Saarland, Volume 1, Saarbrücken, district mid 1945 to 1996. Saarbrücken 1997, p. 305.
  • Heinrich Junghann: The dormitory and granny annexe in the district of the Kgl. Mining Directorate Saarbrücken, political science dissertation, Münster 1912.
  • Edmund Kiß: The administrative building of the Royal Mine Direction in St. Johann a / S. In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen, 32nd vol., 1882, Sp. 435–442, belonging to it: Atlas of the Zeitschrift für Bauwesen, 32nd vol., 1882, pp. 56–58.
  • Ernst Klein: Organization and function of the Prussian mining authorities on the Saar (1815 to 1920), in: Journal for the history of the Saar region 33 (1985), pp. 61–112.
  • Martin Klewitz: The management building of the Saarbergwerke through the decades. In: Saarbrücker Hefte, 43, 1976, pp. 35-41; also published in: The main administration of Saarbergwerke AG. Saarbrücken 1981, pp. 59-65.
  • New dress for the Saarbrücken mine management. Interview with Dr. Josef Baulig, municipal conservator in Saarbrücken. In: Saarberg, 6, 1995, pp. 32-33.
  • Saarbergwerke AG (Ed.): The main administration of Saarbergwerke AG. Saarbrücken 1981.
  • Delf Slotta: Miner's triptych as an eye-catcher, landmark of Saar mining (20): The glass painting of the Saarbrücken mine management. In: Steinkohle, Issue 1, 2003, IV.
  • Werner Spilker: Our dead miners, drafts for a memorial in the stairwell of the main administration building of Saarbergwerke AG. In: Schacht und Heim, Heft 4, 1964, pp. 15-18.
  • Werner Spilker: The memorial, the stained glass "Our dead miners" by Ferdinand Selgrad was installed in the main administration building. In: Schacht und Heim, Heft 5, 1965, pp. 15-16.
  • Between tradition and modernity, the RAG Saarberg AG building through the ages. Published by the board of RAG Saarberg AG. Essen 2003; therein: Marlen Dittmann: The architectural work of mine directorate, monument to mining - identification mark in the city. Pp. 9-30; Berthold Schmitt: “Honor the miner, the good man!” The figurative decoration of the mine management. Pp. 31-49; Günter Scharwath: "Our dead miners", Ferdinand Selgrad's stained glass. Pp. 51-58.

Web links

Commons : Bergwerksdirektion Saarbrücken  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hertha Wohlrab: Die Freyung, Vienna 1971.
  2. ^ Austrian magazine for art and monument preservation, Vienna 1971, issue 1/2.
  3. ↑ http://www.burgenkunde.at/wien/w_palais_ferstel/w_palais_ferstel.htm
  4. ↑ Saarbrücker Bergmannskalender for the year 1879, 7th year p. 106f.
  5. ↑ Hans-Christoph Dittscheid: Die Bergwerksdirektion - a testimony to Prussian architecture in Saarbrücken, in: Saarbrücker Hefte 43, 1976, pp. 19–34, here p. 22; also published in: Die Hauptverwaltung der Saarbergwerke AG, Saarbrücken 1981, pp. 21–58.
  6. ^ Hans-Christoph Dittscheid: Die Bergwerksdirektion - a testimony to Prussian architecture in Saarbrücken, in: Saarbrücker Hefte 43, 1976, pp. 19–34, here pp. 23–25; also published in: Die Hauptverwaltung der Saarbergwerke AG, Saarbrücken 1981, pp. 21–58.
  7. ^ Wilhelm Hermann, Gertrude Hermann: The old collieries on the Ruhr (series: The Blue Books ). Verlag Langewiesche Nachhaben, Königstein im Taunus, 6th, expanded and updated edition. 2008, ISBN 978-3-7845-6994-9 , p. 323.
  8. ^ Hans-Christoph Dittscheid: Die Bergwerksdirektion - a testimony to Prussian architecture in Saarbrücken, in: Saarbrücker Hefte 43, 1976, pp. 19–34, here p. 24; also published in: Die Hauptverwaltung der Saarbergwerke AG, Saarbrücken 1981, pp. 21–58.
  9. ↑ Werner Spilker: Unseren toten Bergleuten, drafts for a memorial in the stairwell of the main administration building of Saarbergwerke AG, in: Schacht und Heim, Heft 4, 1964, S. 15-18.
  10. ↑ Werner Spilker: The memorial, the glass painting "Unseren toten Bergleuten" by Ferdinand Selgrad has been installed in the main administration building, in: Schacht und Heim, Heft 5, 1965, S. 15-16.
  11. ↑ Martin Klewitz: The management building of the Saarbergwerke in the course of the decades, in: Saarbrücker Hefte 43, 1976, pp. 35–41; also published in: Die Hauptverwaltung der Saarbergwerke AG, Saarbrücken 1981, pp. 59–65.
  12. ^ Hans-Christoph Dittscheid: Die Bergwerksdirektion - a testimony to Prussian architecture in Saarbrücken, in: Saarbrücker Hefte 43, 1976, pp. 19–34; also published in: Die Hauptverwaltung der Saarbergwerke AG, Saarbrücken 1981, pp. 21–58.
  13. ↑ New dress for the Saarbrücker Bergwerksdirektion, Interview with Dr. Josef Baulig, municipal conservator in Saarbrücken, in: Saarberg 6, 1995, pp. 32–33.
  14. ↑ Jo Enzweiler (Ed.): Art in Public Space Saarland, Volume 1, Saarbrücken, district mid 1945 to 1996, Saarbrücken 1997, p. 305.
  15. ↑ Delf Slotta: Miner's triptych as an eye-catcher, symbol of the Saar mining industry (20): The glass painting of the Saarbrücken mine directorate, in: Steinkohle, Heft 1, 2003, IV.
  16. ^ Between tradition and modernity, RAG Saarberg AG building in the course of time, published by the board of RAG Saarberg AG, Essen 2003, in it: Marlen Dittmann: Das Baukunstwerk Bergwerksdirektion, Mining Monument - Identification Mark in the City, pp. 9-30 ; Berthold Schmitt: "Honor the miner, the brave man!", The figurative jewelry of the mine management, p. 31–49; Günter Scharwath: "Unseren toten Bergleuten", The glass paintings by Ferdinand Selgrad, pp. 51–58.
  17. ^ Saarbergwerke AG (ed.): The main administration of Saarbergwerke AG, Saarbrücken 1981.
  18. ↑ Hartwig Beseler, Niels Gutschow: War fates of German architecture, losses - damage - reconstruction, a documentation for the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vol. II: Süd, Wiesbaden 2000, pp. 1075-1076.
  19. ^ Saarland - Ministry for the Environment, Energy and Transport: List of monuments of the Saarland. List of monuments in the state capital of Saarbrücken (PDF; 653 kB) , p. 57.
  20. ↑ Mining Directorate ( Memento from May 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) on the web pages of the state capital Saarbrücken, accessed April 26, 2011.
  21. ^ Deutscher Werkbund ( Memento from June 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) accessed April 26, 2011.
  22. ↑ Delf Slotta: The Saarland coal mining industry, ed. v. RAG Aktiengesellschaft and the Institute for Regional Studies in Saarland, Dillingen / Saar 2011; ISBN 978-3-00-035206-5

Coordinates: 49 ° 14 ′ 20.7 "  N , 6 ° 59 ′ 25.7"  E