Beer fountain (Cologne)

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Cologne beer fountain since 1972, sculptor Harald Frehen

The Cologne Beer Fountain is a publicly accessible fountain system created in 1972 in the center of Cologne city ​​center on Schildergasse . The focal point of the system is a towering granite column , which was surrounded by a thin film of water flowing down while the fountain was in operation and was designed and designed by the artist Harald Frehen.

Location, sponsor and artist

After car traffic had been displaced from downtown Cologne in sections in the mid-1960s , the department of the Cologne city administration responsible for the design of public space began to equip the curb-free areas of the new pedestrian zones with objects of visual art . A fountain system intended for the largest shopping center in the city was then to become a modern sculpture , which was to be placed at the fork in the streets Schildergasse and Gürzenichstrasse. The financing of the plant was made possible by a foundation of the beer sales company Matthias Harzheim KG. A competition among students specializing in art and design at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences , which was newly constituted in August 1971 - emerged from the former Cologne factory schools - under the direction of the first dean, Professor Joseph Jaekel , should lead to a feasible design. Of the works submitted by the art students involved in the project, the jury was won over by the proposal by the artist Harald Frehen, who was from Süchteln at the time. He won the competition and was able to implement his design in 1972 in a granite column about seven to eight meters high. The erection of the monolith , which weighs tons, took place on March 26th with the help of a crane, which lifted the column to anchor it on a previously created foundation . The inauguration of the facility followed on May 6, 1972.

The city's new fountain met with general interest, and the gloss "Colonius" (alias Horst Schubert , local editor of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger ), which at that time was still published daily with wit and humor, reported about a "crooked stake", which you only get immediately in front of it could see water in order to infer a well.

According to a press report at the time (Kölner Stadt Anzeiger), Frehen (1947–2018) was Jaekel's master class student. He lived and later worked as a sculptor, graphic artist and painter in the painter town of Schieder-Schwalenberg in Lippe .

The then created fountain system was also called beer fountain because of a planned annual but only brief “beer tap” at the fountain . The bar at the fountain, which was astonishing for passers-by, was made possible by an underground supply line that led to a beer truck parked in a side street.

  • In the winter without water

  • Engraving by the artist

  • Data

  • Memorial plaque on the Mirweiler brewer's guild house 200 years ago

The idea of ​​using a fountain as a means of advertising was born in the city of Lübbecke in the 1950s and put into practice. There is celebrated since 12 August 1954 - at yearly time interval - on the market at a beer fountain Beer Fountain Festival . The free serving of the drink Kölsch, which is popular in the cathedral city, should not have lasted long. Ultimately, the Cologne beer fountain is - if only because of its name - a reminiscence of the Mirwiler house , the guild house of Cologne brewers, which formerly stood on Schildergasse for over 200 years .

literature

Notes, individual references

  1. ↑ the information on the height of the column varies in the sources between 7 and 9 m
  2. ↑ Schieder-Schwalenberg: REMEMBER - Harald Frehen
  3. ^ Birgit Schilling: Fountain in Cologne. P. 92 f.
  4. ^ Hans Vogts: The profane monuments of the city of Cologne. P. 383 f.

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 11.3 "  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 19.9"  E