Bockenheimer depot

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Bockenheimer depot

The Bockenheimer Depot is a former depot and the former main workshop of the Frankfurt am Main tram . The building from 1900 on Carlo-Schmid-Platz opposite the Bockenheimer Warte , designated as a cultural monument , is now used as a venue for the municipal theaters .

history

Type A tram in front of the depot, around 1900

Before 1900 there was a wooden carriage shed in the place of the current building, which served as the depot for the horse-drawn tram at that time . This hall was not suitable for the electric railcars of the tram and was demolished in 1900 and replaced by the current building. This new building of the depot was supplemented by a wooden hall for the main tram workshop.

In 1944 the carriage hall, in contrast to the neighboring hall of the main workshop, was only slightly damaged by air raids , but the repair took over 12 years. Soon after the Second World War there was no longer enough space for the needs of the main workshop, so that on February 6, 1966 the Bockenheim depot was closed and the main tram workshop was expanded to include all halls. In October 1978 the new building of the Stadtbahn central workshop in Frankfurt-Praunheim was opened and the depot was completely shut down. As early as 1979, the hall was listed as one of the first industrial monuments in the Rhine-Main area.

From 1981 to 1985 the vehicle collection of the Frankfurt Feldbahnmuseum (then Dampfbahn Rhein-Main eV) was housed in the depot; For the occasional operation, narrow-gauge tracks had to be provisionally laid in the yard of the depot each time . In 1985 the association moved into the current premises of the Feldbahnmuseum in Frankfurt-Rebstock .

Even after the depot was closed, there were still tracks on the site until about 1986 , but without overhead lines and access tracks , which had already been dismantled at the Bockenheimer Warte. At that time, the wooden carriage hall still existing on the north side and all other outbuildings were demolished in order to be able to use the area as a public parking lot and for occasional events, for example for a guest performance by the Roncalli circus in 1986.

After the fire at the opera house in November 1987, the Frankfurt theater urgently needed a new venue, as the previous theater was used by the Frankfurt Opera as a substitute . The Bockenheimer Depot was renovated in 1988 according to plans by the architect Klaus Peter Heinrici and converted into a theater for 14 million German marks. Among other things, a longitudinal extension in modern steel construction was added, and a large square was created in front of the depot.

After the opera reopened in 1991, the depot was mainly used for guest performances. In 1994 the exhibition “FFM 1200 / Tradition and Perspectives of a City” was shown here to mark the city's 1200th anniversary. From 1995 until its closure in 2004, the Theater am Turm was at home here. Since then, the depot, which belongs to the city of Frankfurt am Main, has mainly been used by the Frankfurt Opera, the Frankfurt Schauspiel and occasionally by the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company (formerly: The Forsythe Company).

The opera uses the depot primarily for contemporary music theater and for baroque operas. So there including the highly successful were L'Orfeo - production with Christian Gerhaher in the title role and the first German performance of Georg Friedrich Haas ' opera night given. The hall is also available for other events.

architecture

The Bockenheimer Depot seen from the university

The heart of the depot is the former carriage hall built in 1900, a three-aisled hall made of unplastered yellow brickwork with red cornices and decorative ribbons. The gable side is divided by four pillars and a brick arch with a semicircular window. There is a clock above the gable and two brick pinnacles to the left and right . The wooden roof construction made of semicircular arched trusses is remarkable, which goes back to the French Renaissance builder Philibert Delorme and only occurs in this form in a few surviving buildings. a. in the dome hall of the TU Vienna . The central nave is 12 meters high, the two side aisles 5.40 meters each. The hall spans an area of ​​75 by 30 meters and offers around 400 seats or up to 1,000 standing places for theater events.

The depot is a cultural monument due to the Hessian Monument Protection Act .

Transport links

The depot is in the immediate vicinity of the Bockenheimer Warte and the Bockenheim university campus of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University on Gräfstrasse. It can be reached via the stop Bockenheimer waiting, by the tram 16 and the bus lines 32, 36, 50 and 75 as well as the night bus lines is approached n1 and n11, and on the Bockenheimer subway station waiting , of the metro Lines U4 , U6 and U7 are served.

literature

  • Dieter Höltge, Günter H. Köhler: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany . 2nd Edition. 1: Hessen. EK-Verlag , Freiburg 1992, ISBN 3-88255-335-9 , p. 119 .
  • Horst Michelke, Claude Jeanmaire: 100 years of Frankfurt trams: 1872–1899 - 1972 . 1st edition. Verlag Eisenbahn, Villigen AG, near Brugg / Switzerland 1972, ISBN 3-85649-018-3 , p. 223 .

Web links

Commons : Bockenheimer Depot  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 7 ′ 15 ″  N , 8 ° 39 ′ 6 ″  E