Burgplatz (Düsseldorf)
| Burgplatz | |
|---|---|
 |
|
 Castle tower on Burgplatz |
|
| Basic data | |
| place | Dusseldorf |
| District | Old town |
| Created | middle Ages |
| Newly designed | 1995 |
| Confluent streets | Rathausufer , Schloßufer , Mühlenstrasse, Kurz Strasse, Bolkerstrasse , Marktplatz |
| Buildings | Castle tower , town hall |
| use | |
| User groups | Pedestrian traffic , bicycle traffic , car traffic |
| Space design | Radschläger fountain |
| Technical specifications | |
| Square area | approx. 7000 m² |
The Castle Square is a directly on the Rhine in Düsseldorf's Old Town situated place . The irregular and spacious open space was created when the young city was first expanded. It got its name from its location in front of the former castle , the later Düsseldorf Palace . After numerous fires and destruction over time, the remains were finally removed in 1892, except for the castle tower, which today houses a maritime museum.
With the demolition, the historic Burgplatz was enlarged many times over and at the same time opened up to the Rhine . This was emphasized again by a redesign in 1995.
At Burgplatz, the northern Düssel flows into the Rheinstrom, the banks of which can be reached via a flight of steps. In particular, it is a popular meeting place for locals and tourists in summer. Regional and national events take place regularly in the open space. Opposite the square is lined with numerous restaurants.
On May 10, 1995, the square was entered in the city's list of monuments in the soil monuments category .
Location and surroundings
Burgplatz is located in the center of Düsseldorf's old town in the district of the same name . The original nucleus of Düsseldorf around the St. Lambertus Church borders the square to the north . The Rhine flows on the western side. There the Rheinuferpromenade with its upper and lower shipyard leads past the square, with the name Rathausufer up to Burgplatz and the name Schloßufer from the height of the castle tower . The connection between the square and the lower promenade is established by a ramp and a wide flight of stairs. At the lower shipyard there are several jetties for passenger shipping as well as for hotel ships during trade fairs .
On the eastern edge, Mühlenstrasse leads to the square. It is the only access route for car and bus traffic and thus establishes the connection to Heinrich-Heine-Allee and Grabbeplatz . The square itself is not released for car traffic. Further south, the Kurz Strasse reaches the square, through which there is a connection to the Andreaskirche and the Kom (m) ödchen . To the south, Bolkerstrasse and the market square with the Düsseldorf City Hall located there connect .
history
The history of the square is almost as old as that of the city itself. The nucleus of Düsseldorf is only a few meters further north, at the St. Lambertus Church. After the fishing village was elevated to a town in 1288, the town was expanded to the south at the end of the 14th century. In connection with this a castle was built, which was supposed to support the collection of customs and was therefore directly on the Rhine. This gave the square its name, which did not change when a castle was built on the site of the now burned down castle.
This, and with it the Burgplatz in front of it, was the center of the city in the following decades. The role of Düsseldorf as the capital of the United Duchies of Jülich-Kleve-Berg led to important times in the city's history. At the time of the wedding of Johann Wilhelm and Jakobe von Baden-Baden in 1585, the palace had been expanded into a prestigious mansion, which reached the height of its importance when Elector Jan Wellem made Düsseldorf the main residence of a splendid court. From 1709 to 1712 he had a three-wing gallery added to his castle, which housed his famous picture gallery until 1795 . But already at the beginning of the 18th century the importance of the palace began to decline after Düsseldorf lost its function of residence and consequently baroque court life with the death of the elector and the retreat of his widow to Italy. The destruction of the castle in 1795, which was caused by the bombardment of the French revolutionary army and a fire that was ignited, was also decisive. From 1821 until the renewed fire in 1872, the Düsseldorf Art Academy was housed in parts of the palace that were still usable. After this renewed destruction, the castle continued to fall into disrepair, but the square, thanks to its central location, was still an important meeting point in the old town.
Opening to the Rhine
At the end of the 19th century, the block of houses on the former Krämerstrasse in front of the St. Lambertus Church , standing right on the banks of the Rhine, was demolished for the purpose of creating a flood-free riverside road. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Düsseldorf Rhine front was redesigned when the bank was moved forward. Frequent floods made this necessary. The removed remains of the castle made the Burgplatz larger and opened its west side to the Rhine.
The newly created lower Rhine shipyard was expanded as a mooring for the needs of Rhine shipping. The upper Rheinwerft facing the city, on the other hand, was designed as a representative promenade. The Düsselschlösschen was built in 1902 at the level of Burgplatz . The wine bar housed in it made Burgplatz a popular meeting place in the old town.
reconstruction
The time after the Second World War was marked by the rebuilding of the destroyed city. This was also used to reorganize the road network that was previously cramped by the existing urban structure. Part of these plans, which were forced by the city planning office under the then head of Friedrich Tamms , was a north-south connection along the Rhine. This should accommodate the expected future car traffic parallel to the planned Berliner Allee . For this purpose, the federal highway 1 running along the banks of the Rhine was expanded.
The so-called Düsselschlösschen stood in the way of the Burgplatz. It was torn down in favor of widening the street space, arguing that it had been too badly damaged by air raids. The historical buildings on Krämerstrasse were also abandoned and the building line withdrawn.
The road created by this planning took up a large part of the car traffic along the Rhine in the following years. At times up to 40,000 vehicles were counted daily. A petrol station and several parking spaces had been built at the Burgplatz. This deprived the square of any quality of stay and, like the banks of the Rhine, moved it more and more to the edge of the city.
Late 20th century
The high volume of traffic along Bundesstraße 1 sparked a discussion regarding the reorganization of urban development and traffic engineering on the banks of the Rhine in the 1980s. The lowering of Rheinuferstraße at the level of the old town and beyond in a north and south direction was discussed. Despite the foreseeable high costs, the project was tackled in the late 1980s. In 1993, the Rhine bank tunnel was finally opened. In the period that followed, the surface that had now become free was also redesigned.
A competition held in 1991 for the entire Rhine front included the Burgplatz as a central element of a newly designed Rhine embankment promenade. The winning design by the architects Niklaus Fritschi , Benedikt Stahl and Günter Baum accentuated the castle tower on Burgplatz with an outside staircase facing the Rhine. A planned structural addition to the Rhine front with a building further south was not implemented. This two-storey building, planned as an ellipse, should structurally encompass the plaza on its western side. The architects planned to use it as a restaurant.
The construction work for the redesign was completed in 1995. Since then, the Rheinuferpromenade and with it Burgplatz have been an attractive leisure destination in downtown Düsseldorf. In the subsequent evaluation of the construction measures, there is talk of a “return of the city to the Rhine”.
Space design
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In the course of the restoration of the Rhine promenade in 1995, the space that had been heavily used by car traffic was redesigned. It was divided into two parts. The northern part is oriented towards the Rhine and the castle tower, while the southern part reproduces the shape of the historic Burgplatz, slightly restricted. Both are optically separated from each other by a clever arrangement of trees. As a covering, cobblestone stretches across the entire square.
The rear of the northern square is provided by a grove of trees, which also forms the end of the southern square. On the southern side, a row of trees leads to the bank of the Rhine, which separates the development from the actual square with an access area in front . The north side is dominated by the castle tower, which faces the square with its entrance portal. To the west, the square opens onto the Rhine and, via a large “balcony”, the so-called bastion, gives you the opportunity to look along the banks of the Rhine and across the Rhine to the Oberkassel opposite .
The southern, smaller part of Burgplatz, on the other hand, is more introverted . At its southern connection to the market square, it begins as a narrow lane, only to widen more and more and to direct the view to the north to the tree grove and especially to the passages to the northern part of the square. The square is characterized by the structuring and allocation of areas for the adjacent catering and car traffic.
The Radschlägerbrunnen, built in 1954, is located under the aforementioned tree grove . The fountain donated by the Düsseldorfer Heimatverein Düsseldorfer Jonges and created by Alfred Zschorsch is a reminder of the legend of the bike racket. It bears the inscription, written by Hans Müller-Schlösser , “Radschläger wolle mer blieve, wie jeck et de Minschen och drieve” (Radschläger we want to stay, no matter how crazy people get it) . The fountain itself consists of a large bowl that rests on a foundation stone. This encloses a stone block on which two boys beat a wheel .
A little further north of this well, the northern Düssel is led into an underground canal in order to flow into the Rhine at the height of the castle tower. In front of it, it is almost 100 meters long and with its retaining wall offers seating in the quiet Josef-Wimmer-Gasse. Next to the mouth of the tunnel is the monument designed by the sculptor Bert Gerresheim and erected by the Düsseldorf Jonges for the 700th anniversary of the city . It commemorates the Battle of Worringen in 1288, after the end of which Count Adolf von Berg granted the fishing village on the Düssel the city charter. The memorial shows scenes from the battle and relates them to Düsseldorf's city history. Gerresheim continued the themes of the city survey monument with his Düsselgitter , created in 1991 . The bronze sculpture acts as a parapet over the Düssel running through it . The water wheel in the middle shows the former name of the river: Dussela (probably derived from the Germanic term thusila : "the rushing one" ).
On the western edge, a flight of stairs directly in front of the castle tower leads down to the lower shipyard. It forms the transition to the Rhine promenade. The side walls of the staircase open to the Rhine, making it wider step by step. The walls themselves were designed by the artist Hermann-Josef Kuhna until 1997 . A colored wall surface was created in cooperation with students. Many small patches of color, in different tones in the spectrum from red to blue, result in a varied surface. The painting, which has since become unsightly due to aging and vandalism, was replaced by a similarly designed ceramic mosaic in April 2017 at the suggestion and in cooperation with the artist.
Above the stairs are embedded paving stones with engraved names. It is about the art project Names and Stones from the year 2000 by the artist Tom Fecht and commemorates people who have died of AIDS .
Near the flight of steps, in front of the house at Burgplatz 29, is a sculpture by Erich Reusch from 1985, which was moved north as part of the redesign of Burgplatz. The square of COR-TEN steel attaches m on each side is 2.5 and about 33 cm high.
On the eastern edge of the square at the level of the houses at Burgplatz 19 / Mühlenstraße 2, Christoph Pöggeler's sculpture Säulenheilige Paar I is on an advertising column .
Under the row of trimmed plane trees that line the southern edge of Burgplatz stands the figure of Frau Backhaus or old town woman by Hannelore Köhler. The sculpture from Grünstein, which depicts an old town original, was bought by the city of Düsseldorf in 1983 and later installed here.
Names and stones
Pillar holy couple I
Old town woman
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Development on the edge of the square
North side
The castle tower is on the northern edge of the square. A passage to the part of the Rhine promenade called the Schlossufer separates it from the rest of the buildings that border the north side of the square. It visually dominates the outside staircase to the west of it and is an important eye-catcher for the Düsseldorf Rhine front.
This building is the last remaining part of the Düsseldorf Palace. A fire in 1872 destroyed it for the last time after three previous fire damage. At the beginning of the 20th century, all remains were removed except for the castle tower. Since then, it has been free from any development at the northern end of the square. Today the Maritime Museum, which gives an overview of the two thousand year history of navigation on the Rhine , and a restaurant in the “lantern” on the top floor are housed in its interior . The castle tower has been entered on the list of monuments of the state capital Düsseldorf since May 16, 1984.
In the building to the east there is a large guest house. The areas in front of it are completely occupied by tables and chairs and are used intensively in the summer months. In the inn itself, a record attempt was made during the 2007 carnival session. The Düsseldorf associations organized the longest carnival session in the world. The event, which lasted a good 35 hours, was ultimately not recognized by its inclusion in the Guinness Book of Records .
East Side
The east side of the Burgplatz is formed by a number of buildings in closed construction . In the southern area there are also two listed buildings, namely the houses Burgplatz 5 and 6, which date from the 17th century. In these, connected to the town hall, and in the other buildings on the east side, mainly catering establishments are located on the ground floor . The Hinkel bakery, founded in 1891, was in house number 9 . The operation was closed at the end of 2018 due to the closure of the business, the bakery of cousin Josef Hinkel with two shops in the old town still exists. At the turn of the century, the JH Branscheidt chocolate and sugar factory was located in the house at Burgplatz No. 11 . The house at Burgplatz 12 bears a bronze plaque with the text “Goethe lived in this house, the former Prince of Orange inn in July 1774”. Between 1968 and 1972, the artist and professor of the Düsseldorf Art Academy Daniel Spoerri ran his own restaurant in the house at Burgplatz 19 (corner of Mühlenstraße) and in it also his " Eat Art Gallery", a center of this art movement. The areas in front of the shops are characterized by intensive use, especially in the summer months. The multiple outdoor catering is made possible by clearing a larger area.
South side
The south side is formed by parts of the Düsseldorf town hall complex . Both are primarily used by the Düsseldorf city administration . In the section to the market square there are several shops on the ground floor . Until 2007, this included a tourist information office, which was operated in cooperation with the city's security service. Since the tourist information office moved, it has only been manned by the security service.
The so-called Academy Gallery is located in the part of the building, which was built in 1883 and has been a listed building since 1994, facing the Rhine and which housed the Düsseldorf School of Applied Arts, which was finally united with the Düsseldorf Art Academy . After several years of intensive discussion about an exhibition space for the professors of the art academy, this historic location was chosen. Until the 19th century, the Düsseldorf picture gallery , founded by Jan Wellem , was located here , the famous collection of which today forms the basis of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich . The new exhibition rooms were opened in 2005 by the Mayor of Düsseldorf Joachim Erwin and the then State Minister for Culture Michael Vesper and handed over to the Rector of the Academy, Markus Lüpertz .
use
everyday life
Since the square is of no importance for motorized individual traffic, it is primarily used for pedestrians . The residents of the city and tourists therefore use the square to linger and to get from the Rhine promenade to the old town or in the opposite direction. When the weather is good, the restaurants on the edge of the square and the steps leading down to the Rhine are popular places to stay. In recent years, however, there have been increasing problems on the pitch. The increasing sale of alcoholic beverages in kiosks and the subsequent consumption in public spaces with increasing excesses have led to a diverse and excited debate in the city. For example, at the turn of the year 2007/2008, the introduction of a ban on alcohol consumption on Burgplatz and the outside staircase in front of the castle tower was called for. This proposal was supported by the public order office, the police, the mayor and the CDU parliamentary group in the Düsseldorf city council. At a meeting of the regulatory and transport committee, however, a corresponding application was rejected by a majority of the FDP, Greens and SPD.
In the summer of 2007, video surveillance of Burgplatz was discussed. This was requested by the businesspeople on the premises, as they believed there had been an increased number of criminal offenses. However, this was denied by the Düsseldorf police chief. He justified this with the crime statistics , which clearly do not identify Burgplatz as a focus of crime.
Venue
The central location between the old town and the Rhine as well as a large cleared area enable frequent use of the Burgplatz for various events. For this purpose, special guidelines have been drawn up that must be met by the respective organizer.
First and foremost, the Burgplatz is of course suitable for all kinds of open-air events. Every year concerts are held here on the main stage of the jazz rally . The Frankreichtag is celebrated July 14 also - in the context here, the start and finish of with French vintage cars designed Tour de Dusseldorf are - and the Düsseldorf cultural festival Altstadtherbst and the Japan Day and the subsequent Rheinuferpromenade the books mile. The celebrations for the fiftieth and sixtieth state anniversaries of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1996 and 2006, most recently referred to as NRW Day , were celebrated here, as was Olympic Day 2003, which was part of Düsseldorf's application for the 2012 Summer Games . In addition to several events in the Rhine-Ruhr region, the central celebration took place here. In addition, this is the meeting point for several thousand skaters when the "Rollnacht Düsseldorf" invites you to skate through the state capital again.
Sports events also take place. The participants of the two cycling tours ENECO Tour and Deutschland Tour started their stages here. The cross-country skiing world cup , which has recently become a home in Düsseldorf, uses Burgplatz partly as a route, but primarily as a stage and location for sponsor presentations.
In the 1990s, an open-air cinema was regularly set up in the summer . However, due to the protest of a local resident, this had to be moved a little more than a kilometer down the Rhine to the Rheinpark Golzheim .
Additional information
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See also
- Important streets and squares in the Rhine-Ruhr region
- Friedrichsplatz - example of another square with an opening to the landscape in the city center of Kassel
literature
- Harald Frater, Günther Glebe, Clemens von Looz-Corswarem, Birgit Montag, Helmut Schneider, Dorothea Wiktorin: The Düsseldorf Atlas - the past and present of the state capital on a map. Emons Verlag, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89705-355-1 .
- Roland Kanz, Jürgen Wiener: Architecture Guide Düsseldorf. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-496-01232-3 .
- Oliver Karnau: Düsseldorf am Rhein - The architectural and urban redesign of the banks of the Rhine around 1900. Grupello Verlag, Düsseldorf 2002, ISBN 3-933749-79-4 .
- M: AI Museum for Architecture and Engineering Art NRW (Hrsg.): Rheinuferpromenade / Rheinufertunnel in 60 years of architecture and engineering in NRW . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89861-646-1 .
- Sonja Schürmann: Burgplatz and Marktplatz zu Düsseldorf: Two historic squares in the old town. Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Landscape Protection, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-88094-598-5 .
Web links
- 360 ° panorama on duesseldorf.de
- Live web cam on duesseldorf.de
- Project description of Atelier Fritschi, Stahl, Baum
References
- ↑ Bodendenkmal Burgplatz in the monument list of the state capital Düsseldorf at the Institute for Monument Protection and Preservation, as of November 15, 2006.
- ↑ www.rp-online.de Without author's name: Burgplatz-Mauer is colorful again . April 22, 2017. Retrieved April 29, 2016.
- ↑ Rolf Purpar: art city Dusseldorf. Objects and monuments in the cityscape. 2nd Edition. Grupello Verlag, Düsseldorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-89978-044-2 , p. 47.
- ↑ Rolf Purpar, 2009, p. 46.
- ↑ Schlossturm, Burgplatz 30 in the list of monuments of the state capital Düsseldorf at the Institute for Monument Protection and Preservation, as of October 9, 2007.
- ↑ express.de: Longest carnival session: Jecke want to save their record , August 28, 2008.
- ^ Burgplatz 5 in the list of monuments of the state capital Düsseldorf at the Institute for Monument Protection and Preservation, as of January 4, 2008.
- ↑ Schlossturm, Burgplatz 30 in the list of monuments of the state capital Düsseldorf at the Institute for Monument Protection and Preservation, as of January 4, 2008.
- ↑ The history of the Hinkel bakery , on baeckerei-hinkel.de, accessed on February 18, 2018.
- ^ Advertisement by JH Branscheidt , in Düsseldorfer Volksblatt, 1890.
- ↑ Town Hall, Burgplatz 1 in the list of monuments of the state capital Düsseldorf at the Institute for Monument Protection and Preservation, as of October 9, 2007.
- ↑ RP-Online article "SPD, Greens and FDP against it - Burgplatz: No alcohol ban" . February 14, 2008.
- ↑ RP-Online article "After knife fights - cameras on Burgplatz?" . June 11, 2007.
- ↑ RP-Online article "Landlords angry with Police President - Continued dispute over Burgplatz" , June 11, 2007.
- ↑ State Capital Düsseldorf Ordnungsamt, Resolution No. 66/17/2007 Regulatory and Transport Committee , as of September 26, 2007.
- ↑ State capital Düsseldorf Düsseldorf city law - guidelines for the use of Burgplatz , as of September 26, 2007.
Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 36.9 ″ N , 6 ° 46 ′ 17 ″ E