Butter Alley

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Entrance to Buttergasse in 1976

The Buttergasse is a monument protected vault on the north side of the Old Market in Magdeburg in Saxony-Anhalt .

location

Access to the vault, which is listed in the Magdeburg monument register, is via the Alter Markt 13 building . The entrance leads past historic house signs from Magdeburg's old town .

Architecture and history

In the Middle Ages, the old market in Magdeburg was not only the political center, but also the economic center of the city. A fully developed market system had existed since the 12th century, with a wide variety of markets spread around this square.

Buttergasse was a short, narrow alley that led to the Old Market. At the corner of the Alter Markt and Buttergasse there was a plot of land with a four-aisled hall, which was 30.9 mx 15.4 m in size, was 5.40 m high and had seven bays . Today there are still five bays as well as adjacent rooms with barrel vaults on the north and south sides .

This medieval hall was probably built around 1150 and was initially the guild house of the Kramer, as the merchants were called back then. The vaulting with a ridge vault took place after the year 1207. Around 1350 the construction was transferred to the tanners' guild and was their guild house until 1764. When the tanners no longer needed their guild house and cleared it, it stood empty. Due to fire rubble and rubbish, the level in the streets rose into the 17th century and the former basement floors of the houses gradually became real cellars. After the Thirty Years War one took place parcelling of the hall. Partition walls were erected and the individual rooms were rented out. The high rooms were later filled with rubble, only the upper part of the vault then served as the house cellar. In 1716 the vaults of the two southern bays were replaced by barrel vaults. The side pillars of the hall have a square, the middle one a round floor plan. They are crowned by gusset capitals . The hall's original windows were on the east side. From this side there was also access via a stone staircase.

The forgotten vaulted cellar was rediscovered and uncovered in 1947 in the course of the city center research in Magdeburg's inner city, which was badly damaged in the Second World War . The scientific excavation work began in the summer of 1948 under the direction of Wilhelm Unverzagt . The Magdeburg homeland researcher Werner Priegnitz earned merit . The later director Hans Joachim Hildebrandt wrote a report on the discovery of the cellar as a journalist. In the course of the excavation, around 2000 m³ of rubble were removed from the vaulted cellar and its ancillary rooms. The name of the little alley, which no longer exists after the city was rebuilt after the destruction of the Second World War, which did not adhere to the historical urban structure, was transferred to the medieval vaulted cellar. In parts of the literature it is also referred to as the Halle an der Buttergasse . Since 1970 it has been used as a wine restaurant Buttergasse . Even today, the cellar, which is integrated in a modern building, is used for catering purposes.

literature

  • Heinz Gerling : Monuments of the city of Magdeburg . Helmuth-Block-Verlag, Magdeburg 1991, ISBN 3-910173-04-4 , page 80.
  • Doris Köther: Magdeburg / Buttergasse - old town under the war rubble. In: Showcase of archeology - news from archaeological research in Magdeburg. Ed .: State Capital Magdeburg, Office for Public Relations and Protocol | State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology Saxony-Anhalt, pp. 158–162. Magdeburg 2005.
  • Ernst Nickel, excavations in the old town of Magdeburg in Wissenschaftliche Annalen , Akademie-Verlag, 1952, 1st issue, page 58 ff.
  • List of monuments Saxony-Anhalt, Volume 14, State capital Magdeburg , Michael Imhof Verlag Petersberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-86568-531-5 , page 62.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Nickel, excavations in the old town of Magdeburg in Wissenschaftliche Annalen , Akademie-Verlag, 1952, 1st issue, page 58.
  2. ^ Ernst Nickel, excavations in the old town of Magdeburg in Wissenschaftliche Annalen , Akademie-Verlag, 1952, 1st issue, page 58.
  3. ^ Ernst Nickel, excavations in the old town of Magdeburg in Wissenschaftliche Annalen , Akademie-Verlag, 1952, 1st issue, page 58.
  4. ^ Heinz Gerling: Monuments of the City of Magdeburg . Helmuth-Block-Verlag, Magdeburg 1991, ISBN 3-910173-04-4 , page 80.

Coordinates: 52 ° 7 ′ 55.9 ″  N , 11 ° 38 ′ 17.9 ″  E