Bockenheim campus
The Bockenheim Uni-Campus of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University is located on the eastern border of the Bockenheim district of the city of Frankfurt am Main . Despite its name, most of it does not belong to this district, but to Frankfurt's Westend . From 1914 it served as the main campus of Goethe University for around 100 years and is currently in the process of being dissolved. The plan is to move all social and humanities institutes to the Westend campus and all mathematical and natural science institutes to the Riedberg campus . After that, the Bockenheim campus is to be converted into a culture campus. Among other things, the University of Music and Performing Arts is to be located there.
Building history
The building history of the Goethe University can be roughly divided into three sections. Firstly, the time after the establishment until the end of the Second World War. Second, the post-war period with the building director Ferdinand Kramer . Third, the time until part of the university moved to the IG-Farben building .
Before considering the individual construction phases and buildings, the location of the university between Frankfurt's Westend and Bockenheim must be emphasized and the change that has taken place over the decades from one university on one property (plus the university clinic in Niederrad) to one to up to four, The universities, some of which are far apart from one another and are spread out, are to be at least partially merged again after the acquisition of the IG Farben building. For this purpose, the Westend campus was expanded by several buildings (RuW, HoF, lecture hall building) in a first stage in order to accommodate the law and economics departments that were previously located on the Bockenheim campus.
First construction phase: 1912 to 1945
In 1912 the foundation had start-up capital of fourteen million marks , making it the second wealthiest university in the country. The donors committed themselves to the permanent maintenance of the university and to the provision of buildings or their new construction. The physical supply of the medical faculty was evidently relatively problem-free, but it was more difficult for the other faculties on the premises of the Bockenheimer core area. The main building was the auditorium of the Academy for Social and Commercial Sciences , the Jügelhaus , a historical representative building with neo-baroque forms .
The responsible Prussian ministry insisted that the university's premises be complete at the time of its opening. The ministry could not be satisfied with a provisional arrangement in the form of pavilions, which had been discussed because the Senckenberg Natural Research Society did not want to allow the Jügelhaus to be expanded on their premises.
Finally, the Jügelhaus received an extension in the form of a right angle, the joint of which represents an "atrium". This wing is stylistically largely aligned with the Jügelhaus. The Senckenberg Museum was expanded to the west; the zoological institute also found its domicile here. An additional expansion of the museum was then probably not carried out because of the First World War . In addition, at the western end of the then Kettenhofweg (today Robert-Mayer-Straße) opposite the Physikalischer Verein, construction began on the chemical institute, which was completed during the war.
For the area north of today's Mertonstraße (at that time part of Jordanstraße) further buildings were planned, with residential buildings still standing in the western Jügelstraße, between Bockenheimer Landstraße and about today's student house, some of which were only named for the construction of the “social center” brutalist concrete building by architect Heinrich Nitschke in the late 1960s were demolished.
The university was able to open in autumn 1914; it was planned for around 1500 to 2000 students. As early as 1917, the foundation ran into financial hardship, especially since a not insignificant part of the foundation's assets had been invested in war bonds in a patriotic upswing . However, significantly more chairs had been set up than initially planned; likewise, the cost estimates for the buildings were not always kept.
The idea of a foundation university was quickly abandoned and in March 1919 the Prussian minister of education was approached with a request for the state of Prussia to take over the university. The finance committee of the board of trustees of the Goethe University saw “no other way out” in their own words. The ministry rejected this request, however, and appealed to the citizens of Frankfurt, whereupon the board of trustees turned to the magistrate , who increased the municipal subsidy on the condition that Prussia also had sufficient funds available. One of the demands of the magistrate - which the Prussian state then adopted - also included the establishment of a "workers' academy" , which was opened on May 2, 1921.
Since the university's financial resources did not allow for new buildings, various renovations were carried out in the Jügelhaus in the course of the 1920s with the aim of converting hallways and squares into workrooms. The result of these efforts can still be seen today - especially in the cultivation and in the former botanical institute. A certain spatial relief for the WISO faculty was achieved with the establishment and construction of the Institute for Social Research in 1924. In its building, designed by architect Franz Roeckle in the style of monumental expressionism (for example on the site of the cafeteria built in 1964, at the corner of Senckenberganlage and Bockenheimer Landstrasse), some of the institutes of this faculty were housed. After the institute was closed and its founders and employees were driven out by the National Socialists, it was used by the Nazi student body from 1933 until it was destroyed during the war .
The university reached out to the public to draw attention to its lack of space. In the meantime, various villas and some floors of residential buildings have been used, spread across almost the entire Westend up to Feldbergstrasse and Savignystrasse (some of the buildings were used by the university until the 1990s). Appeals and memoranda have been drawn up to highlight the urgency. Extensive discussions also took place between the rector of the university and the mayor Ludwig Landmann , the architects of the New Frankfurt planned university buildings, but none of this led to any significant results; the only new building at the university remained the building of the Institute for Physical Chemistry on Robert-Mayer-Strasse (west of the Physikalischer Verein, bombed out in World War II), which was financed by donations from industry.
After the National Socialists came to power, the shortage of space decreased. The political harmonization and the expulsion of the “non-Aryan” sections of the teaching staff, as well as the students soon thereafter, the difficulty of studying for women, the setting of the maximum number of students and the initial efforts to dissolve the Frankfurt University left the number of those enrolled Students decrease drastically (after about 4,000 in 1919, it was still 1,692 in the 1937 summer semester). However, the further expansion of the university was planned until the 1940s, especially on the site of today's Juridicum (along the Senckenberg complex). In fact, only one building was built for the Pharmaceutical Institute on Robert-Mayer-Strasse.
Second construction phase: 1945 to 1964
The Allied aerial bombs of the Second World War destroyed large parts of the university in the air raids on Frankfurt am Main . The houses in Senckenberganlage 12, Senckenberganlage 22, Bockenheimer Landstrasse 104 and the building of the Institute for Physical Chemistry in Robert-Mayer-Strasse 6 were completely destroyed (if one ignores the clinics and medical institutes in Sachsenhausen) mostly badly damaged, the Jügelhaus no longer had a roof, and some walls had collapsed. Nevertheless, the Allies allowed the university to reopen on February 1, 1946.
The self-government of the university was reconstituted - it was at least severely restricted during the Third Reich - and so on June 6, 1947, the great council met for the first time after the war. Ministerialrat Paul Klingelhöfer , the executive chairman of the board of trustees, which did not meet again until the following year, described the condition of the buildings in a memorandum and outlined the possibilities for reconstruction. So he took up the plans from the 1920s to build a central library high-rise on the site of today's Juridicum (the square was still undeveloped despite various plans since 1914). The space between Jügelstrasse and Gräfstrasse was also intended for the humanities, and the southern part of the core area down to Georg-Voigt-Strasse for the natural sciences. The Board of Trustees unanimously approved this plan at its first meeting on January 23, 1948. It thus represents one of the essential prerequisites for Ferdinand Kramer's later planning.
The restoration of the destroyed or damaged buildings alone was estimated at 29 million marks, which with a reconstruction budget of 660,000 (first Reich, then D-) marks per year had to remain outside the scope for the time being. For the time being, they limited themselves to temporary arrangements. The damage could only be fully repaired at the beginning of the 1950s. In July 1952, the student magazine diskus reported (with pictures) about war damage that had not yet been remedied and sometimes dangerous working conditions at individual institutes. The state of Hesse and the city of Frankfurt shared the costs, but the state must have exercised great restraint, especially since the state had not shown much interest in reopening the Frankfurt University at all until the early 1950s; the universities of Giessen and Marburg clearly enjoyed priority. Until 1950 only 1.3 million marks flowed. This is mainly due to the fact that the state of Hesse - unlike the other universities in the state, which were the state universities - felt no obligation to finance the reconstruction. Another appeal was made to the citizens of Frankfurt, and then some donations were raised, for example one million D-Mark from the US High Commissioner McCloy for the construction of the student house. A Frankfurt bank lent five million Deutschmarks on favorable terms, for which the city vouched. It was not until 1953, when Kramer was already in Frankfurt, that the Hessian state government thought about it and accepted its obligations from the 1923 contract, which then became the basis for a new university contract, which was passed in December 1953 and came into force retroactively from April 1, 1952 kicked. Accordingly, the city and the country each contributed half of the university deficit. In addition, the city of Frankfurt transferred to the university all of the land used by the university that had previously been owned by the city. Furthermore, the city and the state committed to financing new buildings and property purchases. Both undertook to pay DM two million annually for the next five years.
Naturally, this also led to a considerable dependence of the building plans of the university building authority on the financial commitments and planning demands from Wiesbaden and their changes, which for example led to a construction period of ten years for the construction of the AfE tower .
With the donations and the five million loan, some construction projects could be realized. The student house was built according to a design by Otto Apel , which Rector Max Horkheimer handed over to its intended use in early 1953. The sponsor was a foundation which, in addition to the Studentenwerk, also included members of the student self-administration. This building was supposed to be used for practicing democratic behavior and therefore contained a large number of rooms for the General Student Committee (AStA) and other student organizations as well as a student library (which later became the property of the university library ) and various reading and relaxation rooms. In the rooms of today's café was part of the cafeteria (another part remained in the basement of the Jügelhaus), which soon turned out to be still too small. The design, which was submitted as part of a competition, was referred to as a “greenhouse” because of its large window areas. The building was described as follows in the student newspaper diskus :
“The design for the 'greenhouse' won the prize. But it was only a Pyrrhic victory, and the winners not only lost the window width - to such an extent that in future only very narrow-chested studios can look up a pretty fellow student on the street (...) because the central windows are not made to open, only the ones narrow lateral - one might almost fear that mannerism and morality have had a secret agreement here. - No, more has been lost, especially from an opposing taste that mistakenly considered the main building to be an art monument and called for the new building to adapt to its style. The architect's tenacity was able to save us from a pitched roof. That it is still a sloping roof at all may be a triumph of the principle, albeit an invisible one. But this triumph should be attributed to an unusable attic (1,670 m²) and above all the loss of a perhaps blasphemous, yet so delightful and even practical option - namely a roof garden. Apparently it was never considered. "
Also before Kramer was called to Frankfurt, the building of the Physikalisch-Chemisches Institut (today the Department of Computer Science) was built. The financing of the new main portal and the America Institute, which was used by the Institute for Comparative Irrelevance until April 2013 , were also financed before the university contract was signed.
In 1952 the architect and designer Ferdinand Kramer was called to Frankfurt by Rector Horkheimer. From 1952 to 1964 he was the building director at the university; There, in 1953, together with the then curator Friedrich Rau, he developed a general development plan, which until the early 1960s was repeatedly adapted to changing framework conditions and priorities of the university and city, which was the sponsor of the university at the time. The aim was to build as efficiently as possible with a minimum of resources. Out of aesthetic convictions and because of limited resources, Kramer renounced any form of representation. He has had a lasting impact on the image of Frankfurt University - in the sense of a functionalism fed by the classical modernism of the New Frankfurt and the ideas of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe . His buildings should
“Be easily expandable; the installation is partly interchangeable, partly designed so that conditions that have not yet been tested have to be established; A considerable reserve of land must be available from the outset - not least because a far more extensive abandonment of lectures in favor of practical exercises in the institute's rooms can be expected. "
The reality was often different, of course. The city refrained from buying the necessary land. Kramer's successor Heinrich Nitschke was faced with rapidly increasing student numbers with stagnating budgets. It was not until 1967 that the country took over the financing of the university. The discussion as to whether, where and how the university should be expanded in the future (Kramer brought up the Ginnheimer Höhe, later the Rebstock and Niederursel were discussed as the location of a new comprehensive university) led to few concrete results.
Third construction phase: 1964 to 2000
After Kramer's retirement in 1964, some very drastic structural measures were taken up to the mid-1970s, which significantly changed the image of the university's core area in Bockenheim. Planning and construction of the so-called AfE tower began practically at the same time as Kramer's retirement . The construction had become necessary after the college for education had been attached to the university in 1961 and the old Bettinaschule turned out to be completely inadequate as a temporary measure.
The north side of the tower, which was for a short time the tallest building in Frankfurt, housed the library of social sciences and seminar rooms with a floor height of one and a half. The south side consisted of offices at single floor height. After the construction, a cafeteria was set up on the top floor, but it was closed again due to lack of approval (this floor could not be reached with all elevators and was considered an insider tip that was difficult to find because of the good view in all directions). Due to the high number of users, vertical access by means of staircases and elevators became a bottleneck that severely restricted the functionality of the tower.
The Juridicum, which seals off the campus from the city, was moved into in 1970. Its main structural advantage - in addition to the gain in space, of course - is the shielding of traffic noise from the Senckenberg facility. Most of the funding was already provided from state funds, as Goethe University became a state university on January 1, 1967. In the period after the so-called student revolt, the construction of the social center, also known as the “new canteen”, took place. The building seals off the campus from Bockenheimer Landstrasse and houses the cafeteria, seminar rooms and, on the upper floors, offices of the university administration and student union.
Already in Kramer's time the relocation of the scientific disciplines to Niederursel was planned, in 1972 the new buildings of the chemical institutes were moved into, which were expanded in 1984. Parts of the life sciences followed in the 1990s. With the abandonment of the Bockenheim campus, all natural sciences as well as the mathematics and computer science departments will be located in Niederursel, now known as the Riedberg campus .
In general, it can be said that during the 1980s and 1990s the university buildings were neglected and appear increasingly neglected. Although the major construction project to relocate the natural sciences to Niederursel was largely completed, a post-modern building was built to the side of the AfE tower, which accommodated some smaller institutes from the villas of the Westend. An architectural competition for the core area was presented in 1988 and in the revision of the two winning designs in 1989. Oswald Mathias Ungers received first prize for his design to largely preserve the Kramer buildings and to expand the core area to the north by doubling the Kramer library cube. Apart from publications in the specialist and daily press, the competition had no consequences.
Around the year 2000, some of Ferdinand Kramer's buildings were placed under monument protection; the careful, exemplary renovation of the building of the former pharmacy in Georg-Voigt-Straße in 2012/13 for the research center for biodiversity and climate of the Senckenberg Natural Research Society is to be emphasized. The renovation received recognition at the German Architecture Prize 2015 . The Philosophicum in Gräfstrasse was reduced to its structure according to plans by the architect Stefan Forster and an extension was added. It now serves as a private student residence.
building
Jügelhaus
The neo-baroque main building of the university, the Jügelhaus (named after the founder Carl Christian Jügel ), was built in 1906 in connection with the Senckenberg building complex to the south as the "Academy for Social and Commercial Sciences" according to plans by L. Neher. The form of the sandstone facade of the Jügelhaus is based on the central building of the Mannheim Palace. Since 2012 the Jügelhaus has belonged to the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research , which has been renovating it since 2014. Following construction, it will house the company's central geological laboratory and central library. In addition, a conference center is to be set up.
AfE tower
The 116 meter high AfE tower was built from 1972 in the brutalist style as the seat of the educational sciences and was at that time the tallest building in the city. At the end of the 2012/2013 winter semester, the individual departments of the tower moved to the Westend campus . The tower was completely closed at the end of March 2013. After the gutting, which began on July 8, 2013, was completed, the tower was blown up on February 2, 2014 to make way for the One Forty West residential and hotel building . The AfE tower was the tallest building to be blown up in Europe .
Canteen constructions
The two-storey cafeteria, originally designed by architect Ferdinand Kramer in 1962, with two large self-service areas on the ground floor and first floor, as well as a milk bar on the ground floor and a restaurant with service on the upper floor for professors and research assistants, was called the “lab room” from the 1980s. Due to the large influx of students, the concept had to be changed, which is why the lab hall was expanded to include a new building (today's social center). Around 2002 the entire cafeteria was closed. The dining rooms in the new cafeteria were adapted with the relocation of employees and students and closed in 2013. The cafeteria in the new canteen on the ground floor is still open. The lab room has been used as accommodation for asylum seekers since January 2016. After renovations in 2017, it can accommodate up to 120 people. The facade was painted by the artists Justus Becker and Oğuz Şen together with young people and former residents. The work of art refers to the theme of escape in the past and present.
Student house
The student house is located between the Jügelhaus, the Juridicum and the social center. It was built in 1953 and has been administered by the student body ever since. The house houses the premises of the AStA of the Goethe University, the Café KoZ (short for "communication center"), a day care center and a 400 m² ballroom in which regular film screenings from the pupil cinema and various cultural events take place. In the back entrance there are apartments for students. The building was renovated around 1995.
Sculptures
Since 1986 the man in the revolving door has been walking in a circle between the Bockenheim campus social station and the Bockenheimer Warte. The Worpswede artist Waldemar Otto is considered to be the most important protagonist of figurative sculpture.
The first dandelion fountain was designed by the Australian well-building artist Robert Woodward in 1959. Since 1961 it has stood as the El Alamein Fountain on King's Cross in Sydney. These dandelion fountains have spread around the world in various European and American cities, as well as in Damascus, Aleppo and Saratov on the Volga. In Germany you can find them in Stuttgart , Limburg an der Lahn , Bad Dürrheim and Dresden (there by Leoni Wirth ). The Bockenheimer Dandelion Fountain was created in 1982 at the suggestion of former University President Kelm solely by university employees. With the relocation of the first departments, the steel flowers were also relocated to the Westend campus.
The Mobile Four Rectangles Oblique IV was set up in 1984 by George Rickey (1907-2002) on the Bockenheim campus. The American sculptor was one of the most important exponents of kinetic art. He designed a mobile as a metal sculpture with four elements that are set in motion by even small air currents. The sculpture was moved from its former location in front of the Juridicum on the Bockenheim campus to the Riedberg campus in May 2013.
Future development
It is planned to completely dissolve the Bockenheim site, with the exception of the university library, in 2023. The move from the Bockenheim campus to the Westend and Riedberg campuses follows construction progress. New development plans for the old campus are currently being drawn up and lively discussed. In particular, a “Kulturcampus Bockenheim” with a new building for the Frankfurt University of Music and high-quality living space on today's campus was suggested, which gave rise to fears that gentrification could displace today's residents of the district. The higher rent level will also have an impact on the surrounding housing stock and make it more expensive in general.
On August 23, 2011, the Bockenheim campus was sold by the State of Hesse to the city-owned ABG Frankfurt Holding . This was preceded by the signing of a letter of intent between the city of Frankfurt and the holding, according to which the demolition of the listed buildings Philosophicum, student house and student dormitory were being considered. “Experimental living” should be made possible in these buildings. For economic reasons, however, it is cheaper to build new buildings for this purpose. The plans for the demolition were criticized by members of the Frankfurt city council and the local citizens' initiatives Initiative Zukunft Bockenheim , Open House of Cultures , Advice Campus Bockenheim .
With the groundbreaking for the new buildings on the Westend campus and after the students had moved out, the demolition work on the Bockenheim campus began in 2017 after the official handover to AGB Holding. After the purchase, which was completed in 2011, the Bockenheim campus is to give way to a culture campus.
In spring 2020 it was announced that the Juridicum building and the new canteen would be handed over at the end of 2021.
Web links
- Campus Bockenheim - overview of the location on the website of the University of Frankfurt
- Former campus Bockenheim: Restructuring of the former campus area - urban planning design by the Frankfurt city planning office
- University goes - campus remains - culture and residential area - website of the “Initiative Zukunft Bockenheim” about the development of the campus
Individual evidence
- ↑ Final spurt on the new campus: third construction phase starts. April 11, 2017. Retrieved February 27, 2019 .
- ↑ Expansion of the Westend campus ( memento of April 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Original no longer available
- ↑ Christian Riethmüller: The Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt will be expanded and rebuilt by 2018 - Frankfurt. In: op-online.de. January 24, 2014, accessed March 20, 2018 .
- ↑ Library of Society and Educational Science: We're Moving! ( Memento of the original from January 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . October 24, 2012. Accessed on November 14, 2012: “At the end of the 2012/13 winter semester, the BGE will move to the Westend campus. At the new location we will open on April 2, 2013 as the Library of Social Sciences and Psychology (BSP). "
- ↑ Stefan Röttele: Late honors: Afe tower breaks European record . January 8, 2014 ( welt.de [accessed February 27, 2019]).
- ↑ The lab room is inhabited again. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. March 15, 2018, accessed November 22, 2018 .
- ↑ Open House of Cultures: Closing party and exhibitions Signal Labsaal. Retrieved November 22, 2018 .
- ↑ on the building history and conception: K. von Freytag-Loringhoven: "Education in the Kollegienhaus", Stuttgart 2012, pp. 419–442.
- ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau, accessed on June 4, 2020
- ^ Claus-Jürgen Göpfert: Outraged Initiatives . In: Frankfurter Rundschau. May 16, 2011. Retrieved May 17, 2011.
- ^ Günter Murr: Campus sale under one roof. Negotiations are about to be concluded - criticism from scientists . In: Frankfurter Neue Presse. August 22, 2011. Retrieved August 25, 2011.
- ^ Laura Wagner: Bockenheim: District in Transition . In: Frankfurter Rundschau. October 11, 2011. Retrieved October 11, 2011.
- ^ Goethe University: Land sells Bockenheim campus to ABG FRANKFURT HOLDING. Press conference after signing the purchase contract - increased chances for rapid implementation of the third construction phase on the Westend campus ( memento of the original from March 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Press release. August 25, 2011. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
- ^ Günter Murr: Order to demolish. Monument protection shouldn't play a major role at the Kulturcampus . In: Frankfurter Neue Presse. August 5, 2011. Retrieved August 25, 2011.
- ↑ Citizen participation on the Bockenheim campus. (PDF) Zukunft Initiative Bockenheim, accessed on August 20, 2018 .
Bockenheim campus | Campus Westend | Campus Riedberg | Sports campus Ginnheim (university sports grounds) | Niederrad Campus ( University Hospital Frankfurt )
Coordinates: 50 ° 7 ′ 8.9 ″ N , 8 ° 39 ′ 7.1 ″ E