Mercator Hall
.jpg)
The Mercatorhalle Duisburg is an event and concert venue. In 2005 the old Mercatorhalle was demolished. In its place, a building complex with a casino , offices, shops, restaurants and an event location has been created (casino and shopping mall opened on February 23, 2007; Mercator Hall opened on April 21, 2007). The multifunctional hall for congresses and concerts integrated in this new complex is named in memory of the old hall Mercatorhalle Duisburg in the CityPalais . It acts as the home of the Duisburg Philharmonic . After the Mercatorhalle was closed in August 2012 due to fire protection deficiencies, it has been open to the public again since September 1, 2016. The management of the Mercatorhalle is in the hands of a city-owned operating company.
Mercatorhalle Duisburg in the CityPalais
.jpg)
The foundation stone for the construction of the new complex was laid on June 18, 2005 and the new Mercator Hall within the CityPalais was opened on April 21, 2007.
The CityPalais is a multifunctional center. In addition to the Mercator Hall and the casino, it houses a congress center , an office complex, several restaurants and shops and an underground car park with 670 parking spaces on approx .
The organ was completed in 2009 by the organ building company Eule from Bautzen . The instrument has 72 registers (4,349 pipes) on four manual works and a pedal and is arranged in the English-symphonic style.
On August 22, 2012 the Mercatorhalle was closed due to fire protection deficiencies. The conference area and the VIP lounge have been available for events again since November 2012. The renovation in the Small Hall lasted until January 2015. On September 1, 2016, the Great Hall was reopened. Since then, the Mercatorhalle has been fully available again to the public and the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra.
use
Large hall : The large hall can accommodate up to 1746 guests (1196 in the stalls / 550 in the tier). With variable floor elements, the hall can be moved in rows in rows or on one level. It has modern concert hall equipment: The ceiling construction contains height-adjustable sound sails that can be adjusted to the size of the ensembles making music. Variable acoustic elements on the side walls allow the reverberation times to be changed in order to ensure the sound quality for different performances.
Small hall : With an area of 450 m² and a foyer of 145 m², up to 529 people can attend an event here.
VIP lounge : The 130 m² VIP lounge can accommodate up to 50 people.
Conference area : The conference area offers a framework for seminars, examination events and smaller conferences with a number of participants up to approx. 250 participants. The space on offer includes six conference rooms of different sizes.
history
Destruction of the concert hall
The Duisburg Mercatorhalle replaced the Duisburg Tonhalle , a neo-classical building that had been destroyed by an air raid on the night of September 6th to September 7th, 1942. It has been one of the centers of Duisburg's cultural life since its inauguration in 1887.
Construction of the Mercator Hall
A reconstruction of the destroyed concert hall was no longer possible. In order to continue the tradition, first discussions about a new building took place as early as 1948. In 1957 the city of Duisburg announced a nationwide competition; As a result, the architects Graubner , Stumpf and Voigtländer were commissioned to build the new hall, for which they initially had no name. The building was created in the style of the 1960s as a functional building in the sense of the architectural maxim form follows function ( Louis Henri Sullivan ). The Duisburg Mercatorhalle was inaugurated in September 1962. The name goes back to the cartographer and astronomer Gerhard Mercator . The Duisburg Orchestra , which is now the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra , founded in 1877 , was given a venue again.
Casino license and Urbanum Duisburg
With the award of the last casino license from the State of North Rhine-Westphalia to the City of Duisburg in the second half of the 1990s, the question of the location of the planned casino arose. The city toyed with the idea of replacing the Mercatorhalle in need of renovation with a new building. Despite considerable reservations on the part of the monument protection , the city council of Duisburg decided in 1999 to relocate the casino at the location of the Mercatorhalle.
The previous use of the Mercator Hall should continue to be guaranteed, which is why an event and congress center including a concert hall for the Duisburg Philharmonic was planned in addition to the casino. The new complex should initially be called Urbanum Duisburg . Due to financial problems of the originally named investor, the implementation of the project failed in September 2004. In a renewed invitation to tender, the Landesentwicklungsgesellschaft NRW (LEG) received the order as a new investor to build the casino including the event and congress center. The city, the state development company and the Duisburg casino operator WestSpiel shared the costs .
Demolition of the Mercator Hall
After the financing was secured, NRW's town planning minister Michael Vesper (Bündnis90 / Greens), as the minister responsible for the preservation of monuments and thus as the highest monument authority, granted the demolition permit. This was necessary because the Mercator Hall was entered in the list of historical monuments. The council and investor named the new building project CityPalais . The integrated event, concert and congress center with the name Mercatorhalle was intended to improve Duisburg's position as a congress location and offer the Philharmonic a performance venue that met the requirements of the past and met high acoustic quality standards. After the old Mercatorhalle had remained unused for three years, demolition began on January 17, 2005, although various individuals and associations, including the Friends of the Mercatorhalle e. V. tried to preserve the hall and prevent the planned casino. However, a referendum that had been applied for to obtain it failed.
Construction of the new Mercatorhalle (Mercatorhalle Duisburg in the CityPalais)
In 2005 the foundation stone for the new CityPalais was laid. It includes a casino, restaurants, shops and an event hall for congresses and concerts. The latter is the new Mercatorhalle Duisburg in the CityPalais . The grand opening of the new Mercatorhalle took place on April 21, 2007, with Howard Carpendale as the star guest .
Closure of the new Mercatorhalle
The completion of the new Mercatorhalle took place under very high time pressure. The first criticism arose shortly after it opened. Visitors felt unsafe on the steep stairs. In August 2008 the stairs were widened and additional handrails were installed. Due to the different step heights on the access stairs, the rank was threatened with closure in 2011 . Numerous other construction defects were uncovered, including missing locks , cracks in the concrete and incompletely equipped toilets. On August 22, 2012, the Mercatorhalle was closed due to fire safety deficiencies, as the difficult to walk stairs in particular act as tripping hazards and could hinder escape in the event of a fire.
Reopening of the Mercatorhalle
After the Mercatorhalle was closed, the construction defects found were eliminated. The different step heights were also corrected using a new substructure and the complex ventilation and smoke extraction system was brought up to the current state of the art. As the first area of the Mercator Hall, the conference and congress area was able to reopen in November 2012. The Small Hall of the Mercatorhalle has also been open to the public again since January 2015. The Great Hall of the Mercator Hall was reopened on September 1st, 2016. In the invitation to the official reopening event, Duisburg's Lord Mayor Sören Link described the hall as the “good room” of the people of Duisburg. There were performances by the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra as well as numerous other Duisburg artists. On September 7th and 8th, the 1st Philharmonic Concert of the Duisburg Philharmonic took place for the first time in the Great Hall of the Mercatorhalle. A Wagner gala was given with prominent Bayreuth Wagner singers, at which, among other things, the ode "You, dear hall, I greet you again" from the Wagner opera Tannhäuser was intoned.
Web links
- Website of the Mercatorhalle
- duisburg-bilder.de Pictures of the old building, the demolition and the planning of the new hall
- CityPalais website
Individual evidence
- ^ Duisburg Kontor Hallenmanagement GmbH (information on the operator's website), accessed on September 15, 2016.
- ^ Duisburg, CityPalais - concert organ in the Mercatorhalle. Information on the organ builder's website, accessed on September 15, 2016.
- ↑ a b c d e f g The Mercator Hall - from construction to closure. 14-part click route to the history of the closure of the new Mercatorhalle in the Rheinische Post on August 28, 2012, accessed on September 15, 2016.
- ↑ Small hall of the Mercatorhalle back in operation after a building scandal. Press report in the WAZ from January 10, 2015, accessed on September 15, 2016.
- ↑ a b The Mercatorhalle Philharmonic Hall is ceremoniously reopened. Announcement on the Duisburg Philharmonic's homepage, accessed on September 15, 2016.
- ↑ a b City Lexicon Duisburg am Rhein (www.duisburg.de): Keyword Tonhalle. ( Memento of the original from August 28, 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. Retrieved September 17, 2016.
- ↑ Great opening of the Mercatorhalle: classical music, pop and fireworks. ( Memento of the original from September 17, 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. Archive report from April 23, 2007 on the former hall homepage, accessed on September 16, 2016.
- ↑ Marc Wolko: City of Duisburg closes Mercatorhalle due to significant fire protection deficiencies. Report in the WAZ from August 22, 2012, accessed on September 16, 2016.
- ↑ Rosali Kurtzbach: Mercator Hall in Duisburg will reopen on time. Press report in the WAZ from July 27, 2016, accessed on September 15, 2016.
- ↑ Anne Horstmeier: Duisburg Philharmonic return to the Mercator Hall. Press report in the WAZ from September 8, 2016, accessed on September 15, 2016.
Coordinates: 51 ° 25 ′ 59 ″ N , 6 ° 46 ′ 16 ″ E