Döppersberg

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Döppersberg suspension railway stop

The Döppersberg is an inner-city area and a traffic junction at the end of the Döppersberg road in Wuppertal - Elberfeld . This is where the city's main train station is located , the most important stop for the suspension railway , and the southern end of the Elberfeld pedestrian zone . The area is currently being completely redesigned.

history

Brausenwerth and Döppersberg around 1855 (middle view), lithograph by Wilhelm Riefstahl
The Döppersberg as a traffic junction before the closure in summer 2014 as part of the renovation work
Suspension railway stop with Köbo-Haus at the Döppersberg intersection, view from the tower of the Stadtsparkasse Wuppertal , 2008

The name Döppersberg is said to go back to the local name for pot makers - "Döppesbäcker". This name was originally used for the rising slope on the left bank of the Wupper, southwest of the historic town center of Elberfeld. It was undeveloped for a long time and could not be reached directly from the city center, but only via the Icelander Bridge . Between the slope and the river there was still a flat area, the Brausenwerth , which served as a fairground and execution site .

Radical changes only began with the construction of the main line of the Düsseldorf-Elberfelder Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft and the construction of what would later become the main train station in 1846 on the hillside at Am Döppersberg . Some old town houses were demolished and through this breakthrough from the old Elberfeld market square, freedom, a direct connection was made to the main portal of the train station. A new bridge had to be built over the Wupper, which was named Döppersberg Bridge. In order to overcome the height difference between Freiheit and Bahnhof, this street had to have a continuous downward gradient. The roadway of the bridge, which is equipped with classicist style features (pillar design, arch shape and railing shapes), was also built inclined. To the east of the train station, the Dürer House was built between 1857 and 1860 and now houses the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy .

In the period that followed, the name Döppersberg was increasingly transferred to the rapidly developing new urban area between the city and the train station. While in the first half the areas to the west and north of the city center ( Neumarkt , Luisenstadt , Herzogstraße ) were the urban development areas, the Döppersberg developed into the center of city development in the second half of the 19th century. Hotels such as the Hotel Kaiserhof and the Hotel Europäische Hof and administrative buildings such as the Reichsbahndirektion Elberfeld (later the Federal Railway Directorate ) settled here, as well as the Stadttheater am Brausenwerth and the Badeanstalt Brausenwerth (on the site of the former slaughterhouse on Brausenwerth ). The Kaiser Wilhelm monument by Gustav Eberlein existed here from 1893 to 1937, and the Elberfeld fountain was erected on the eastern part of the station forecourt in 1922 .

At the latest with the inauguration of the Wuppertal suspension railway , the Döppersberg developed into a clear means of transport for Elberfeld. The suspension railway company built the most important suspension railway station, Döppersberg , which is still the busiest to this day ; the tram lines of the valley line and the meter-gauge lines crossed here. The former open spaces were built on more and more, so that the appearance changed radically. While around 1800 there was still a small town on a mountain river that required large floodplains, around 1930 the image of a densely built-up, traffic-rich city emerged, in which a canalised and tamed Wupper barely appeared. With the new construction of the suspension railway station in 1926, which was necessary to cope with the extraordinarily heavy traffic flows, the river was completely overbuilt by a massive building, the Köbo House . The old elongated bridge was replaced and is no longer noticeable as a river crossing.

In the years 1940–1942 an underground bunker was built under the Döppersberg , which was repaired in 1990. In an emergency, it offers protection for 950 people. The air raids on Wuppertal during the Second World War meant extreme destruction for the Döppersberg. The theater and swimming pool were destroyed and a number of town houses destroyed. The reconstruction was canceled due to the planning of the new valley road ( Bundesstrasse 7 ), which was considered necessary to guide individual traffic through the valley axis. For the Döppersberg this meant a further, drastic change in face. A large part of the buildings between Wupper and the train station were removed, a generous intersection, deserted green areas and huge ramp structures were created, between which the central tram stop and later the bus station was located. There was no longer any space for pedestrians, the footpath from the station to the city center was led into an underpass.

As part of the Rhein-Ruhr transport association, the suspension railway station Döppersberg and the former bus station were renamed "Wuppertal Hbf (Döppersberg)". This should clarify the transfer relationships.

Döppersberg tunnel

With this first (car-friendly) conversion of the Döppersberg in around 1960 and the two-lane expansion of the B 7 in both directions, a tunnel variant was chosen for pedestrian traffic between the city center, the bus station and the main train station. This pedestrian tunnel was about 150 meters long and began immediately north of the Döppersberg bridge , which forms a connection across the Wupper to the adjoining Alte Freiheit, the beginning of the Elberfeld pedestrian zone and the suspension railway station. In its course to the south, it was designed as an open and slightly downhill ramp for the first 30 meters in order to cross under the B 7. After that it rose continuously to enable step-free access to the lower level of the Wuppertal main station. There were three branching staircases that lead to the bus station, Döppersberg street and Bahnhofstraße . In the lower, northern section of the tunnel there were smaller shops on both sides of the passage. The tunnel was designed for the daily passage of 60,000 citizens. The cost of the building was 3.25 million German marks.

The tunnel was ceremoniously opened to the public on December 1st, 1961 by the then mayor Heinz Frowein . If the tunnel with the modern technology used - the tunnel was illuminated with neon tubes along its entire length - was celebrated at the time as a pioneering urban and traffic-building project, the traces of the years of maintenance backlog were finally unmistakable and it was not only visible in the evening and night hours often felt as a dream of fear. In recent years, the tunnel has been nicknamed "urethra" because of its sometimes penetrating smell. As part of the ongoing renovation of the Döppersberg, the tunnel was closed on January 19, 2015 and replaced by a bridge to the main train station.

Planning and remodeling

Construction site on Döppersberg in April 2012

In the 1990s this condition was no longer accepted. The Cologne architectural office Jaspert + Steffens won an urban planning competition. They suggested a reorganization of the intersection, a new construction of the bus station next to the main train station, a new construction of office buildings and an above-ground pedestrian connection. These plans have been implemented gradually since 2010 as part of the Regionale 2006 and should be fully implemented by around 2017.

After it had been unclear for a long time how the financing would look, an agreement was reached with the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia in the course of 2007. According to a calculation from 2007, the city will have to contribute a third of the 90 million euro project. It was hoped that Deutsche Bahn could be held responsible at the same time and that the main station could be modernized at the same time. So far, however, the DB has taken the position that this station is not a top priority and that other four stations in North Rhine-Westphalia should be modernized beforehand. In January 2018, Deutsche Bahn announced that it would sell the station building together with several outbuildings. Whether the city ​​of Wuppertal , Wuppertaler Stadtwerke or a private investor will buy the building is currently still open.

Before the actual construction work began in 2010, some peripheral measures had to be tackled and completed. The Südstraßering was redesigned by the end of 2007 with the approval of the Blücher Bridge , and in 2008 repairs were carried out on the Brausenwerther Bridge and Ohligsmühler Bridge . At the same time, a construction site was set up at Robert-Daum-Platz and a Wupper bridge was also repaired here.

The construction site in April 2016

The actual renovation work began in December 2010 with the demolition of a cross bar next to the station building. From March to August 2011, the Immermannstrasse bridge was demolished prematurely. The new bus parking area was completed in September 2011. In October 2011, the earthworks for the construction of the new underground car park and the new bus station began. In November 2011 the flood ditch below the Döppersberg was drained for the planned lowering of the B 7. In December 2011 the construction of the new retaining wall at the Wuppertal Institute began.

From the end of October 2012 the Döppersberg road was closed and lowered. From the end of November 2012, the eastern part of the porch was demolished. The tenants, a drugstore, a bank branch, a bakery and a pub were given notice on September 30, 2012 and closed their branches in August and September 2012. The western part of the porch, the Döppersberg tunnel and the bus station remained in operation until the end of 2014. Meanwhile, the wall was also converted for two-way traffic (for buses and taxis). After the Döppersberg tunnel has been closed, the main station is now connected to the city center by a pedestrian bridge. Platform 1 can be reached barrier-free via the newly designed bus station and the connection to the pedestrian bridge. Tracks 2 and 3 as well as 4 and 5 can be reached by elevator. According to information provided by the railway, the elevator to platforms 2 and 3 is currently out of order.

Between 2015 and 2017, the investor Signature Capital GmbH and the international architecture firm Chapman Taylor built a commercial building with several thousand square meters of retail space between the main train station and downtown Elberfeld. After the interior work, Primark opened its 29th branch in Germany as the anchor tenant on April 16, 2018 .

The B 7 was closed from July 21, 2014 to July 10, 2017 between Brausenwerth and Kasinostraße.

Web links

Commons : Döppersberg  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedemann Bräuer: A journey through time on the Döppersberg. In: Westdeutsche Zeitung of September 11, 2016
  2. ↑ unterage-überage.de , air raid shelter in Wuppertal - underground bunker Döppersberg
  3. ↑ a b c From the old tunnel to the new bridge. In: umbau-döppersberg.de
  4. ↑ 50 years of the Döppersberg Tunnel Westdeutsche Zeitung (online) from December 1, 2011
  5. ^ City of Wuppertal - traffic. (No longer available online.) In: www.wuppertal.de. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015 ; accessed on September 7, 2015 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wuppertal.de
  6. ↑ 500,000 euros for planning Döppersberg Westdeutsche Zeitung (online) from January 8, 2008
  7. ↑ Andreas Boller: The railway in Wuppertal prefers to be built by others . In: Westdeutsche Zeitung . December 20, 2017 ( wz.de [accessed January 14, 2018]).
  8. ↑ Question & Answer: Wuppertaler Stadtwerke. Retrieved April 24, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Wuppertal Hbf. Accessed April 24, 2019 (German).
  10. ↑ News from the construction site - Döppersberg . In: Döppersberg . September 10, 2015 ( doeppersberg.info [accessed July 25, 2017]).
  11. ↑ Special Topics. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 25, 2017 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / sonderthemen.wuppertal.wz.de
  12. ^ Westdeutsche Zeitung: Primark textile discounter opens 370 in Wuppertal. Branch worldwide. Retrieved April 24, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Decision - the B7 will be closed ( Memento from July 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Andreas Boller: Döppersberg: The goal is still a long way off. In: Solinger Tageblatt. July 24, 2017. Retrieved July 25, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Gabi Ramme: B7 in Wuppertal released again . July 10, 2017 ( wdr.de [accessed July 24, 2017]).

Coordinates: 51 ° 15 ′ 21 ″  N , 7 ° 9 ′ 1 ″  E