Poets' Quarter (Duisburg)

Dichterviertel, Schillerstrasse

The poet's quarter in the Duisburg - Hamborner district Obermarxloh is a workers' settlement from the beginning of the 20th century. The name arises from the numerous street names given after German poets.

construction

At the beginning of the 20th century, the population in the north of Duisburg grew rapidly. Before the turn of the century, there were less than 10,000 inhabitants in the village of Hamborn, but in 1905 the number was around 60,000, and in 1911 it was over 100,000. Hamborn was one of the fastest growing settlements in the Ruhr area with the corresponding need for apartments.

For the miners of the nearby Friedrich Thyssen colliery , the German Emperors' union built the poet's quarter between 1905 and 1918, and in some peripheral areas until 1924. 370 buildings were built on an area of ​​15 hectares. The quarter is bordered in the north by Kampstrasse and Kalthoffstrasse, in the southeast by Nordfriedhof and in the west by Duisburger Strasse. The basic plan consists of 25 courtyard areas of different sizes, but of equal size, with two to three-storey perimeter blocks . The buildings are embellished with Art Nouveau elements, the streets are grid-shaped and at right angles, the inner courtyards housed stables, farm buildings and toilet buildings that were used until the 1950s. The street crossings are emphasized by corner buildings, various design elements on the roof, on the windows and in the plaster and clinker surfaces ensure a varied picture. In contrast to the garden city-like Margarethensiedlung in Rheinhausen , which was built recently, the dense and largely uniform development with many residential units is striking.

revolt

Before and during the First World War , the Dichter-Viertel and Hamborn as a whole were politically left-wing, it was called the Spartakistennest . After the November Revolution of 1918, the miners tried to achieve better working conditions and wages with strikes, rallies and solidarity marches to the neighboring mines in Oberhausen , Osterfeld and Sterkrade , which was partially successful. In the Kapp Putsch of March 1920, armed miners resisted the attack on the young Weimar Republic . During the National Socialist era , the KPD and other groups resisted the National Socialists , and coal miner Kurt Spindler was one of them. He was initially a KPD city ​​councilor in Hamborn and a works council on shaft 4/8, was deported to the moor camp in 1932 and, after his release, built up an extensive underground organization . Arrested in 1935 and sentenced in 1937, he died in a concentration camp near Celle in 1943 . Kurt-Spindler-Strasse in the Dichterviertel reminds of him today.

Redevelopment and district management

In the 1980s and 1990s, the apartments were fundamentally modernized by the then owner Rhein-Lippe-Wohnen GmbH with the support of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the city of Duisburg , so large parts of the housing stock still have social ties to this day. Despite the renovations and extensive urban development and social measures, the relatively high vacancy rate and fluctuations could not be reduced. The city of Duisburg, in particular the offices for urban development / project management and social affairs / housing, as well as the owner company that was merged with Evonik Wohnen, planned to set up a district management system in the Dichter-Viertel from the end of 2004 in order to counteract the negative trend. Funding from the Urban Redevelopment West program was approved at the end of 2005, the project was set up from 2006 to 2007 and the district office was set up on Goetheplatz. In 2008, the development company Duisburg (EG DU) , founded in 1999 and already active in other parts of the city, took over the management of the district. After the funding expired at the end of 2009, today's Evonik Immobilien ^{[obsolete] will provide} the majority of the funds so that the program can be continued.

The program is intended to encourage and guide the residents of the district to self-reliant commitment to the common good and to promote the development of structures to strengthen a comprehensive social network. The district office is designed as a contact point and meeting point. Joint events (e.g. district festivals) and campaigns (including garbage collection and greening campaigns) are carried out, a housing exchange is set up and operated, local services are offered and supported by residents for residents (silver services), and documentation is created (e.g. a story book ), local institutions and actors are supported in establishing cooperation and networking, integration and citizen participation are promoted by various working groups (working groups for language, education, resident participation, children, youth, culture and sport) and a district advisory board.

According to the city of Duisburg, the objectives of neighborhood management are:

• Reduction of vacant apartments
• Stabilizing the neighborhoods
• Reduction of housing emergencies and above-average "social imbalances"
• Retention of existing customers / acquisition of new tenants
• Improvement of the image of the quarter

Current condition

The 1,685 residential units , which are mainly owned by Evonik Immobilien ^[obsolete] , had a little less than 6,000 residents in 2010. The proportion of foreigners is 60%, mostly migrants of Turkish origin. An above-average number of residents receive transfer payments. The proportion of foreigners was already high when the settlement was founded, at that time it was mostly Poles, Italians, Dutch and other guest workers who sometimes joined together in blocks.

The settlement is part of the Route of Industrial Heritage .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Site plan from the Hamborn Atlas from 1914 ( Memento of the original from June 20, 2015 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.  
2. ↑ ^{a b} Project database for urban redevelopment west: Dichterviertel Duisburg, status October 2010 (PDF; 124 kB)
3. ↑ City of Duisburg: Portrait Dichterviertel ( Memento of the original from April 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Hamborn.net: Hamborn poet's quarter

Web links

• Portrait of the poet's quarter with maps, plans, project description
• Description of this sight on the route of industrial culturehttp: //vorlage.rik.test/~3~10306

Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 50.5 ″  N , 6 ° 46 ′ 48.7 ″  E