Former regional and district court Düsseldorf (building)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Courthouse, portico
Courthouse, side elevation
Justice building on Mühlenstrasse (1914)
Staircase in the portal
Rear face during the current reconstruction of the Karees, risalits partly covered with tarpaulin (2012)

The former regional and district court building is located at Mühlenstraße 34 in Düsseldorf's old town . The listed building was built from 1913 to 1923 based on designs by Felix Dechant on the site of the governor's palace, which was demolished in 1912 . Construction began during the boom phase before the First World War , when the rapidly growing city was described as the “ desk of the Ruhr area” . The current state and district court building is located in a new building at Werdener Strasse 1 in Düsseldorf-Oberbilk .

description

The building shows the monumental building program of a neo-baroque palace of justice of the Wilhelminism . Four storeys and the hipped roof , on which an oval roof turret is arranged in the center, rise above a basement . The main facade on Mühlenstraße shows the symmetrical order of a baroque palace with a central projectile and two side projections . A portico with six columns in a colossal order with Ionic capitals forms the central projectile . The portico with its columns is reminiscent of a temple front . The pillars support an architrave with a tooth cut , on which six tall figures sit. Pilasters are presented to the side elevations . The building is clad with clinker brick , a material that had a decisive influence on building in Düsseldorf in the years to come . The brick facade shows uniformly lime- stone- framed windows in an even axial row.

Above the portico, larger- than- life personifications of the virtues by the sculptor Hubert Netzer can be seen as seated images . Fritz Coubillier created the parapet reliefs on the first floor of the portico and risalite. They symbolize the good and bad qualities, war and peace. Head medallions made by Leopold Fleischhacker can be seen on the parapets of the corner projections .

Further use

Entrance hall of the Andreasquartier (2017)

In the 1950s and 1960s, ancillary buildings for court operations were built on the side of the property facing away from the street, including several two to five-storey buildings as perimeter blocks and a ten-storey high-rise office building inside the ensemble. The listed facades of Palais Spinrath on the Ratinger Strasse side were integrated into the building complex.

In 2010, the buildings were given up in their original use due to their poor suitability for modern court operations. Since this development was foreseeable from 2006 at the latest, the real estate investment company Frankonia, based in Nettetal, acquired the almost 18,000 square meter property from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in March 2007. The company Frankonia & Than Immobiliengesellschaft, which has given the area the name Andreasquartier , acts as a project developer, builder and marketing company . The Austrian company Immofinanz initially acted as investor and, after its withdrawal in 2011, the insurance company LVM . LVM provides around 40 percent of the total investment of around 290 million euros from its own funds.

Initially, it was planned to convert the old building into a hotel, plus permanent apartments as well as offices and restaurants in new buildings. This was the premise for an architectural competition that was held in 2008 and won by the JSK office . After a public participation in 2009, which mainly revolved around questions of noise protection, the development plan became legally effective in March 2010. In 2010 it turned out that there would be no interested party to run the planned hotel independently. The owner company then decided to focus on residential use.

In particular, the interior design of the old court building led to disputes between the investor and the licensing authorities during the planning and construction phase. The main point of contention was the handling of the entrance hall, the corridors and other meeting rooms, which are comparatively generously laid out, but are sparingly designed due to the construction during the war and post-war period. These large traffic areas as well as the partition walls, which are up to 60 centimeters thick, and the steel stone ceiling of initially unclear load-bearing capacity, met with reservations from the new owner, but were ultimately largely retained. On the second and the floors above, the monument protection department consented to partial use of the old corridor areas as bathrooms, kitchens and other ancillary rooms. Another point of contention was the roof design, which has numerous dormers in its old condition, but should be changed to large-format windows from the investor's point of view. The facade on the street side was completely unchanged, that on the other sides was largely preserved. Because of the preservation order, only small-format French balconies have been laid out and internal insulation has been applied.

In early 2012, demolition work began to remove the more recent office buildings on the site. The earthworks were accompanied by intensive archaeological investigations. The old court building was supplemented by new additions on the courtyard side. In total, the building comprises around 120 high-quality apartments with an area of ​​42 to 360 square meters. A concierge service will be set up in the entrance hall. The cross bars of the old building are intended for office use. The quarter will have a total of almost 400 residential units and a three-story underground car park with 635 parking spaces. By far most of the apartments were built in new buildings on the site. The gross floor area of ​​all usable rooms is around 65,000 square meters. The completion of the construction work was planned for autumn 2015. The apartments are mainly marketed as owner-occupied apartments at prices between 4,000 and 16,000 euros per square meter.

On October 11, 2017, the Andreasquartier ( AQ for short ), a residential area with a hotel, apartment complex and conference center, celebrated its opening. Five new restaurants are located here: in the lobby the “AQ Lounge and Bar”, the “Café du Sommelier” and the “Mash” steakhouse to the left and right of the Mühlenstrasse entrance portal, the “20 ° Restobar” and the “Mutter-Ey” -Café “on Mutter-Ey-Platz. "Hagi's Barber Shop" opened on May 12, 2019, Mutter-Ey-Platz 5.

See also

Web links

Commons : Former District Court, Mühlenstraße 34 (Düsseldorf)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

Federal Institute for Building, Urban and Spatial Research (Ed.): Conversion of non-residential buildings into residential properties - Documentation of the case studies, 2015, PDF version

Individual evidence

  1. See entry Felix Dechant in the directory of architects on the portal kmkbuecholdt.de (de Ball - Dewitz) , accessed on September 30, 2012.
  2. Andreas-Quartier in Düsseldorf: The new Medienhafen is in the old town , in Rheinische Post from October 11, 2017.

literature

  • Jörg AE Heimeshoff : Listed houses in Düsseldorf, with garden and ground monuments. Nobel, Essen 2001, p. 188.

Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 41 ″  N , 6 ° 46 ′ 27.2 ″  E