Former town hall Burtscheid (Neubad)
The former town hall Burtscheid , later Neubad and Haus des Gastes, now the House of Hearing in the Aachen district of Burtscheid , was built in 1823 by the master builder Wilhelm Christian Ulich in a classicist style and is the only surviving evidence of the spa architecture in Dammstrasse.
history
In the area of the building site of the later town hall, hot springs have been known to leak out since Roman times . During excavation work for the foundations of the town hall, the remains of Roman baths were found. Numerous, abundant thermal springs have been mentioned in documents in the immediate vicinity since the Middle Ages . Since 1425 the most abundant spring in the area has been called the hot spring buysen dem Driesch or warm puddle (dialect : ejene kauche Pötz ). The first legal disputes between the citizens of Burtscheid and the abbess Katharina von Effern over water rights date back to 1495 and have lasted 50 years. The first bath houses were built around the thermal springs at the "Driesch": the Drieschbad , mentioned for the first time in an interest transfer document in 1516, the Balneum fontis (the Quellenbad , later New Bath ), also depicted for the first time in 1688 in the bathing script by Franciscus Blondel . A characteristic feature of the Balneum fontis is a round fountain in front of the half-timbered house , which was Burtscheid's most famous sight for centuries. The bathhouse was later given different names, Badehaus Im Pütz and Neubad . The representation of the new and Driesch baths in the painting by Lucas van Valckenborch von Burtscheid gives an impression of the baths in the late 16th century. The middle baths, which included all bathhouses in the Driesches area, were rebuilt several times in the period that followed. The half-timbered houses were gradually replaced by massive stone buildings and smaller baths such as the Driesch and Krebsbad (1788) were merged.
The cooking fountain
The warm Pütz or Kochbrunnen flowing between the baths and the warm brook has been the attraction for spa guests since the 17th century. Numerous travel accounts report that eggs were boiled in nets in the hot water to pass the time for the spa guests. On the other hand, feathered and bristle cattle were scalded here. The cooking fountain was not covered until the beginning of the 19th century. This resulted in several fatal accidents in which people fell or were toppled in the thermal fountain with a temperature of almost 70 ° C. Temporary wooden borders that were placed around the fountain at the beginning of the 19th century quickly deteriorated in the hot, aggressive steam. In 1865, the spring basin of the Kochbrunnen was framed by an oval stone basin, which below the spring water level had an inlet to the neighboring bathhouses. As part of air protection measures , the Kochbrunnen was covered with a stone slab in 1939 so that it could not represent a source of danger during the blackout. Today the Kochbrunnen is hidden under a square concrete cover near the mill wheel in front of the former Burtscheid town hall.
New construction of the town hall in Burtscheid
In 1802 the newly founded canton of Burtscheid was subordinated to the district administrator of the Aachen district. The administration was initially headed by an honorary mayor .
Soon a new town hall was needed in Burtscheid in order to concentrate the administration. The agricultural inspector Wilhelm Christian Ulich was commissioned to plan the building. The foundation stone was laid on March 3, 1823 in the presence of the District President van Reiman. The building was handed over on February 1, 1824. The construction costs amounted to 4,200 thalers . In addition to the headquarters of the administration in Burtscheid, the town hall was also temporarily the cantonal prison and police station.
Because the premises of the administration building were already too small after 60 years, the town hall was sold in 1883 to Peter Willeskens-Bey, the hotel owner of the neighboring Drieschbad for 20,000 marks. The mayor's office was given new premises in the west wing of the former imperial abbey of Burtscheid . The cantonal prison was moved to Aachen .
Conversion to a new bathroom
After the town hall was sold, the building was merged with the neighboring Drieschbad and equipped with a modern interior. During the renovation work in 1883, three new thermal springs were discovered, which, however, could not meet the needs of thermal water for the spa guests. The necessary hot water was supplied from the neighboring boiling well . The construction of the sewerage system in 1903 radically intervened in the thermal spring system, so that the water level and temperature of the springs fell sharply.
The buildings were rebuilt several times in the first two decades of the 20th century, in particular the building section of the neighboring former Drieschbad was increased by two storeys. A renovation of the 72-room bath hotel was completed on May 2, 1914. After the renovation, the bath house had 18 bath cells and 6 thermal water showers. When Belgian occupation soldiers were quartered after the end of the First World War , the building structure was badly damaged and the number of spa guests decreased continuously. In the mid-1920s, the spa was temporarily stopped. In the 1930s, a branch of the Aachener Sparkasse was set up on the ground floor .
Destruction and rebuilding
Neubad was badly hit in the bombing raid on Burtscheid on April 11, 1944. The part of the building of the former Drieschbad was - like almost all bathhouses in Dammstrasse - completely burned out, the former town hall building was badly damaged. Immediately after the war, Hans Königs , Aachen's first city curator, took the first security measures to protect the building from the threat of decay and demolition. Demolishing the building was still a serious issue until the end of the 1950s. In addition to Hans Königs, his father Arnold Königs also campaigned intensively for the preservation of the former town hall building.
The building was reconstructed and renovated in 1963 in collaboration with the architect Leo Hugot .
use
On August 19, 1963, a branch of the spa and traffic office of the city of Aachen was opened in the former Neubad. In addition to the spa guest information, the building also had reading and social rooms. The building has been used as a house of hearing and a practice building since 2005 .
Architecture and monument protection
The three-axis, classicistic building was originally designed as a free-standing three-storey front building, later it was connected to the neighboring Drieschbad to form a single building. The ground floor was clad with strip plaster, on the upper floor Ionic collassal pilasters are the defining architectural element. In the attic, a flat gable emphasizes the central axis. The building is now a listed building.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Manfred Vigener: Living water. The Aachen and Burtscheider thermal springs , Ecology Center Aachen, p. 105, Aachen, 2000
- ↑ Ludwig Engels: From Alt-Burtscheid: From Burtscheider baths in earlier times: Echo of the present, December 4, 1926, Aachen
- ↑ Ludwig Engels: From Alt-Burtscheid: From Burtscheider baths in earlier times : Echo of the present, December 4, 1926, Aachen
- ^ Jean Baptist Poissenot: Coup-d'oeil historique et statistique sur la ville d'Aix-la-Chapelle et ses environs, pouvant servir d'itinéraire , La Ruelle, Aachen, 1808, 311 pp.
- ↑ Angelika Pauels: Under eagle and swan. The chronicle of the mayor's office Burtscheid for the years 1814 to 1886 , Aachen 1997, publications of the city archive Aachen, vol. 9 edited by Thomas R. Kraus , ISBN 3-930701-39-1
- ^ Claudia Erdmann: Burtscheid at the French time - with lists of residents from 1806-1812 , pp. 4–7, Verlag Gesellschaft Burtscheid for history and present, Aachen, 1997
- ↑ Holger A. Dux : Aachen von AZ , p. 70, Aschendorff, Münster, 2003, ISBN 3-402-05465-5
- ↑ Bernhard Dautzenberg: Burtscheid and its narrower fringes once - then - now , p. 57, Geschichtsverein Burtscheid, Aachen, 1976
- ↑ Ignaz Beissel, I .: The Aachener Sattel and the thermal springs that break out of the same. , P. 194, Aachen (1886)
- ↑ Politisches Tageblatt: Neubad Aachen - Burtscheid , May 2, 1915, Aachen
- ↑ Ludwina Forst, Béatrice Austria & Dieter Detiège: Business Times. Thouet, Aachen 2011, ISBN 978-3-930594-37-5 , p. 137
- ↑ Ludwina Forst: King's Way. In the footsteps of the first city curator, Hans Königs (1903–1988). Pp. 175-176, Thouet, Aachen 2008, ISBN 3-930594-33-1
- ↑ Landeskonservator Rheinland, with the help of Hans Königs : Monument Directory, 1.2. Aachen - other parts of the city , p. 33, Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne, 1978
Coordinates: 50 ° 45 '48.4 " N , 6 ° 5' 35.1" E