Europa House (Hanover)

The Europe House at Kröpcke , Georgstraße corner Karmarschstraße

The Europa-Haus in Hanover is the first new commercial building to be built in the Lower Saxony state capital after the Second World War . The building above the historic cellar vault of the Brackebusch am Kröpcke house at today's address Georgstraße 26 at the corner of Karmarschstraße in the Mitte district is a symbol of the city's reconstruction .

history

House Brackebusch (center) at the corner Karmarschstraße , left the Hotel Continental , in front of the former Café Kröpcke ;
Postcard No. 535 (so-called moonlight card ) from Karl F. Wunder , around 1898

Historical ribbed vault in the basement of the Europe House , now used by the restaurant Jack the Ripper 's London Tavern , English-style pubs

" Fireplace -" and smoking - Lounge " Miter Square " in the " London Tavern "

The Europa House at night

When, a few years after the founding of the German Empire in 1878 the relocation of the former Polytechnic (now the University of Hannover ) was imminent, the contractor was able to Ferdinand Wallbrecht with Karmarschstraße the first road breakthrough across the centuries-old rectified main streets of the Hanoverian old town make - namely " purely private sector ". The architect Hubert Stier built the so-called "Brackebusch House" in 1881 as a corner building on Georgstrasse .

The building survived both the German Empire and the Weimar Republic , but not the time of National Socialism : During the Second World War, it was destroyed by aerial bombs during the air raids on Hanover . Under the rubble of the city, which was soon to be 48 percent destroyed, only the basement rooms with their ribbed vaults remained .

From the year of the currency reform in 1948 and the year the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949, the commercial school clerk Friedrich Buhmann , the founder of Dr. Buhmann Schule , one of the driving personalities in the Hanover construction community : On Buhmann's order, the architect Joseph Herlitzius built the Europa-Haus , building on the preserved basement of the previous building and following the first (re) "construction plan" in the historic street lines : The topping-out ceremony for the first newly built high-rise building in Hanover took place on December 16, 1948 “in the presence of the City Director Gustav Bratke and the Head of Construction Prof. Dr. Rudolf Hillebrecht ”. In 1949 the elevator of the elevator manufacturer Hävemeier & Sander went into operation. As the first new commercial building in Hanover after the war, the Europa-Haus became the "corner dominant of the Kröpckeplatz [which was just being built ...] and as a symbol for the reconstruction at the same time the head building of the later added row of houses in Karmarschstrasse .

The ribbed vaulting preserved from the 19th century below the street level were later "gloomy" associations to similar old London taverns and the time of Jack the Ripper arise: The historic cellar setting is now used (as of 03/2014) of an English-style pubs furnished restaurant Jack the Ripper's London Tavern .

In the spring of 2019, the facade of the Europa-Haus was extensively renovated.

Building description

The part of the Europa-Haus visible above ground was built as a 6- to 7-storey, simple concrete skeleton building with a flat roof staggered back . The corner building, plastered in white, holds an arcade on the ground floor , which was originally intended to be continued by the new business buildings that were built later on in Karmarschstrasse.

literature

• Architects and Engineers Association Hanover (Ed.), Theodor Unger (Red.): Hanover. Guide through the city and its buildings. Commemorative publication for the fifth general assembly of the Association of German Architects and Engineers . Klindworth, Hannover 1882, p. 30, 197ff. (Reprints: Vincentz, Hannover 1978, ISBN 3-87870-154-3 and Europäische Hochschulverlag, Bremen 2010, ISBN 978-3-86741-493-7 ).
• Helmut Knocke , Hugo Thielen : Georgstraße 26. In: Hannover Art and Culture Lexicon , 2007, p. 121.
• Helmut Knocke: Europe House. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 167.

Web links

Commons : Europahaus (Hannover)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Helmut Knocke: Europe House. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 167.
2. ↑ Helmut Knocke: Karmarschstrasse. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 337.
3. ^ Klaus Mlynek : Second World War. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover , pp. 694f.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Compare the documentation at Commons (see under the section Weblinks )
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Helmut Knocke, Hugo Thielen: Georgstraße 26. In: Hannover Art and Culture Lexicon , p. 121.
6. ^ Waldemar R. Röhrbein : Buhmann, Dr. B. School. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 96.

Coordinates: 52 ° 22 ′ 27.6 ″  N , 9 ° 44 ′ 17.6 ″  E