Fürstenhof (Eisenach)
The former Kurhotel Fürstenhof is a hotel complex in the southern quarter of the city of Eisenach in Thuringia . The buildings, which have been vacant since the mid-1990s, are in a ruinous state and are at least partially threatened with demolition.
location
The Fürstenhof is located in Eisenach Südviertel within the surface monument Villengebiet Karthaeuser height in Luisenstrasse 11-13 above the at Wartburgallee located Kartausgartens with the pump room and above the art pavilions .
history
In 1854 master butcher Samuel Liebetrau laid the foundations of what would later become a complex hotel with a summer house. This was bought in 1861 by the geologist and mining entrepreneur Johann Georg Bornemann and gradually expanded with additions. The result was the villa "Villa Bornemann", which was sold on after the death of Johann Georg Bornemann. It was rebuilt and expanded in 1902 according to a design by the architects Georg Unruh and Lorenz Freitag and the “ Kurhaus Hotel Fürstenhof” opened in the building on May 15, 1902 . At that time, the large ballroom already offered space for 1,800 people and was at that time the largest event hall in Thuringia. The bourgeois upper class in Eisenach endeavored to transform the place into a glamorous spa town based on the model of Baden-Baden . In 1903, a Kurhaus terrace with garages on the ground floor and another cave room on the mezzanine was built on Waisenstrasse. After the spa town plans had been given up, the Kurhaus became the “Hotel Fürstenhof” through further extensions and renovations. The gradual expansion gave it an eclectic appearance. Several onion domes were striking on the building, most of which are no longer preserved today. A casino was built on the foundation walls of the Kurhaus terrace in the 1920s.
In 1928 there was a fire in the building, which destroyed the ballroom and thus the center of the building complex. Afterwards it was rebuilt in a simplified form in 1930 based on a design by Curt Mergenbaum, Willy Krüger and Hermann Fischer-Barnicol on behalf of the city of Eisenach.
The early 1930s were also marked by political instability in Eisenach. The ballroom, which has now been enlarged to 2000 seats, was often booked for election campaign events. On July 5, 1932, a fraternization of the KPD and SPD local groups in Eisenach founded the “Red United Front of the Eisenach workers”, and on October 23, 1932, Adolf Hitler was the main speaker at an election event of the local NSDAP group in Eisenach.
During the Second World War tourism fell sharply, and the larger hotels in Eisenach were instructed to make the majority of the rooms available for use as front-line rest homes and for rehabilitation of the wounded. The hotel remained undamaged during the aerial battles in September 1944 and after the city surrendered in April 1945. First, homeless people and refugees were admitted. In autumn the city administration began to prepare the hall as a podium for future events. On September 25th, the then Lord Mayor Karl Hermann reported on the initial successes in building the city and used the evening to present his plans for the upcoming renovation of the city administration. This was followed by major events by the Eisenach SPD and the KPD local groups on October 19 and November 9, 1945. On February 19, 1946, Wilhelm Pieck promoted the merger of the KPD and the SPD.
In the following years the hotel was extensively renovated and also served as a venue for cultural, sporting and dance events, for dance school balls and gala events for the city administration and Eisenach businesses. In the 1950s, the house was renamed "Hotel Stadt Eisenach"; It did not get its original name back until 1991.
The decline of the buildings due to insufficient maintenance had already started after 1945. In 1996 the hotel was finally closed and has been empty since then. Vandalism, theft, arson and a lack of building maintenance led to the structural deterioration of the building. Investigations in 2000 and 2003 came to the conclusion that renovation would be uneconomical. In 2004 the monument protection for the building complex was lifted - also in view of the structural decay and the architectural losses during the GDR era. Since then, the buildings have been subject to ensemble protection in the “Villa Area Karthäuser Höhe” monument and are part of the replacement and supplementary area “ Wandelhalle ” in the southern quarter. A year later, the Fürstenhof was sold in a foreclosure auction. The city of Eisenach waived its statutory right of first refusal.
Based on an expert report that confirmed the inefficiency of the renovation, the owner applied for the demolition of the entire building complex in November 2014. The Eisenach city administration rejected the complete demolition and, on the initiative of the then building department head Andreas Ludwig, created the prerequisites to include the property in the urban redevelopment area "Innenstadt-Georgenvorstadt" in order to give the owner access to funds for partial maintenance of the building complex. If this is seen as an economic solution, it is now planned to preserve the former Bornemann villa and the villa to the south with the distinctive "Fürstenhof" logo.
Web links
- Pictures of the interior of the hotel from 2018
Individual evidence
- ↑ Herlind Reiß (2006): City of Eisenach, villas and country houses at the foot of the Wartburg.
- ^ "Monument-protected Eisenacher Fürstenhof will be demolished" . In: Thüringische Landeszeitung from January 8, 2015.
- ↑ Sascha Willms: Partial preservation as a last chance for Eisenacher Fürstenhof . In: Thüringer Allgemeine from April 21, 2015.