Fürstenhof (Cologne)

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Hotel Furstenhof (1911)
West side (2011)

The former Hotel Fürstenhof is an office and commercial building in Cologne 's Altstadt-Nord district . Due to its location directly opposite the cathedral, the building on the corner plot of Marzellenstrasse 2–8 / Trankgasse is one of the most famous secular structures in Cologne. It was built in 1911 and 1912 based on a design by the Cologne architect Carl Moritz .

history

Up until the construction of the Fürstenhof there were four or, at last, three buildings on the site. It was not until 1888 that the Hotel Englischer Hof was built on the corner property at Marzellenstrasse 2-4 based on a design by the architect and city councilor Heinrich Nagelschmidt and on behalf of the Schmitz brewery based in Müngersdorf . Its restaurant was initially well attended, but after a short time it no longer met the changed expectations. These had risen sharply due to the numerous new hotels in the area around the turn of the century ( Dom-Hotel , Kölner Hof , Hotel Ernst Excelsior and others). The house at Marzellenstrasse 6 has housed a distillery for decades , the neighboring house 4 a butcher's shop . Already before 1900, the two properties at Marzellenstrasse 2-4 and 6 came into the ownership of the newly founded Hotel GmbH. After the latter was also able to take possession of the adjoining property at Marzellenstrasse 8, lengthy negotiations began to rebuild the entire area. The district president finally granted the approval after an expert opinion from the cathedral builder Bernhard Hertel was available . He had assessed Carl Moritz's project planning in particular with regard to the extent to which the new building took into account the “dignity of the cathedral and the artistically uniform design of the cathedral square”. During the examination, Hertel particularly considered the issue of an unobstructed street view of the cathedral. This had already been significantly improved from Marzellenstrasse by widening it, but it was necessary to prevent new buildings from reaching too great a height. While the facade on Trankgasse turned out to be five-storey due to an architectural adaptation to the recently completed Hotel Ernst Excelsior, the top floor in Marzellenstrasse was not closed, but rather let it protrude inward at the rear. The first floor accommodated shops from the start. Above was a café from which an excellent unobstructed view of the cathedral was possible. At the beginning there were over 40 hotel rooms with eight bathrooms and ancillary rooms on the three upper floors. The walls of the opened on December 20, 1911 cafes were held in delicate yellow, the dark what furniture in mahogany pleasantly took off. The exposure took place through "precious, artistically executed lighting fixtures". According to a newspaper article, the location could compete with the finest addresses in other major cities.

In 1936 the establishment became the property of the Schwabenbräu corporation in Düsseldorf . In a four-month renovation phase based on a design and under the direction of the Düsseldorf architect Ernst Huhn , the hotel was redesigned on all floors. Deficiencies in the organizational structure of the inside of the house had to be corrected as well as to help the café to achieve the number of visitors that were to be expected given its location. “Maybe it was because the Cologne resident reluctantly climbs stairs to get to his bottle or his cup of coffee, but the stranger couldn't find the way.” In the course of the renovation, the shops on the first floor and the stairs from there up to the Cafe away. The ground floor now accommodated the “Zur Pauluswache” tavern and beyond that a restaurant that could be used as a café in the afternoon. The tavern was accessible from both Marzellenstrasse and the restaurant. A new staircase was installed on the first floor; instead of the generally open café in the middle of the hotel, it was now used exclusively for hotel guests (breakfast room, lounge, etc.). Above that, there were 62 guest rooms with a total of 85 beds on the three upper floors and the attic . The restaurant and café on the ground floor were decorated with murals by the painters Hans Kirchner (Cologne) and Küppers (Düsseldorf) with motifs from Cologne's history and legend. The wrought iron lamps made of metalsmith Heinrich Hecker, who performed several internal details in the tavern "To Paul Guard".

At the end of the Second World War , the Hotel Fürstenhof was only relatively slightly damaged. The first comprehensive restoration took place in 1946/1947 under the direction of the architect Josef Kögl (1890–1968) for the current owner, the Erste Allgemeine Unfall- und Damage-Versicherungs-Gesellschaft in Munich. In 1966, however, the hotel closed. While the upper floors were used for office purposes and the first floor accommodated changing restaurants, the ground floor including the basement was converted into a sales salon for the Volkswagen general agency Fleischhauer. The exhibition area offered space for 15 automobiles, 52 m² of the sidewalk area in front of the shop windows was provided with electric underfloor heating to keep it free of snow and black ice in winter. The 18-month renovation work for Fleischhauer, which was completed in November 1967, was based on designs by the Cologne architect Hans Schilling , who was assisted by other architects during the overall renovation work. In 1973 Fleischhauer left the Fürstenhof. One of the first McDonald’s branches in Cologne has been located there since the mid-1970s .

architecture

The five-storey building with 3  axes on Trankgasse and 7 axes on Marzellestraße is stylistically a further development that is not atypical for Moritz and is based on a classicist-baroque tradition. The first and second as well as the third and fourth floors form a unit. The first and second floors are particularly emphasized by their flat, wave-like curves, which are also figuratively decorated. At the top they are separated from the third floor by a surrounding stone balustrade . The ground floor was redesigned several times after the Second World War. The original high mansard roof was only restored in a simplified form after 1945. At the intersection of the two streets, on the level of the second floor, there is a seated bearded figure, underneath the words “Fürstenhof”.

The Fürstenhof was entered in the monuments list of the city of Cologne on June 4, 1987 (monument no. 4167).

literature

  • Wolfram Hagspiel : Cologne-Marienburg. Buildings and architects of a villa suburb. (= Stadtspuren, Denkmäler in Köln , Volume 8.) 2 volumes, JP Bachem Verlag , Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-7616-1147-1 , Volume 2, pp. 892–895 (mention of the Füstenhof in the Carl Moritz list of works).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ From the area around the cathedral. In: Stadtanzeiger , No. 181 IV of April 22, 1911.
  2. ↑ A new café. In: Kölner Tageblatt , No. 585 of December 21, 1911.
  3. ↑ Cologne richer by a good hotel. Successful renovation of the Fürstenhof hotel and restaurant. In: Westdeutscher Beobachter , No. 36 from January 20, 1937.
  4. ↑ VW sales salon also at the cathedral. On cold days: floor heating for the pavement. In: Kölnische Rundschau of November 30, 1967.

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 31 "  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 22.3"  E