Festhalle (Frankfurt am Main)
The Festhalle in Frankfurt am Main is a representative multi-purpose hall built between 1907 and 1909 on the Frankfurt exhibition grounds . The interior of the approximately 40 meter high dome building offers up to 4,880 seats on an area of 5,646 square meters. Together with the two tiers, there is space for a maximum of 9,843 people in the festival hall, or more than 13,500 if the interior is not seated.
history
The Frankfurt Fair was held at various permanent locations at the end of the 19th century. A common venue was the hippodrome in Sachsenhausen . Also pavilions for one-time use were common. However, it was soon recognized that the city needed a representative exhibition hall.
For this reason, a competition was held in 1906 in which the jointly developed design by the Munich architect Friedrich von Thiersch and the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg AG (MAN) was awarded one of three equal prizes (from a total of eleven projects submitted) . After the three award-winning designs had been revised several times, the Thiersch / MAN plant Gustavsburg design was designated for execution in 1907 . Construction began on June 11, 1907. On May 19, 1909 she was awarded the “3. Competition of German Male Choirs ”was officially opened in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm II . At the time it was built, it was the largest domed structure in Europe.
The German Gymnastics Festival and the International Aviation Exhibition were the first events in the new building. When the First World War began in 1914 , the festival hall was converted into a warehouse for soldiers. After the war it could initially be used again for its original purpose. On the night of 10 to 11 November 1938, during the November pogrom hundreds of Frankfurt's Jewish citizens across driven through the city center to the Festhalle and sometimes mistreated. From here the first mass transports went to the concentration camps . The festival hall is therefore of considerable importance for the Holocaust . Since 1991 a memorial plaque on the rotunda of the festival hall has been commemorating this. The Frankfurt doctor and survivor Max Kirschner describes the deportation in his memoir.
In World War II the Hall of storage of used uniforms of the Wehrmacht . On December 18, 1940, the textiles caught fire and the festival hall was badly damaged by the resulting large fire. Whether it was arson , as the National Socialists claimed , is still unclear. A bomb attack on Frankfurt damaged the festival hall a second time. After the Second World War, most of it was to be demolished, but Frankfurt citizens and Lord Mayor Walter Kolb were able to prevent this. It was initially restored provisionally. In June 1985 the conversion of the festival hall into a modern multi-purpose hall began, so a new ventilation system and a new heating system were installed. In addition, the festival hall was completely built with a cellar and several individual and group cloakrooms were set up. On November 7, 1986 the festival hall was then reopened with a three-hour gala event.
Today the hall is once again a popular venue for concerts by prominent artists. Also measuring regain place in her. Daimler AG traditionally occupies the festival hall during the International Motor Show . In the first half of the 1990s, the ATP World Championship in men's tennis was held in the Festhalle .
From 2004 to 2007, the festival hall was reconstructed according to the requirements of a historical monument. On June 29, 2007, the Chairman of the Management Board of Messe Frankfurt, Michael von Zitzewitz, inaugurated the rotunda, which had been restored to its former glory. For the 100th anniversary in 2009, the entire festival hall shone in its old splendor.
On June 28, 2009, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary, the Frankfurt Festhalle celebrated an open day , on which visitors were allowed to take a guided tour into the artist's dressing room and under the stage, as well as to take a scissor lift up to the dome ceiling.
Six days race
From 1911 to 1983, 36 six-day races were held in the Festhalle with interruptions . For this purpose, a mobile cycling track was installed. The first event took place in 1911, the second only in 1928. In 1933, the last six-day race before the Second World War took place. Since the tenant could not pay the hall rent, he had to leave the train behind, which was then burned during the war. In 1951 another six-day race was held in the rebuilt festival hall. For this purpose, a new track with a length of 192.30 meters was designed by the railway architect Clemens Schürmann . In 1983 the last six-day race for the time being took place in Frankfurt. Record winners were the local Frankfurt hero Dietrich Thurau and the Belgian Patrick Sercu with five wins each.
Architecture and construction
The festival hall is one of the most important buildings of late historicism . In his design, the architect Friedrich von Thiersch consistently relied on the pomp of the New Baroque in order to create a prestigious building worthy of the trade fair city. The floor plan consisted of the large hall as an exhibition area and an east wing for concerts and similar events. The hall should be 100 m long and 60 m wide. In the middle of the rectangle encompassed in this way is the somewhat wider round building, which should be crowned by a dome. This dome also forms a contrast to the majestic architecture of the lower part. In contrast to what was still common in comparable buildings at the time, it should remain completely uncovered. It consists only of steel and glass and its materials are similar to the construction of the platform halls at Frankfurt Central Station , which is located about a kilometer further south. The steel struts into which the glass surfaces are inserted are connected by a pressure ring that distributes the load evenly.
The planned east wing was never realized due to lack of funds. The architect's design provided for two concert halls , a few lounges and a banquet hall. A 60 m high campanile was also planned.
The festival hall was the model for many later halls of this type. The dome in particular was often imitated.
literature
- Wolf-Christian Setzepfandt : Architecture Guide Frankfurt am Main / Architectural Guide . 3. Edition. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-496-01236-6 , p. 39 (German, English).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chronicle 100 Years of the Festhalle ( Memento from April 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Memorial sites for the victims of National Socialism . (PDF; 24 MB) Federal Agency for Civic Education , p. 294
- ↑ stadtgeschichte-ffm.de ( Memento of the original from March 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Memorial plaque on the rotunda of the festival hall. ( Memento of the original from March 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Institute for City History Frankfurt .
- ↑ Short portrait of Max Kirschner on the website of the Frankfurt surgeon Bernd Hontschik
- ↑ Max Kirschner: There is a time to cry and a time to laugh. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 978-3-633-54213-0 .
- ↑ Frankfurter Festhalle turns 100. Elevating moments under the dome. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 29, 2009
- ↑ The Konzerthaus on the outskirts in FAZ from November 6, 2017, page 31
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 42 ″ N , 8 ° 39 ′ 3 ″ E