Frankfurt fairytale fountain
The Märchenbrunnen or Schauspielhausbrunnen in Frankfurt am Main is located at the Untermainanlage next to the Frankfurt City Theaters . It is an Art Nouveau fountain that was completed in 1910.
history
The construction of the fairy tale fountain was suggested and financed by the art patron Leo Gans , who, as head of the Cassella works in Fechenheim , founded an art fund at the turn of the century and spent 150,000 marks (around 1 million euros in today's purchasing power) on the project. The sculptor Friedrich Christoph Hausmann was commissioned to design the fountain figure from white Tyrolean marble, a nymph (popularly known as the “Mainweibchen”). In the house of the well-known Jewish aristocratic family Carl and Arthur von Weinberg , where many social events took place, the choice fell on a pretty young washerwoman from Niederrad employed there : Margarete Endres, who later became the wife of the organist Eduard Gelbart . She was the daughter of a rubber master mixer from Lower Franconia - not a baker, as is often wrongly said. In 1906 (she was 19 years old at the time) she was the model for the Städel professor Friedrich Hausmann.
However, the total work of art was only inaugurated four years later in August 1910 next to what was then the “ New Playhouse ”, because the Bismarck monument , which was also being worked on nearby, had to be redesigned. At the base of the eight-meter high fountain small water-spouting play mythical creatures , fish and lizards from bronze of the nymph 's feet. The grotto-like fountain is framed by a brick half-shell made of shell limestone .
The bronze figures were melted down in World War II and not replaced for a long time. Using photographs from the 1920s, they were reconstructed in 2005/06 by the North Korean Mansudae Overseas Projects at the Mansudae art studio . The contacts were made in the run-up to the Frankfurt Book Fair 2004 in order to persuade North Korea to participate in the fair and to strengthen the reform process of the socialist country - a controversial decision in Frankfurt. Financial considerations also played a role in the award of the contract. At times, the Märchenbrunnen also had to make way for an underground car park. Since May 2006 it has been completely reconstructed in the Untermainanlage west of the Frankfurt Opera .
See also
literature
- Fairytale fountain. Frankfurt am Main. Ed. Office for Science and Art, Frankfurt am Main 2006; with contributions by Klaus Klemp and Philipp Sturm
Press
- Secret revealed after 100 years. The naked beauty from the fountain. Frankfurter Neue Presse, June 22, 2004
- The dictatorship of the price. Frankfurter Neue Presse, December 16, 2005
- Five days in Pyongyang. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 17, 2005
Web links
- Art in public space Frankfurt: Frankfurt fairy tale fountain
- Minutes of the meeting of the city council to reconstruct the fountain, December 13, 2005 (PDF; 35 kB)
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 30.1 ″ N , 8 ° 40 ′ 22.9 ″ E