Wallrafplatz radio station

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The Wallrafplatz radio station (2011)
The broadcasting house in 1956
The interior of the radio house (1954)

Funkhaus Wallrafplatz (originally also WDR-Funkhaus Köln ) is the name for the first and therefore oldest building of the West German Broadcasting Corporation (WDR) in Cologne , named after its location on Wallrafplatz 5.

History of origin

On October 29, 1926, the supervisory board of Westdeutsche Funkstunde AG decided to relocate the transmitter from Münster (Albersloher Weg) to Cologne and at the same time rename it to WERAG . This moved into the building Dagobertstrasse 38 in Cologne and broadcast for the first time on January 15, 1927 via the new Langenberg transmitter .

WERAG was incorporated into the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG) in 1934 . In the aerial warfare of the Second World War , the “Reichssender Köln” of the “ Großdeutscher Rundfunk ” was bombed on the night of June 28-29, 1943. Almost five months after the German surrender , the NWDR was founded in Hamburg at the end of September 1945 for the area of ​​the British zone of occupation . This began in Cologne's Altstadt-Nord district, not far from the cathedral, with the construction of a new broadcasting house in April 1948, when large parts of the city were still in ruins. At the same location had previously the 1899/1900 according to plans Ludwig Paffendorfs built hotel monopoly found, which was in part destroyed and its ruins were incorporated into the new building, where both cost pressures played a role as well as material shortages. The 25 percent of the structure of the destroyed hotel that could still be used was included.

The facade of the (above ground) five-storey building is structured and made of travertine , the ground floor has glazed arcades . The curved interior of the building embodies a conscious departure from the architecture of National Socialism . It has an abundance of artistic and architectural details in the style of the 1950s, such as the large stairwell glazing by Gies and Georg Meistermann and wall paintings by Anton Wolff . The main purpose of the sound-dispersing wall cladding made of Swiss pear wood was to prevent the ringing of St. Peter's Bell from being heard in the eight broadcasting halls.

On June 21, 1952, the entire broadcasting house was officially opened in the presence of Federal President Theodor Heuss and 700 other guests. In the same year it was extended with an annex to the Margarethenkloster and in 1961 with an extension to the street Unter Fettenhennen - both buildings were also designed by Schneider.

Large and small broadcasting hall

Large broadcasting hall - Klaus-von-Bismarck-Saal

The large broadcasting hall as part of eight broadcasting halls was first presented to the public in August 1950. It is equipped with a large Klais concert organ and has been hailed as an "acoustic sensation". It was designed by the sculptor Ludwig Gies , offers space for 650 visitors and 150 musicians and is also used as a concert hall; today it bears the name of the former artistic director Klaus von Bismarck . When it opened on October 19, 1951, it was the first large concert hall in Cologne, where over 200 concerts and events are now held every year.

On October 8, 1951, Igor Stravinsky conducted the opening concert with the German premiere of his wind symphonies . That was the beginning of the concert series Musik der Zeit in the large broadcasting hall . As part of this series there were important performances, such as the world premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's “Gesang der Jünglinge” on May 30, 1956 or the world premieres of Hans Werner Henze and Bernd Alois Zimmermann on November 27, 1958.

Today digital mixing consoles control a winch system for 41 microphones. In order to create a certain reverberation , the armchairs were given special upholstery fabrics and special backrests. The visitor coming from the main entrance on Wallrafplatz enters a vestibule that leads to the main staircase and the small broadcasting hall .

The small broadcasting hall holds 160 spectators. It is occupied by concerts all year round. So that the bells of the nearby cathedral cannot be heard, the eight broadcasting halls and numerous radio studios are soundproof with 50 centimeter thick walls.

History of the building

The establishment of the broadcasting house was one of the first major construction projects in Cologne, which was destroyed by the war. The building went back to the initiative of Hanns Hartmann , who had taken over the office of artistic director at the NWDR-Funkhaus Köln on September 1, 1947 from Max Burghardt . The architect was Peter Friedrich Schneider . In order to quickly replace the destroyed building of the former Reichsender in Dagobertstrasse and thus get the new NWDR in Cologne operational, a number of construction contracts were awarded privately , which drew criticism from the audit office of the British occupation zone . The topping-out ceremony for the building at Wallrafplatz 5 took place in February 1949. On the evening of December 25, 1952, the first television program was broadcast from a studio (→  History of Television in Germany ). For an estimated 200 television viewers in the Cologne area, a "Kölsch Kreppenspillche", folk dances and reports were broadcast. When it was completed in 1952, the Funkhaus Wallrafplatz was one of the most modern in Europe; on seven floors it had an area of ​​16,000 square meters. On July 29, 1953, came German Bundestag for its last session in the first term in the large studio of the radio building together, that it due to renovations at the plenary hall of the Bonn Federal Parliament building served once as temporary quarters.

The first expansion of the broadcasting house took place in a westward direction on the street An der Rechtschule ("studio building"; 1959-1965), further to the west was the four-disc building , which went into operation on June 27, 1970 . The oldest building was extensively renovated between 1987 and 1989, and most of the building was placed under monument protection on October 28, 1994 . In particular, the main entrance hall, the two broadcasting halls, the facade on Wallrafplatz and the An der Rechtschule are of monumental importance. This also includes the famous paternoster lift , a type of lift that has not been allowed to be built since 1974. He became literarily famous through Heinrich Böll's story Doctor Murke's Collected Silence . Today only employees are allowed to drive with it, but it is also used for a series of short interviews on WDR 2 . From 1997 to June 2012 the Café Campi of the well-known Cologne restaurateur, music producer and jazz promoter Gigi Campi was located on the ground floor in the rooms of the former WDR canteen. Then the restaurant got a new tenant and was renamed the radio house .

The radio house is frequented by 70,000 visitors every year and houses a large part of the WDR radio. Production studios for word and music broadcasts, parts of the sound archive, the radio technology and the broadcasting center are located here.

Others

On WDR 5 , the program Funkhaus Wallrafplatz - Medien (macher) in conversation is broadcast, in which listeners discuss the WDR's program and broadcasting policy with program makers, celebrities and media scholars. "Funkhaus Wallrafplatz" is the oldest audience participation program with direct telephone conversations between the listener and the moderator. Its founding phase is linked to the moderator Hasso Wolf . The broadcast was discontinued on December 31, 2015.

Web links

Commons : WDR Funkhaus Köln  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Fuchs (Ed.): Chronicle of the History of the City of Cologne , Volume 2, 1991, p. 203.
  2. ↑ Wolfram Hagspiel : Well-known architects and their buildings in the south of Cologne: Ludwig Paffendorf (1872–1949), architect, craftsman and reformist . In: stadtMagazin Köln-Süd, Volume 23, No. 6/2012, December 2012 / January 2013 , pp. 12–15 (here: p. 14).
  3. ^ Hotel Monopoly. Picture book Cologne, accessed on December 10, 2013 .
  4. ↑ Werner Strodthoff: Das Funkhaus am Wallrafplatz , in: Klaus Katz, Dietrich Leder, Ulrich Pätzold, Ulrike Ries-Augustin, Günther Schulz, Petra Schulz (editors and editors): At the pulse of time. 50 years of WDR. Kiepenheuer & Witsch , Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-462-03580-0 , pp. 288 and 291.
  5. ↑ Markus Behmer / Bettina Hasselbring, Radiotage, Fernsehjahre: Studies on the history of radio after 1945 , 2006, p. 301.
  6. ↑ a b c d Funkhaus am Wallrafplatz. "The Funkhaus am Wallrafplatz - The first address for communication in Cologne" WDR Cologne, July 2001, accessed on December 9, 2013 .
  7. ↑ a b June 21, 1952 - Opening of the NWDR radio house in Cologne. WDR 1, June 21, 2012, accessed October 10, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Catalog raisonné, line 1004. (PDF) Orgelbau Klais, December 2013, accessed on December 17, 2013 .
  9. ↑ a b c WDR radio station on Wallrafplatz, Cologne. (No longer available online.) KulturKenner Nordrhein-Westfalen, archived from the original on December 10, 2013 ; Retrieved December 9, 2013 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kulturkenner.de
  10. ↑ Peter Fuchs (Ed.): Chronicle of the History of the City of Cologne , Volume 2, 1991, p. 284.
  11. ↑ German Bundestag: Plenary Protocol 1/282 (PDF file)
  12. ^ Carl Dietmar, Gérald Chaix: Chronicle of Cologne . Chronik Verlag, 1997, ISBN 978-3-577-14445-2 , p. 450.
  13. ↑ List of monuments. Stadtkonservator Stadt Köln, accessed on December 9, 2013 .
  14. ↑ WDR2 paternoster. WDR 2, accessed December 10, 2013 .
  15. ↑ Funkhaus - café-restaurant-bar. Retrieved December 9, 2013 .
  16. ^ Wallrafplatz radio station. (No longer available online.) WDR 5, archived from the original on December 12, 2013 ; Retrieved December 10, 2013 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wdr5.de
  17. ↑ Funkhaus Wallrafplatz ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2013 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. on WDR 5, accessed on January 2, 2016.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wdr5.de

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 25.3 "  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 21.5"  E