Gendarmenmarkt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gendarmenmarkt
Coat of arms of Berlin.svg
Place in Berlin
Gendarmenmarkt
Gendarmenmarkt with theater and French cathedral , 1984
Basic data
place Berlin
District center
Created 17th century
Newly designed 1773
1936
1976
Hist. Names Lindenmarkt ,
Mittelmarkt,
Friedrichstädtischer Markt,
Neuer Markt,
Schillerplatz,
Platz der Akademie
Confluent streets
Jägerstraße ,
Taubenstraße ,
(as well as limiting :)
Französische Straße ,
Markgrafenstraße ,
Mohrenstraße ,
Charlottenstraße
Buildings Theater or concert hall ,
French Cathedral,
French Friedrichstadtkirche,
German Cathedral,
German Church,
Schiller monument
use
User groups Pedestrian and bicycle traffic

The Gendarmenmarkt is one of the original settlers lived Cuirassier Gens d'armes named place in the Berlin district of Mitte of the district of the same . Created when the city was being expanded in 1688, it was destroyed in the Second World War and rebuilt from 1976 to 1993. The theater by Karl Friedrich Schinkel , which is now used as a concert hall, and the German and French cathedral by Carl von Gontard are located on the Gendarmenmarkt . It is considered the "most beautiful place in Berlin".

location

The approximately 3.3  hectare square is located in the middle of the Friedrichstadt district created on the drawing board . It occupies three of the squares and is delimited by Französische Strasse in the north, Charlottenstrasse in the west, Mohrenstrasse in the south and Markgrafenstrasse in the east. The Jägerstrasse and Taubenstrasse are divided by the square and in the area of ​​the square - hardly recognizable as streets - are laid out in the form of a pedestrian zone .

history

Playhouse in the west of the Gendarmenmarkt
German Cathedral in the south of the square
French Cathedral in the north of the square

Emergence

The square was built from 1688 according to plans by Johann Arnold Nering as part of Friedrichstadt , which Elector Friedrich III. , who later became King Friedrich I in Prussia , had it built at the end of the 17th century. Most of the French immigrants ( Huguenots ) settled in this historic quarter, to whom the Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg had assured the protection of their religious freedom and full citizenship with the Edict of Potsdam in 1685.

King Frederick I assigned both the Lutheran and the French Reformed congregations a position on the square for church building: in the north for the French Friedrichstadtkirche and in the south for the German church. Both church buildings were built after 1701, initially without the towers added later.

The square was given its shape under Frederick II (Frederick the Great) with the two identical domed towers next to the churches. They were built in the years 1780–1785 according to plans by Carl von Gontard . The Piazza del Popolo in Rome is often mentioned as a model for the redesign, but Laurenz Demps doubts this. Since the characteristic of the square is the oversized towers, the Old Royal Naval College (1703) in Greenwich is sometimes named as a model .

Originally designed as a market, the square was called Linden-Markt in the 17th century , Mittelmarkt or Friedrichstädtischer Markt in the 18th century until 1786 , then Neuer Markt . In 1799 it was named Gendarmenmarkt in memory of the stables of the cuirassier regiment of the Gens d'armes , which the "Soldier King" Friedrich Wilhelm I had built here in 1736. Around the square stood the residences of high officials of the king, state authorities and important hotels, including the Hotel de Brandebourg .

History until 1945

Frederick the Great, son of the "Soldier King", had the stables torn down in 1773, and the square was given a uniform redevelopment with three-story houses according to the plans of Georg Christian Unger . A small French comedy theater was built between the two churches , which was replaced by a new national theater with 2000 seats between 1800 and 1802. This theater, created by the architect Carl Gotthard Langhans , burned down in 1817. Karl Friedrich Schinkel provided the plans for the royal theater, which was completed in its place in 1821. After its reconstruction after being destroyed in the war, it was called the Schauspielhaus from 1950. Since the last renovation work in the 1990s, it has been the Konzerthaus Berlin and forms the center of this unique space ensemble.

The Gendarmenmarkt was the place of changeable political events in Berlin. The revolution of 1848/1849 announced itself on the Gendarmenmarkt in 1847 with the potato revolution , an uproar against rising food prices. In the barricades during the March revolution of 1848 killed the German Cathedral were laid solemnly on the steps. From September 1848 the Prussian National Assembly met for several weeks in the great hall of the theater.

The memorial for Friedrich Schiller in front of the theater was commissioned by Reinhold Begas . The foundation stone was laid on November 10, 1859 on the occasion of the 100th birthday of the national poet, and the inauguration took place twelve years later. Between 1871 and 1936 this part of the Gendarmenmarkt was called Schillerplatz .

In 1936, the Schiller monument was removed and the horticultural decorations in front of the theater were removed and replaced with a large-scale pattern of square panels, which is still there after a lot of renovation work (as of 2016). The redesign of prestigious squares in the center of Berlin during the National Socialist rule  - in addition to the Gendarmenmarkt, this affected the Lustgarten , Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz (or Opernplatz , today: Bebelplatz ) and Wilhelmplatz  - primarily served as parade grounds for propaganda events to accomplish. For example, Pimpfen ( German Young People ) were consecrated on the Gendarmenmarkt to join the Hitler Youth .

History since 1945

The Alexandrov Ensemble , the famous Soviet soldiers' choir and orchestra, gave a concert in 1948 on the square, which was badly damaged in World War II . On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, which was re-established as the German Academy of Sciences in 1946, it was renamed Platz der Akademie in 1950 . In 1991 it got its original name back.

In 1976 the Berlin magistrate commissioned the redesign of the square into an intellectual and cultural center. Through this reconstruction from 1976 to 1993 and the closing of the gaps in the peripheral buildings from 1985 to 1996, the impressive square could be regained. The development of the 1980s already showed the effort to do justice to the importance of the location: “The buildings, mostly constructed in steel frame construction with a curtain wall, were refined with colored mosaic encrustations or arched arcades made of clear concrete and historicized building elements.” There are some remarkable trees on the square , of which the following are protected as natural monuments : two Japanese pagoda trees , a bush chestnut and a French maple .

On October 2, 1990, the eve of German reunification , the last state act of the GDR government under Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière took place on this square with the performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony under the direction of Kurt Masur .

and display information about the image
Panorama of the Gendarmenmarkt at the blue hour

use

There are also numerous restaurants, shops and hotels on Gendarmenmarkt.

literature

Specialist literature

  • Laurenz Demps : The Gensd'armen Market. Face and history of a Berliner Platz . Henschel, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-362-00141-6 .
  • Laurenz Demps: The most beautiful place in Berlin. The Gendarmenmarkt in the past and present . Henschel, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-89487-012-5 .
  • The architectural and art monuments in the GDR - Berlin I. Ed. Institute for Monument Preservation at Henschelverlag, Berlin 1984. pp. 212–218.
  • Dietmar Schings: Gendarmenmarkt location 1800–1848. Vorwerk 8 publishing house, Berlin 2010.
  • Hermann Müller-Bohm: The monuments of Berlin in words and pictures , Berlin undated (around 1905).

Fiction

Web links

Commons : Gendarmenmarkt  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikivoyage: Gendarmenmarkt  - travel guide

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.gendarmenmarkt.de/geschichte-des-gendarmenmarktes-berlin-mitte.htm
  2. ↑ See literature list: Laurenz Demps 1993, p. 42.
  3. ^ Center of the picture above the red subway line on Westermann's plan of Berlin . Berlin-Mitte around 1932  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.alt-berlin.info  
  4. ↑ Schillerplatz . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1911, III, p. 750.
  5. ^ Eva-Maria Kaufmann From the wandering of the monuments in Berlin. In: The Bear of Berlin: Yearbook of the Association for the History of Berlin , 56th episode, 2007. Association for the History of Berlin e. V. Berlin, 2007, p. 35.
  6. ^ Adalbert Behr, Alfred Hoffmann: The theater in Berlin . VEB publishing house for construction. Berlin, 1984. p. 131.
  7. ↑ Gendarmenmarkt & Hausvogteiplatz database. Accessed December 31, 2018.
  8. ↑ Detailed information on trees stadtentwicklung.berlin.de; accessed on March 16, 2014.
  9. ↑ Homepage for "Classic Open Air" with slide show

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 48 ″  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 35 ″  E