Georgenhospital Frankfurt (Oder)

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Georgenhospital Frankfurt (Oder)
Front of the former Georgen Hospital from Berliner Straße

Front of the former Georgen Hospital from Berliner Straße

Data
place Frankfurt (Oder)
builder Friedrich Martin Knoblauch
Construction year 1794
height 20 m
Floor space 1000 m²
Coordinates 52 ° 21 '13.3 "  N , 14 ° 32' 52.9"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 21 '13.3 "  N , 14 ° 32' 52.9"  E
particularities
Largest baroque building in
Frankfurt (Oder)

The Georgenhospital Frankfurt (Oder) (Hospital Sankt George zu Frankfurt (Oder)) is a former Christian hospital in Frankfurt (Oder) , which included a former church, the hospital building and a residential building for the employees. The current building was built between 1792 and 1974 as a foundation by a Frankfurt craftsmen's guild to care for lepers in the suburb of Lebus . Later it served as a hostel for travelers and as a retirement home. The hospital is located on Berliner Strasse at the corner of Bergstrasse.
After decades of vacancy and decay, it has been used as a dormitory by the Studentenwerk Frankfurt (Oder) since 2014 after several years of renovation .

history

Berliner Strasse with Georgenhospital in 1899

The Georgenhospital was first mentioned in a document in 1312: As "domus leprosorum", as a house for the care of lepers at the gates of the city of Frankfurt (Oder). Around the middle of the 16th century it was expanded together with what was then the George Church. Further construction work followed after the destruction of the Thirty Years' War at the end of the 17th century.

The hospital got its current architectural structure and design based on designs by the then Frankfurt urban planning inspector Friedrich Martin Knoblauch , who had the building built between 1792 and 1794. Until the 1920s it served as a hospital for the community of St. Georg zu Frankfurt (Oder) and, after the old Georgenkirche was demolished in 1926 and the community moved, it served as an urban retirement home. In the final phase of the Second World War and the Battle of the Oder in 1945, as a result of which Frankfurt (Oder) was proclaimed a "fortress" , the Georgenhospital served as a military hospital. During the GDR era, it was used again as an old people's home until 1983 when the city's monument authorities moved into the already very dilapidated building.

The dilapidated house in 2008 before renovation

After a brief commercial use, the former Georgenhospital was finally cleared in 1995 and has since been considered one of the endangered monuments in Brandenburg due to its poor condition, especially since the masonry and the foundation were severely damaged by the flood of the Oder in 1997 . Since it is the largest baroque building and at the same time one of the few historical structures in Frankfurt (Oder) that survived the Second World War, the city administration tried to have the monument saved by private investors due to lack of its own funds and transferred it to one in the mid-1990s Real estate agent for the symbolic purchase price of one D-Mark (approx. EUR 0.50 ). However, due to disagreements with the city administration due to the strict monument regulations, he did not fulfill his contractually guaranteed renovation obligations, which is why the building was repurchased by the city of Frankfurt (Oder) in the following years.

From 2012 to 2014, the former Georgenhospital was extensively renovated for around three million euros, made up of funds from the German-American Max Kade Foundation , money for urban redevelopment in the state of Brandenburg and municipal grants, and it was officially opened on October 13, 2014 .

Now used as the Max Kade House

Interior view of a one-room apartment

Since the beginning of the 2014/15 winter semester, the former Georgenhospital has served as a student residence for the European University Viadrina . Since then, it has been officially named Internationales Treffenhaus Max Kade (colloquially: Max Kade House ) and has 25 fully furnished one-room apartments, one two-room apartment, each with its own bathroom and kitchenette, and three rooms for group work and celebrations, which are spread over two floors. The strict regulations of the State Monuments Office , which provided for the preservation of the two historic wooden staircases, were taken into account.

The Max-Kade-Haus, like all other student residences of the European University Viadrina, is supplied and organized by the Studentenwerk Frankfurt (Oder). Due to the significant funding from the Max Kade Foundation, apartments in this dormitory are primarily given to exchange students from the United States and Canada at his request .

Former George Church

The former George Church from 1656 in 1912

It is believed that the first St. George's Church was built on the former site next to the hospital around 1312. The documentary mention is in connection with an altar foundation in honor of Mary Magdalene. In research this was equated with the church patronage. It is unclear when the Georgen patronage prevailed. The original location of the church was at the confluence of Bergstrasse and today's Berliner Strasse.

In 1368 the church donated by dressmakers was confirmed by the Bishop of Lebus . However, it did not form an independent parish, but was part of the hospital that was run by the city or hospital foundations. A chaplain of the Marienkirche or a member of the theological faculty of the university took over the pastoral care. In the 16th century the church was united with the Kliestower parish. Around 1545 a new church was built from a donation from the Frankfurt patrician family Wins / Winse. During the Thirty Years War the church was badly damaged in 1631 and 1633, including when the Swedish Field Marshal Johan Banér tried to blow up the church tower. The western half of the nave collapsed. Reconstruction was not started until 1653 and was completed by 1656. In 1787, the simple hall building was expanded with wide extensions in the south and north based on a design by Friedrich Martin Knoblauch .

On May 1, 1922, the old church was closed by the building authorities. On March 30th and April 16th, 1924, the community turned to the public via the Oder-Zeitung and requested the building site that had been promised for decades. The city then offered a plot of land on Goepelstrasse, outside the inhabited catchment area of ​​the community, and an inhabited plot of land between Luisenstrasse, Sophienstrasse and Taubenstrasse, for which the community should create new apartments. On September 2, 1924, the renovation and expansion of the existing building was approved, but this failed because of the costs. The city designated a building site for the new church at its current location on Bergstrasse and committed to cover most of the construction costs at the end of 1925. In return, they should receive the cleared property of the old George Church. On March 6, 1926, the parish of St. Georg and the city of Frankfurt (Oder) contractually agreed to swap the property at Berliner Strasse with the old church for the property at the intersection of Lennéstrasse and Bergstrasse.

After the Prussian Minister for Science, Art and Public Education Carl Heinrich Becker had granted the state demolition permit on May 15, 1926, the ground floor of the old building began to be demolished on June 7, 1926.

A part of the southern outer wall of the baroque extension building on the property fence remained from the rising masonry. In connection with the renovation of the Georgen Hospital, an information board was installed here in 2014.

Web links

Commons : Georgenhospital Frankfurt (Oder)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files