Court arbor (Berlin)
The Judicial Arbor is a historic building in Berlin that was built in the 13th century as an extension to the Old Town Hall . Centuries later, as a result of the new town hall building in 1871, the building took on a life of its own, with the original building being moved to the Babelsberg park and later remodeled there. In the rebuilt Berlin Nikolaiviertel a modeled made of modern materials copy that is used as a restaurant and the name is to Gerichtslaube carries.
history
introduction
The original court arbor was one of the oldest secular buildings in the city until it was demolished and is considered a testimony to urban jurisdiction and self-government in medieval Berlin. The arbor belonging to the old town hall was moved in its high medieval Gothic version to the park of Babelsberg (Potsdam). A reconstructed building located at Poststrasse 26/28 in Berlin's Nikolaiviertel is also referred to as a court arbor .
Construction and function
The court arbor was built around 1270 in Gothic style from brick and was initially connected to the town hall on Spandauer Straße and Rathausstraße. The two storeys were each vaulted with four bays over a central pillar . The jury's chair was on the first floor, the council chair on the upper floor. On the central round pillar of the first floor, a frieze in Romanesque design symbolized human vices and follies in the form of animals. The column supporting the ribbed vault of the upper floor was replaced in 1555 by a Renaissance column with the coat of arms of Berlin mayors. In addition to the gallows , the court arbor was also connected to a pillory . This was on the outside next to the entrance door at the point where the memorial plaque is now attached. The Kaak , a bird sculpture with a grinning human face and dog-eared ears, was formerly a symbol of abuse and ridicule in relation to the pillory.
Demolition, rebuilding and reconstruction
When the old town hall was expanded from 1692 to 1695 according to plans by Johann Arnold Nering , the exterior of the court arbor was given a Baroque style . In 1871 the demolition took place after the completion of the Red City Hall . The demolition of the court arbor was a contemporary political issue and led u. a. to found the Association for the History of Berlin . The secured original parts of the court arbor were given to Wilhelm I and the building was rebuilt in 1871/1872 by Johann Heinrich Strack in Babelsberg Park . There the building presents itself with a floor area of 10 m × 10 m as a free-standing pavilion in exposed brick , whereby the medieval material clearly stands out from that of the 19th century. The large tracery windows and the upper end of the facade with pinnacles were freely reconstructed during the reconstruction.
When the Red City Hall was built, a copy of the central column was built into the foundation of the tower. A cast of the figure frieze is kept in the Märkisches Museum . As early as 1896, the first replica of the court arbor was made on the grounds of the Berlin trade exhibition in Treptow . During the GDR era, it was finally rebuilt from 1985 to 1987 when the Nikolaiviertel was redesigned by Günther Stahn as a plastered precast concrete structure near its original location by decision of the East Berlin city council .
While in Park Babelsberg rebuilt, consisting mainly of original parts Gerichtslaube by Heinrich Strack after 1990 re-gothicised was the free approaches reconstruction Günter Stahns in Berlin the Baroque to the 17th century façade.
During the construction of the underground extension in the 2010s, the archaeologists also found remains of the foundations of the court arbor. Except for a found pillar foundation of the old town hall, all other remains were removed.
Use since the end of the 20th century
The predominantly original court arbor stands decoratively in Babelsberg Park and is integrated into the green area according to the principles of landscape architecture by Peter Joseph Lenné . The areas in the building are unused.
In the copy of Günter Stahn, since the 750th anniversary of Berlin in 1987, there is the restaurant Zur Rechtslaube with a range of dishes typical of Berlin, with a beer garden in summer .
Web links
- The Berlin Courthouse (online); with sketches and views. In: Deutsche Bauzeitung ; Weekly paper; ed. by members of the Berlin Architects' Association; May 26, 1870; P. 169 ff (PDF; 1.6 MB)
- Info on the Berlin court arbor in Meyer's Lexicon from 1905 .
literature
- Elisabeth Bartel: A bank from the Berlin court arbor? In: Yearbook of the Association for the History of Berlin , 66th episode, Berlin 2017, pp. 9–34.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The old Berlin City Hall at www.stadtmuseum.de; accessed on February 26, 2019.
- ^ The Berlin court arbor and its central column / The six Berlin court arbors on planungsgruppe-stadtkern.de; accessed on February 26, 2019.
Coordinates: 52 ° 24 '17.7 " N , 13 ° 5' 15.3" E