Golden Bridge (Düsseldorf)

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Golden Bridge, after restoration and re-erection of the historical bridge lanterns, 2019
Golden bridge, steel girder from the middle of the 19th century

Golden Bridge is the name of a pedestrian bridge of the 19th century in the courtyard of Dusseldorf . The listed building is the oldest pedestrian bridge in the city. It bridges the Düssel , which is dammed up into ponds, and crosses a baroque visual axis that once stretched over 900 m between Jägerhof Palace and St. Andrew's Church .

history

Düsseldorf with its surroundings after looped fortifications - city map of Düsseldorf from 1809 with a depiction of the New Court Garden in the middle of the left half of the picture (still without the Golden Bridge )
Düsseldorf from Hofgartenstrasse - The engraving by Johann Poppel , based on a template by Ludwig Rohbock , comes from a publication in 1852 and shows the line of sight over the Landskrone and the Golden Bridge in the direction of the Andreas Church and the other buildings on what was then Friedrichsplatz . Representations of this visual axis are varied several times on vedute of the 19th century, for example in Caspar Scheuren , Wilhelm Gause / Richard Brend'amour , Adolph von Vagedes , Wilhelm Bracht and A. van der Horst.

Between 1806 and 1809, the court gardener Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe extended the old court garden to include the former fortress area in the area of ​​the Landskrone and Mühlenbastion bastions in the course of extensive planning for the demolition of the Düsseldorf city fortifications . As a result, the area of ​​the canal-like city ​​moat created in 1801 - known today under the name of the Königsallee running on both sides of the moat - was to be connected to the Old Court Garden in terms of gardening. The green space created in this way , which was developed according to the scheme of the English landscape garden , was named the New Court Garden . The promenade that arched the new facility in the east was named Hofgartenstrasse and today forms a modern terrace on the Kö-Bogen .

The most important design element of the new landscape garden was the creation of two interconnected ponds . For this purpose, the terrain was modeled accordingly and sections of the northern Düssel running there were dammed. The pond in the eastern area - in the glacis and moat of the former Landskrone bastion - took over its name and is now called Landskrone . Another pond was created in the western part of the New Hofgarten by widening the moat at the mill bastion - directly in front of the former city wall of the old town , on the site of which an esplanade (today's Heinrich-Heine-Allee ) - and according to garden art ideas curved shorelines. The ponds were connected to one another in the middle of the New Court Garden. The park areas defined by their shorelines thus form two peninsulas opposite one another . On the southern peninsula on which the bastion Landskrone had stretches, was for the construction of a botanical garden provided (Jardin Botanique) . The northern peninsula was given a small hill as a lookout point on the south bank of the Landskrone pond through terrain modeling . At the foot of this hill, which later got the name Pineapple Mountain , there are gently sloping lawns, the edges of which are picturesquely framed by tree and shrub plantations.

In 1809 the two peninsulas were connected by an arched bridge at the narrow point where the two ponds of the New Court Garden meet . The architect Adolph von Vagedes provided the design . Since an important line of sight runs over the bridge from east to west , which goes back to the layout of the Jägerhof Palace and the Old Court Garden under Johann Joseph Couven and Nicolas de Pigage and which Weyhe had kept clear in the form of an aisle when he designed his garden, one was created with it interesting vantage point. To the east, the Reitallee, the main axis of the Old Court Garden, and the Jägerhof Palace as its point de vue can be seen from there. To the west there is also a picturesque view from the bridge. The line of sight there is directed towards the buildings on Heinrich-Heine-Allee and Grabbeplatz , where the towers of St. Andrew's Church , its tall nave and choir, the mausoleum of its donors and patrons and the former grand-ducal-Bergisch government building form a picturesque vedute and city silhouette. As a result of vegetation and development, the axis can only be experienced to a limited extent in the western area. In its original state, the bridge, the surrounding garden and the extensive line of sight from both directions are documented on two lithographs with watercolors, which Johann Petersen created in 1816. In 1820 the bridge railing was painted gold bronze. It stands to reason that this gave rise to the name Golden Bridge .

Golden Bridge on a picture postcard, 1910

In 1845, the bridge designed by Vagedes was replaced by a new bridge with a horizontal course. The design for this bridge was developed by the architect Anton Schnitzler , a student of Berlin classicism who worked as a master builder in Düsseldorf between 1825 and 1873. The construction of the bridge consists of two partially gold-plated steel girders, the ends of which rest on brick bridge heads. The girders are covered with rafters and wooden planks. Forged bridge railings are attached to the bridgeheads and above the steel girders, rafters and wooden planks. After the Second World War, the bridge was thoroughly overhauled. In 1951 it was given today's bridge railing. Under the supervision of the monument authority of the city of Düsseldorf, the bridge was overhauled again in 2015/2016, and finally the bridge lanterns were installed before mid-2019.

literature

  • Margaret Ritter: Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe 1775–1846. A life for garden art . Düsseldorf 2007, ISBN 3-7700-3054-0 , p. 102
  • Achim Röthig: Kö-Bogen, 2nd BA. Garden monument preservation specialist contribution to the design of the environment in the connection area to the courtyard garden as part of the preparation of the development plan no. 5477/125 . Haan 2011, pp. 19, 31, 40 ( PDF )

Web links

Commons : Golden Bridge  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wieland Koenig (Ed.), Pp. 13, 17, 102, 105
  2. ↑ Panorama de Dusseldorf (around 1809) , document from the City Archives State Capital Düsseldorf in the portal duesseldorf.de , accessed on June 10, 2016
  3. ^ Wieland Koenig (Ed.): Düsseldorfer Gartenlust . Exhibition catalog of the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 1987, p. 101 f. (Catalog No. 6.24, StM. D 6912a, D 6914a)
  4. ↑ Margaret Ritter, p. 102; also Achim Röthig, p. 19 (footnote 22)
  5. ^ "Golden Bridge" will not be released until spring . Article from December 15, 2015 in the portal rp-online.de , accessed on June 10, 2016
  6. ↑ Repair of the "Golden Bridge" is delayed . Press release of the City of Düsseldorf of November 11, 2015, accessed on June 10, 2016

Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 41.6 ″  N , 6 ° 46 ′ 44.2 ″  E