Goliath House
The Goliathhaus is an imposing, crenellated, early Gothic , former house castle from the period 1220/30 in the old town of Regensburg . The house is located in a north-south direction between Goliathstrasse in the north and Watmarkt in the south. The north facade is the well-known front of the Goliath House and shows a painting of the fight between David and Goliath, which has been renewed several times since 1573 in the last version by the painter Franz Rinner from 1900. The former front of the Goliath House is the south front oriented towards the Watmarkt , which because of the rising terrain one floor less. Accordingly, old house letters always call the building "Haus am Watmarkt". The house tower in the west takes up the entire depth of the house complex. To the east of the tower is the residential building of the Goliath House , which until the end of the 18th century formed a structural unit with the neighboring Steuerchen house . Both house castles were built by the Regensburg patrician families believed to be the builders on the foundations of the northern Roman wall of the Castra Regina legionary camp . The Goliathhaus offers its impressive northern front with the Goliath painting to all the visitors who come over the Stone Bridge and use the Brückstraße, which rises slightly towards the city, to reach the city center.
History of the house, the owners and the Goliath painting
House name and origin of the Goliath painting
The name of the house probably dates back to the 12th century and referred to a previous building that served as a hostel for vagabonds , the so-called Goliards . This hostel could have been called Golias or Goliathhaus back then , a name that was then transferred to the new house after the house castle was built around 1260. A monumental mural in today's style was probably first created around 1573/74 or 1585/87, when the painter Melchior Bocksberger was present in Regensburg to paint the facades of the town hall and some other houses in the city . Since the original Goliath picture by Bocksberger has been completely lost as a result of several later radical renovations, the facade view from the first traditional restoration in 1683, which has been preserved in the museum as a watercolor pen drawing by an unknown artist , must serve as the source for the original composition. The scene “ David versus Goliath ” was not the name giver for the building. There are numerous legends about the meaning of the picture. For example, in the painting Goliath could symbolize a haughty merchant who is defeated by the honest merchant (= David ), or Goliath could stand for the mighty Duchy of Bavaria , which beset the small city of Regensburg.
The building
The early Gothic building shows corner blocks of the tower on the north front, Gothic two- and three-part window arcades and several round arched doors on the upper floors. From the northern front wall east of the tower, supported by consoles , protrude two polygonal oriel turrets, which date from a renovation in 1570 and are covered with onion hoods from the 18th century. There are also two polygonal oriel turrets on the south facade of the building, the former front of the house (Watmarkt No. 5). In addition, a protrudes from here in the eastern residential area on a console foot ornamental educated box bay window out. This bay window, which dates from around 1300, was built as a walling up a formerly open loggia, which was apparently closed early in this way.
The owners
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The Goliathhaus had been the ancestral home of the patrician family Thundorfer since 1290, whose relatives, Bishop Leo Thundorfer (1262–1277) played a role in the construction of the Regensburg Cathedral . Hermann Thundorfer is verifiable as the owner around 1290 and Ulrich Thundorfer from 1302 to 1314. The Thundorfern followed the Dollinger and the Maller family is notarized for 1364.
From 1521–1546, Martin Tucher , known as the owner, was a member of the famous Nuremberg noble family. In March 1573 the citizen Wolf Naufletzer bought the house from councilor Wolf Eckenthaler. The house name "zum Goliath" appears for the first time in a document, so that both can be considered as clients for the Goliath fresco created by Bocksberger during this time. Naufletzer and his descendants owned the house until 1638 and were interested in preserving the old fresco. Two other owners were also interested, the city consultant Wolfgang Heckner (from 1683) and the court assessor Friedrich Reinhard (from 1722). Both had the fresco restored. Reinhard also had very extensive renovation measures carried out inside the building, on the facade and probably also on the fresco. From the years 1683 and 1723 there are two overall views of the north facade of the house, both with the respective Goliath frescoes, which have been preserved in the Museum Regensburg as watercolor pen drawings by unknown artists. The owner Reinhard was succeeded as owner by the town syndicus and town archivist Georg Gottlieb Plato-Wild , born in Regensburg in 1710 , who is known as the father of Regensburg historiography. In 1741 he married a daughter from the Reinhard family, who lived in the Steuersche Haus , which is adjacent to the Goliathhaus to the east and named after the owner (1390) . This house formed a structural unit with the Goliath House, so that after Plato-Wild's marriage, both houses were owned by the Plato-Wild family. Plato Wild died in 1777 and the united house was redistributed among his heirs - the son and son-in-law. The son-in-law received the actual Goliathhaus (today Watmarkt 5, F20) and the son received the neighboring house to the east, the Steuersche Haus (today Watmarkt 7, F19), of which the pewter founder Wiedamann can be verified as the owner in 1822. The Steuerersche Haus, in which Oskar Schindler lived for a short time after World War II , was renovated in 1988/91, which showed that the interior had remained unchanged.
Goliath House and Goliath Paintings in the 19th Century to 1927
The Goliath painting by Kranzberger (1840)
When the facade of the Goliathhaus had to be re-plastered in 1840, the owner of the house at that time, the master baker Johann Paul, also applied for the Goliath fresco to be renovated at the expense of the City of Regensburg. Because the financing was difficult, the Regensburg painters Hans Kranzberger and Joseph Zacharias offered, as a sign of a patriotic honor, to paint the Goliath again al fresco for free or to provide the required colors. The royal art administration in Munich bore all other ancillary costs, but gave their approval under the strict condition that they should not allow themselves any artistic freedom and that the old representation should be preserved without changes. Kranzberger adhered to the guidelines, but allowed himself a small addition that still exists today: on the ground he placed a tree frog with a mustache and spurs, as a reference to the quirky Freiherr von Quentel, who wore a green tails and large spurs every day Goliathhaus is said to have ridden past. The restoration of the picture, which was completed in September 1841, received much applause from the population, but a new version of the weathered picture was necessary as early as 1869.
The Goliath painting by Weinmayer (1869)
The choice of a painter fell on Leopold Weinmayer, who had already worked in St. Emmeram and St. Kassian. However, his designs met with great concern and raised doubts about his capabilities. In addition, it was imperative to stick to the old historical model. Over the course of many weeks, the decision was made in November 1869 to commission Weinmayer for a simple restoration. The contract was awarded in July 1870 and four weeks later the mural was finished, but it was not convincing. It had proven difficult not only to place Goliath's torso, but also his left arm between two windows, especially since a new window had been added to Goliath's right. Weinmayer's fresco was even less durable than its predecessor.
The Goliath painting by Dendl (1884)
When, in 1882, the new owner of the Goliathhaus, the master baker Wallner, refused to bear the costs of a restoration for a planned facade renovation and the municipal representatives voted against a new version, the future of the mural was seriously endangered. In this situation, the painter Heinrich Georg Dendl offered himself to the Regensburg magistrate as a connoisseur of the new mineral painting based on the technique of Adolf Wilhelm Keim . He convinced the local authority of the possibility of creating weather-resistant wall paintings with this technique. In the summer of 1884 Dendl was commissioned to renew the Goliath picture based on the sketches of his predecessor. But Dendl followed his own design and the artistic result of his work could not convince anyone in Regensburg because Goliath, equipped with a leggionary helmet that was much too bushy, clasped his lance like an awkward gondolier his oar. The criticism of the new painting soon faded into the background, however, because a phase began for Goliathstrasse in which a conflict over the maintenance of the townscape and the historical buildings ignited on the entire street with its historical buildings.
Threatened demolition of the Goliath house and gutting
The criticism of the Goliath painting by the painter Dendl was drowned out by a discussion in which economic interests and traffic planning came into conflict with the maintenance of the townscape and the existing monuments. After the construction of the new Regensburg main station and the connection of Regensburg to the railway network in 1859, the city council hoped and expected an increase in the flow of traffic in the city center. At this time the demolition of the city walls began and new streets had to be planned. Part of the planning was also the bottleneck at An der Obs , where the Krauterer Markt turned into the eastern Goliathstraße with a sharp, right-angled curve, and also the probably busiest place in Regensburg in the Goliathstraße at the confluence of the Brückstraße opposite the Goliathhaus. There, the north-south traffic coming from Stadtamhof met the heavy east-west traffic in Goliathstrasse , which served as a connection between the harbor , Domplatz , town hall and Arnulfsplatz . The magistrate wanted to defuse this bottleneck through structural measures. A first step took place in 1887, when some parts of the buildings to the east of the Goliathhaus protruding south into Goliathstrasse were bought up for demolition and removed. A building line plan based on the building line of the north facade of the Goliathhaus was decisive . This enabled a street width of 7 m, which appeared to be sufficient, especially since the town planning officer Adolf Schmetzer intended to expand Goliathstraße on its northern side as part of the planned construction of the tram. In the course of the planning, the situation escalated when, to the dismay of large parts of the population, the owner of the Goliathhaus - master baker Johann Wallner - surprisingly announced in July 1896 that he wanted to demolish the Goliathhaus and replace it with a new building. In addition, he announced that the planned six new shops were already let. The announcement had enormous press coverage and led to a sharp controversy between the national-liberal opponents, who emphasized the "antiquity of the venerable building" and did not want to sacrifice the building to the "modern traffic freaks" , and the supporters of the demolition plans, who Wanted to bring light and air into the narrow streets. The magistrate came under pressure, threatened the owner with disadvantageous changes to the building lines and offered him 10,000 marks to keep the facade. The master baker immediately accepted the offer and committed himself and any legal successors not to change the facades for at least 20 years. Stadtbaurat Schmetzer pursued his plans to widen Goliathstrasse to 9 m width, but the building lines established by the government of Upper Palatinate in 1902 largely respected the historical building stock of the facades in Goliathstrasse. The struggle for the - at least externally - preservation of the Goliath House had paid off. However, this did not apply to the interior of the Goliathhaus, because as early as 1897 the master baker Wallner commissioned the architect Joseph Koch to completely gutt the Goliathhaus, which was euphorically referred to as interior renovation. The committed work of the young architect on his first assignment in Regensburg meant that he brought the mural on the north facade of the Goliathhaus to mind. He said that in view of the decision to preserve the north facade, the Goliath fresco, the city's most distinguished landmark , could not be left in the state created by the painter Dendl, because the painting no longer had anything to do with the original depiction.
The Goliath painting by Franz Rinner (1900–1927)
The suggestion of the architect Joseph Koch to create a new Goliath painting based on the original Bocksberger version was approved by the magistrate and the royal Bavarian government took over the financing. The magistrate commissioned the most capable Regensburg painter of the time, Josef Altmeier, to create a design. All those involved and the house owner agreed with the result, who also stated that he and his successors would receive the portrait. There was still a scandal when, in December 1898, a draft by the Munich painter Franz Rinner was presented at the instigation of the Bavarian Conservator General. In May 1899, the first draft was followed by a revised draft, which was then even approved by the Regensburg local patriots. The design by the painter Rinner is still impressive today in that the portrayed Goliath makes use of the window frames provided by the architecture in order to represent himself on them by resting the left arm and supporting the left foot in such a way that the appearance of his body, the in this way there is enough space between two windows, something outrageously broad is given, in contrast to David's dashing fighting posture. The assessors judged: Rinner had "made a virtue out of necessity in order to avoid the space problems." So it happened that a now forgotten painter gave the Regensburg landmark its shape that is still valid today and even took over the frog (without spurs and mustache) introduced by his predecessor Kranzberger.
Unfortunately the fresco already showed flaws caused by peeling plaster 5 years later. A restoration concept presented in 1906 by the decorative painter Karl Throll was not implemented. As a result, there were protracted disputes between the magistrate and the Bavarian government about the type of restoration and the financing, which extended beyond the First World War. Only after a change of house owner, 20 years later, Karl Throll received the restoration contract in 1927 and carried it out successfully.
The Goliath House in the 20th century
The Goliath House and the Goliath painting survived the Second World War without major damage.
In 1956, after a change of house owner, there was a dispute with the Regensburg head of culture, Walter Boll . The new owner planned to use the house as a fashion house - the ground floor should be glazed over the entire width of the house. Boll intervened - since then the Goliath House has three arched openings on the ground floor.
In 1972 the Rinner version of the Goliath fresco was restored using the germ technique .
Use from 1990
The tower of the Goliathhaus has housed the tower theater formerly founded by Peter Nüesch since 1990 , which was taken over by the artist couple Martin Hofer and Susanne Senke in 2009. The actress Undine Schneider has been running the tower theater together with Martin Hofer since 2019.
In June 2014, the chef Anton Schmaus opened his restaurant Storstad in the Goliathhaus (south side at Watmarkt), which was awarded a star by the Michelin Guide in November 2014 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Karl Bauer: Regensburg Art, Culture and Everyday History . 6th edition. MZ-Buchverlag in H. Gietl Verlag & Publication Service GmbH, Regenstauf 2014, ISBN 978-3-86646-300-4 , p. 86-90 .
- ↑ Eugen Trapp: The most elegant landmark in the city. Conservation notes on the history of the Regensburg Goliath fresco . Ed .: Stadt Regensburg (= preservation of monuments in Regensburg . Volume 12 ). Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 201, ISBN 978-3-7917-2371-6 , pp. 78, 78-100 .
- ↑ Eugen Trapp: The most elegant landmark in the city. Conservation notes on the history of the Regensburg Goliath fresco . In: City of Regensburg, Office for Archives and Preservation of Monuments (ed.): Preservation of monuments in Regensburg . tape 12 . Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7917-2371-6 , pp. 79, 82 .
- ↑ a b Eugen Trapp: The city's most distinguished landmark. Conservation notes on the history of the Regensburg Goliath fresco . In: City of Regensburg, Office for Archives and Preservation of Monuments (ed.): Preservation of monuments in Regensburg . tape 12 . Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7917-2371-6 , pp. 80-88 .
- ↑ a b c Eugen Trapp: The city's most distinguished landmark. Conservation notes on the history of the Regensburg Goliath fresco . In: City of Regensburg, Office for Archives and Preservation of Monuments (ed.): Preservation of monuments in Regensburg . tape 12 . Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7917-2371-6 , pp. 89-97 .
- ↑ 13 September 2019 7:29 p.m .: Change of baton in the Regensburg Tower Theater . Retrieved July 26, 2020 .
- ↑ The "David" becomes the "Storstad". Mittelbayerische Zeitung , February 17, 2014, accessed on April 3, 2014 .
Coordinates: 49 ° 1 ′ 12.6 ″ N , 12 ° 5 ′ 47.8 ″ E