Grindel skyscrapers

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Grindel skyscrapers in Hamburg
Facade installation on the house "Hallerstraße 1" on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the high-rise buildings in summer 2007 (artist: Sigrid Sandmann )
Facade of the Eimsbüttel district office
View of Grindelberg with the former petrol station and access to the underground car park

The Grindel high-rise buildings are a listed ensemble of twelve high-rise buildings that were built in the Hamburg district of Eimsbüttel after the Second World War . They were built between 1946 and 1956 in the Jewish district of Grindel, which was destroyed by the war, in the Hamburg-Harvestehude district between the streets of Grindelberg , Hallerstraße , Brahmsallee and Oberstraße.

history

Hamburg project

Since September 1945 the headquarters of the British occupation troops in Hamburg have been planned under the name “Hamburg project”. Hamburg's location made it the capital of the British Zone . The "Herford solution", which was still preferred by the British at the time, which provided for the division of the British administration between the cities of Bad Oeynhausen, Minden, Herford, Bad Salzuflen and Bielefeld, was not abandoned until January 1946. Prior to this, British officers had already gathered in Hamburg in December 1945 to plan a possible location for the headquarters in Hamburg; a first plan was presented on December 20, 1945. He planned an area near the main train station for the administration and the Blankenese district as a residential area. The prerequisite for this, however, would have been to initially relocate around 50,000 Hamburg residents - which is why the Hamburg military government rejected the plan from the outset. A second plan from February 1946 then provided for further quarters next to Blankenese, in which the Rhine Army and the British Control Commission were to be housed separately. For the staff of the control commission, two possible quarters were considered "Plan I - West of the Aussen Alster" and "Plan II - Stadtpark", whereby it was noted with regard to Plan I that this is actually the "West End" of Hamburg, which is also limited on two sides between the Alster and Isebek Canal, making it easier to protect. In addition, a large-scale building on the site on the Outer Alster was also considered to be more sensible for post-occupation Hamburg than on the city park. Because of the extensive confiscations by the occupying forces, the Hamburg population was very dissatisfied with further requisitions, so the “Hamburg project” was largely kept secret.

The construction site on Grindelberg

In the area west of the Alster, only the Grindelberg area was suitable for complete rebuilding - during the bombing of Operation Gomorrah in the summer of 1943, it was located in one of the two main directions of approach - the northwest towards Barmbek - and was almost completely destroyed. In terms of urban history, it was a relatively young residential area: it was only between 1880 and 1910 that the Grindelberg area, which had previously occupied an intermediate layer between old, grown districts, was built on according to plan on a grid-shaped floor plan with comparatively spacious single and multi-family houses. At the beginning of the Second World War, the middle-class, middle-class residential area comprised 175 houses with 1,079 apartments, 70 shops and 36 workshops. After the bombardment in 1945, 36 houses with 108 apartments remained. Around this area, on the other side of the street from Grindelberg and around it, there was no such widespread destruction that could indicate a planned approach. The site is in the immediate vicinity of the Innocentiapark and not far from the NDR radio station on Rothenbaumchaussee and the consulates on Harvestehuder Weg , which is separated from the western bank of the Outer Alster by the Alster foreland . The site had a strategically very good connection to various important destinations with different means of transport (line name as of 1959):

Construction phase

The groundbreaking ceremony took place on July 12, 1946. After the western occupation troops had established their headquarters in Frankfurt, the major construction site was initially closed. In March 1948, the Senate of Hamburg , or the former mayor of Altona Max Brauer and the senior building director Gustav Oelsner , who had returned from Istanbul, decided to build high-rise buildings with apartments on the twelve foundations as planned. Twelve high-rise blocks were built , with eight to 15 storeys and a total of 2,122 apartments for around 5,400 residents. In place of the former perimeter block development , the modernity, which was frowned upon in the Third Reich, returned to Hamburg in the form of high-rise slabs in pure linear construction , which ties in with Ludwig Hilberseimer's futuristic urban development concept for Berlin from 1929. The avant-garde high-rise construction was carried out using a steel frame construction; the yellow clinker bricks from the Gail company in Gießen follow the example of Scandinavian modernism.

One of the buildings was partly built on land that was not owned by the city. The subsequent legal dispute between the owner of the built-up property and the housing association resulted in the so-called Grindelhochhaus judgment in 1964 . In it, the Federal Court of Justice made a landmark decision on questions of property law and enrichment law that is still to this day.

The three 15-storey houses facing the Grindelberg were completely or partially. T. intended for non-residential purposes. From the north with their original use:

Due to the development of the area after the war with a lower number of houses, the house numbers start at 56 and are not consistently assigned. It ends at number 70 and thus offers a seamless transition to the house numbers of the buildings that have been preserved out of town and an approximate adequacy to the houses on the opposite side of the street. The same applies to the numbering on Brahmsallee, which borders the east.

The former course of the road on Klosterallee, which connected Lehmweg (in the north) and Hallerstrasse (in the south) before the bombing in World War II, can still be seen today through the parallel green spaces within the bends on Oberstrasse and Hallerstrasse between the high-rise buildings.

Renovation phase

From 1995 to 2006 part of the Grindel tower was extensively renovated. The municipal SAGA , owner of ten of the houses with a total of 1,200 apartments, has invested around 75 million euros in the renovation program . In July 2006, around 3,000 people lived in the SAGA high-rise buildings.

Decay of parts of the apartments

The house at Oberstrasse 14 was owned by a private businessman for decades. He left the apartments empty and business premises more and more dilapidated and did not renovate them. The building has been empty since the beginning of the 21st century. Because of its poor condition and because of vermin infestation, this building was referred to in the Hamburg local press as a "horror high-rise". In 2012, a Luxembourg investor took over the building for 30 million euros and renovated it. The building has been inhabited again since 2016. In the middle part there are offices, u. a. the " Elbkinder " (sponsor of the Hamburg state day care centers); there is also gastronomy. At the end of 2016, it was sold to Corestate Holding, also based in Luxembourg, for 64 million euros.

architecture

View from Isestraße along Klosterallee towards Oberstraße in spring with leafless trees. In summer, the Grindel high-rise buildings are almost completely covered from this perspective.
Grindel high-rise buildings from the underground viaduct, exit from the Hoheluft stop, view of the intersection of Grindelberg / Oberstraße or Schlankreye

The architecture refers to the high-rise visions of the 1920s by architects such as Le Corbusier . All houses are in a north-south direction in five rows offset with a large distance. Four of the houses were built in the originally planned steel frame construction, the rest as reinforced concrete structures . The facades were deliberately clad in a uniform, light color, but each house got its own “skin” with different window rhythms and shapes, loggias, cantilever roofs and the design of the top floor. Overall, this creates a uniform, cohesive impression of the ensemble, although no two houses are alike. In the summer half of the year, this impression is reinforced by the uniform orange-white awnings , which harmonize perfectly with the yellowish facing bricks and create a very cheerful, summery look overall.

After the construction, the Grindel skyscrapers caused a stir throughout the Federal Republic of Germany, were partly reviled as a soulless living machine, partly admired as Hamburg's Manhattan and polarize to this day. The living space, which was very modern and comfortable for the time (central heating, running hot water, elevator, light-flooded apartments, rubbish chutes, embedded in a green area) in the heavily destroyed city was, however, extremely popular with younger Hamburgers until the 1970s.

Although six of the houses are 14 storeys high, they are only dominant from a few directions.

View from an apartment towards the south-east

Conveniently located apartments look out over a green area (view in south-east direction towards the Brahmsallee / Hallerstraße intersection - on the right-hand side of the picture the “Philosophen-Turm” of the University of Hamburg, to the left the large building of the former post office 13 in Schlüterstraße).

The architects of the "Group of Grindelberg Architects", Bernhard Hermkes , Bernhard Hopp , Carl Karpinski , Rudolf Lodders , Rudolf Jäger , Albrecht Sander , Ferdinand Streb , Fritz Trautwein and Hermann Zess either did not work as architects at all during National Socialism or they did not work Industrial buildings were limited and were considered politically unencumbered. At the request of the English client, the architecture should clearly stand out from the architecture of National Socialism, be modern and urban in character as a symbol.

use

On the ground floor there were shops - shoe store, women's clothing, bookstore, household and iron goods, slaughterhouse, “Grünhöker” (fruit and vegetable shop), coffee and confectionery shop - a café, a restaurant and a general practitioner's practice. There was also a shop with a large selection of fabrics and sewing accessories, which is the only one that still exists today. Originally, a central laundry and a gas station, underground car park and several children's playgrounds also belonged to the concept of the self-sufficient "living machine", so that one didn't even have to leave the area to get things for daily life or to meet up with neighbors and friends. The laundry and gas station buildings have been preserved, but are no longer used as such. Today there are only a few (private) practices and offices on the ground floor. There are also some restaurants. There are also two underground car parks and two children's playgrounds to this day.

The twelve high-rise buildings are embedded in a park and are accessed by four street loops, so that there is no disruptive through traffic between the buildings. This realizes the concept of building construction to gain space; the number of floors is not significantly different from classic residential areas. A completely different concept was pursued than in the high-rise estates of the 1960s and 1970s, where it was important to create as much living space as possible on the floor space used.

Five bronze sculptures by the artists Barbara Haeger , Ursula Querner , Fritz Fleer , Karl August Ohrt and Hans Martin Ruwoldt have shaped the park since 1957. In the middle of the second row is the Eimsbüttel district office ("City Hall" of the Eimsbüttel district of Hamburg ), which, with its old paternosters, is almost its own tourist attraction.

meaning

In 1979, the entire complex was entered in the list of monuments, so that the preservation of the spacious green areas is still ensured.

literature

  • Axel Schildt : The Grindel skyscrapers. A social history of the first German high-rise residential complex Hamburg-Grindelberg 1945-1956 . Dölling and Galitz, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-937904-50-4 (new edition, first edition 1988).
  • Grindel high-rise buildings, Hamburg-Harvestehude, 1946-56 . In: Romana Schneider u. a. (Ed.): Architecture in the 20th century. Germany. German Architektur-Museum, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-7913-2293-1 , pp. 26-27.
  • Dietrich Nawrotzki: Apartment hygiene problems of the Grindel skyscrapers . Hamburg 1954 (dissertation).
  • Hans-Joachim Fuchs: The Grindel high-rise buildings and the socio-hygienic analysis of their residents, taking into account the children's living space . Hamburg 1953 (dissertation).

Web links

Commons : Grindelhochhäuser  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schildt 1988, pp. 11-14, 18ff
  2. ↑ Schildt 1988, pp. 18-25
  3. ↑ Dorothea Roos, Friedmar Voormann (editor): Hamburg Brick and Clinker Buildings - Shape - Construction - Material , KIT publishing Karlsruhe 2011; ISBN 978-3-86644-657-1 , p. 51
  4. ↑ in contract between the Republic of Austria and the Federal Republic of Germany on the regulation of property relations, Annex 1 http://www.ris.bka.gv.at/GeltendeFnahm.wxe?Abfrage=Bundesnormen&Gesetzesnummer=10003893
  5. ↑ Axel Tiedemann: "SPD: Scandal in the Grindelhochhaus", Hamburger Abendblatt, October 2, 2012.
  6. ↑ Ex-Horror-Haus am Grindelberg sold for millions: News from January 20, 2017 on the website www.abendblatt.de (accessed on May 13, 2017).

Coordinates: 53 ° 34 ′ 29 "  N , 9 ° 58 ′ 47"  E