Great deer pit

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Great deer pit
coat of arms
Street in Frankfurt am Main
Great deer pit
View from the corner of Berliner Straße , in the middle the Goethehaus, on the left the former seat of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels
Basic data
place Frankfurt am Main
District Border road old town - city ​​center
Created 1580
Connecting roads Kleiner Hirschgraben (north-east)
Cross streets Am Salzhaus, Weißadlergasse, Berliner Strasse
Buildings Goethe House
Technical specifications
Street length 85 m

The Große Hirschgraben is a street in the city ​​center of Frankfurt am Main . It is best known for the Goethe House , the birthplace of Johann Wolfgang Goethe . It is one of the most visited attractions in Frankfurt. The Große Hirschgraben is also the seat of the Free German Hochstift and the German Romantic Museum, which is currently under construction . The Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels and the Frankfurter Volkstheater were previously located on the site of the museum .

history

The southern part of the Großer Hirschgraben, 1628

Around 1400, the city began, in a ditch outside the medieval Staufenmauer extending from St. Catherine's Monastery to the White convent dragged on, deer to settle. The Jewish banker Gottschalk von Kreuznach , from whom the city had taken out a loan of 600 guilders in 1397, donated doe to the city in 1400 for the ditch. Between 1438 and 1539 the city council held a large deer dinner for the city officials every year. This feast took on more and more lavish forms over the years, eventually even prostitutes were invited to it. After the introduction of the Reformation in Frankfurt, customs were tightened. Instead of the big public feast, smaller celebrations took place in private houses.

Nevertheless, deer were still kept in the ditch in front of the old city wall, as can be seen on the siege plan by Conrad Faber von Creuznach (1552). In 1580 the Hirschgraben was filled in, parceled out and sold as building land. The first settlers were reformed religious refugees from the Netherlands . As early as 1594, all the properties were distributed. The Merian plan from 1628 shows that at that time both sides of the street were already densely built.

The new street on the north-western border of the old town became a preferred residential and commercial street . The houses on the north side of the street already belonged to the new town. In addition to the Goethe House , there were originally numerous other town houses and courtyards from the late 16th century, including the Zum Spitznagel house , the Hirschgrabenhof and the Andreaesche Orphan Foundation . The Große Hirschgraben was still a residential area of ​​wealthy Frankfurt citizens in the 19th century, including the Böhmer , Gwinner , Bethmann-Hollweg , Passavant and Andreae families .

The gardens north of the Großer Hirschgraben around 1750

During the Second World War , the houses in the Großer Hirschgraben were completely destroyed by the air raids on Frankfurt am Main . The first aerial bombs fell in the street on November 26, 1943, but did little damage. Even after a second bomb attack on March 18, 1944, which destroyed the Paulskirche , among other things, the fires that had broken out, including in the Goethe House, were quickly extinguished. It was not until the attack on March 22, 1944 - the anniversary of Goethe's death - which also caused devastating damage to the rest of the old town, that triggered a firestorm that struck all the houses in the narrow street.

The Großer Hirschgraben today

Goethe House and Goethe Museum

The rubble in the Großer Hirschgraben was cleared as early as 1946. The city of Frankfurt decided to immediately rebuild the Paulskirche and the Goethe House, which had a special symbolic meaning for the new beginning after the war. The foundation stone for the Goethe House was laid on July 5, 1947, and reconstruction was completed on May 10, 1951.

Except for the few symbolic reconstructions, the reconstruction of Frankfurt's old town dragged on for years. There was a construction freeze until 1952, as the plans were fiercely fought between renovators and preservers. While the renovators demanded a modern, car-friendly urban planning not based on historical ground plans, the keepers wanted to hold onto the grown structures, use old substance for the reconstruction or rebuild destroyed buildings.

The innovators prevailed in the Großer Hirschgraben. The entire southern part of the street with lots 1–11 and 6–18 was leveled and added to Berliner Straße , which was cut as a four-lane east-west axis through the formerly densely populated quarters of Frankfurt's old town. The northern half of the Hirschgraben with the Goethe House was preserved and was built on in the 1950s . The sober corner house on Berliner Strasse from 1970, the new building of the Jenisch color house, marked the end of the reconstruction .

After the reconstruction, nothing has remained of the original character of a lively, densely populated downtown street lined with numerous shops. In the last few years there have been signs of a revival. The road was traffic-calmed . There are several cafes and bistros , two bookstores and a few other shops. During the day, the street is busy with the stream of tourists during the opening hours of the Goethe House.

The houses in the street mainly serve as office buildings. The Free German Hochstift is located in the Goethe House and the adjoining buildings . The Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels also resided here until it moved in 2012 . The Cantate Hall next to the Goethehaus was the venue for the Frankfurt Volkstheater from the 1970s to 2013 . Since 2013 it has been used by actor Michael Quast's Fliegende Volksbühne Frankfurt .

planning

Construction phase in August 2016

After the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels and Volkstheater moved out, a mixed development with apartments, the German Romantic Museum and a connection to the Goethe House was planned for the Großer Hirschgraben 17-21 plots, while preserving the Cantate Hall for the Fliegende Volksbühne . In October 2013, an architectural competition for the Romantic Museum was launched under the project name Goethehöfe among 15 architectural offices, 12 of which took part in the competition. The jury then awarded three second prizes in June 2014 and granted these three winners a period of 2 months to make the final decision. On September 24th, a successor committee of the jury unanimously decided on a combination of two designs: for the urban design by Michael A. Landes & Partner with the planned apartments and the integration of the Cantate Hall, and for the new museum building by Christoph Mäckler Architects . The two offices form the planning association “Goethehöfe - German Romantic Museum” .

literature

  • Fried Lübbecke : The face of the city. According to Frankfurt's plans by Faber, Merian and Delkeskamp. 1552-1864. Waldemar Kramer publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 1952
  • Hans-Otto Schembs : Great deer ditch. Past a Frankfurter Strasse. Frankfurt am Main 1979

Web links

Commons : Großer Hirschgraben  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Stadtvermessungsamt Frankfurt am Main (ed.): Portal GeoInfo Frankfurt , city ​​map
  2. Stadt-Rechenbuch Frankfurt, entry from Sabbato post Servatii [= May 15] 1400.
  3. Invitation competition Goethehöfe ( Memento from July 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 40 ″  N , 8 ° 40 ′ 40 ″  E