Main Post Office (Bonn)

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Former main post office on Münsterplatz (2008)
Former parcel post office, corner Vivatsgasse / Bottlerplatz (2012)
Blackboard on the house front

The main post office (also Fürstenberg-Palais , Fürstenbergisches Palais ) in Bonn is a former city ​​palace on Münsterplatz , which was built from 1751 to 1753. From 1877 to 2008 it was the city's main post office (amt) . The entire system, including the former parcel post office on Bottlerplatz, built between 1906 and 1908 stands as a monument under monument protection .

location

The main building of the former main post office (Fürstenbergisches Palais) is on the northwest side of Münsterplatz (house number 17) in front of the Beethoven monument . The entire complex extends with the former parcel post office over Vivatsgasse to Bottlerplatz (house numbers 2–10) on the edge of the former city wall and encloses an inner courtyard (so-called "Posthof").

history

Dechanten- and Fürstenberg-Palais

The palace was built between 1751 and 1753 as the home of Caspar Anton Radermacher (1710–1763), canon and dean of the archdeaconal monastery of St. Cassius and Florentius , in place of the previous canon house, the so-called old dean, at the previous location of an electoral riding school (built from 1658 ) and an armory (built in the 1660s). On January 21, 1751, the monastery gave him permission to build the house in return for an annual donation of six Reichstalers . The following owners from this family included Franz Carl Ludwig Radermacher (1756-1827), imperial royal councilor and director of the secret state, court and house archives in Vienna .

On April 15, 1824, the ophthalmologist and surgeon Philipp Franz von Walther bought the property for 12,500 Reichstaler. He sold it on February 12, 1830 including the furniture for 19,000 Tlr. Prussian curant to Franz Egon von Fürstenberg-Stammheim . The Bonn university professor and archaeologist Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker also lived in the lower part of the palace until May 1830 . On August 15, 1845, on the occasion of the first Beethoven Festival, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia and Queen Victoria of England saw the unveiling of the Beethoven monument from the balcony of the house . After the death of Franz Egon von Fürstenberg-Stammheim, the house was a girls' boarding school until 1876 , but remained in the possession of his family.

Use as a post office

On October 1, 1876, the Post and Telegraph Administration bought the building from Gisbert Egon von Fürstenberg-Stammheim (1836–1908) for 234,000 marks in order to set up the Bonn post office, which had previously been located there (since 1821) in an adjacent house (Münsterplatz 8). After the interior renovation of the building, which was necessary for this purpose, the new post office was opened on December 3, 1877. Post and telegraph offices have been based at this location since then under joint management and had around 250 employees there (as of 1900). Due to the increasing tasks of the post office and telegraph office with the growth of the city of Bonn, the first renovation and expansion measures were carried out on the former palace in 1890 and 1895. In 1898 an extension was built in the north-west of Bottlerplatz for the packing chamber, the packing dispenser and the telegraph and telephone service.

Since the dimensions of the post office building so far proved to be inadequate for the handling of service operations, plans were made for a fundamental change in the buildings. After the purchase of houses and land on Vivatsgasse, the first of two construction phases for the new building of the parcel post office began in June 1906 between Vivatsgasse and the "Posthof", which was newly created by the rear extensions. The second phase of construction was carried out with the demolition of the extension from 1898 on Bottlerplatz until 1908. The parcel post office was a three-story building with a hipped roof . The ground floor and first floor were made of ashlar , the upper floor plastered. The entrance portals in Vivatgasse were gabled and the facade was given high arched windows . The corner of the building facing Münsterplatz was given a small, narrow tower, the northern corner facing Bottlerplatz was given a more powerful tower with an imperial eagle in the cornice .

Main entrance from 1909 to 1938 (1911)

In 1909 the main building was gutted and rebuilt, in the course of which the facade to the Münsterplatz was changed with a main entrance in the central projectile. The renovation and expansion of the post office took 700,000 marks. The main building was reopened on February 21, 1910. During the National Socialist era , an expansion of the post office was also planned as part of the intensification of public building projects. At the beginning of 1935, the Reichspost acquired a house on Münsterplatz, on whose property a new building to be connected to the former palace was to be built after the demolition. Construction work began in 1937, which also resulted in the current division of the rooms and the relocation of the entrance to the side restored the old state of the facade. After the renovation was completed, two new counter halls were put into operation in 1939 .

The post office was damaged in World War II . After making makeshift repairs, the postal service was resumed as early as 1945. The parcel post office was restored in a simplified form, partly plastered and in 1951 an additional storey was added. The facade with its neo-Romanesque forms was largely lost, especially on Vivatsgasse, as was the spire on the corner of Vivatsgasse and Bottlerplatz. In 1962, the parcel service was relocated from the main post office to the newly built premises on Kaiser-Karl-Ring. The interior of the building was restored in 1972, and the exterior facade was restored from 1988 to 1990.

1996 was the architectural competition to redesign the "Posthof" (now "Post-Carré"), including the former main post office advertised from which the architectural firm Auer + Weber + Associates for construction of the courtyard and the inner transformation of the old stock and Oswald Mathias Ungers for a Closing the gap at the corner of Windeckstrasse / Münsterplatz with a white plastered cube - directly adjacent to the former palace - emerged victorious. The implementation of the results of the competition for the post office took place from 1997 to 1998 - combined with the establishment of a new branch type - and was completed in 2001. From 2005 the interior of the main post office was rebuilt to make the rooms brighter and friendlier. In November 2008, due to restructuring measures, the building lost its status as the main post office and has since been home to a Postbank finance center , as well as the service areas of Deutsche Post and DHL . The Max Planck Institute for Mathematics has been renting the upper floors of the property since 1999 . The former main post office was renovated from spring to summer 2018.

architecture

Gable field in the central projectile

The former main post office is a complex of four building parts : the Palais am Münsterplatz (1751–53), the former parcel post office at the corner of Bottlerplatz / Vivatsgasse (1906–08) and the corner building Münsterplatz / Vivatsgasse with the connecting structure leading to the Palais, including the post office ( both 1937-39).

The three-storey rococo castle with a mansard roof - the only stately home from the 18th century in Bonn that has largely been preserved in its facade - has a protruding central projection with a front facade . In the pediment of the risalit there is a relief made of Rhenish tuff , created by Wilhelm Albermann in 1876 , which depicts the services of the Post. The once neo-Romanesque , now four-storey rear extension from 1906-08 (former parcel post office) has partially lost its original appearance and is now partially unadorned. The side extensions on Münsterplatz from 1937–39 consist of a rear three-axis connecting building with a representative entrance portal as a gate passage in front of it along its entire length , as well as a corner building.

“The parcel post office (...) [combines] Romanesque designs with those of a baroque palace complex. The slightly pivoted position of the large corner tower and the ashlar wall technology based on Romanesque models deliberately seek urban development reference to the neighboring star gate . "

- Andreas Denk (1997)

reception

Welfare stamp with main post (1991)

In 1991 the main post was the motif of a welfare stamp of the Deutsche Bundespost in the series " Post houses in Germany".

literature

Web links

Commons : Hauptpost Bonn  - collection of images

References and comments

  1. ↑ List of monuments of the city of Bonn (as of March 15, 2019), p. 42, number A 985
  2. ↑ Article Radermacher, Caspar Anton. In: Josef Niesen : Bonner Personenlexikon. 3rd, improved and enlarged edition. Bouvier, Bonn 2011, ISBN 978-3-416-03352-7 , p. 375.
  3. ↑ Cornelia Kirschbaum:  Residential buildings of the court nobility in the royal Cologne residence city of Bonn in the 17th and 18th centuries . Pp. 243/244.
  4. ↑ Josef Pauser, Martin Scheutz, Thomas Winkelbauer: Source studies of the Habsburg Monarchy (16th - 18th centuries) . In: Communications from the Institute for Austrian Historical Research: Volume 44. Supplementary volume , R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2004, p. 42.
  5. ↑ Joseph Freiherr von Hormayr zu Hortenburg : Vienna his history and his memorabilia , Volume 2, 1824, p. 62. ( Google Books )
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Margot Eilers: A walk through Bonn's postal history: 100 years of the Bonn Post Office Münsterplatz 1877–1977 .
  7. ↑ Münsterplatz 117 at the time
  8. ↑ Prince Bergisches Palais , burgendaten.de
  9. ↑ formerly Münsterplatz 1119
  10. ↑ Historical overview of restorations of the main post office on Münsterplatz in Bonn ( memento from January 11, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ), baufachinformation.de
  11. ↑ a b c square shift. Post Carré in Bonn , DBZ 6/2001 ( Memento from January 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ^ At that time, Müllheimer Strasse
  13. ^ Andreas Denk, Ingeborg Flagge: Architekturführer Bonn .
  14. ^ Udo Liessem: News from the preservation of monuments. In: Castles and Palaces . Vol. 31, No. 2, 1990, ISSN  0007-6201 , p. 125.
  15. ↑ The old post office has had its day. New type of branch opened in Bonn - open service counters instead of bulletproof glass , Rhein-Zeitung, November 4, 1998
  16. ↑ There are stamps at the quick counter , General-Anzeiger, November 4, 1998, Bonner Stadtausgabe, p. 6
  17. ↑ The construction sites still remain on Münsterplatz , General-Anzeiger, June 16, 1998, p. 6
  18. ↑ Hauptpost moves to containers in May , General-Anzeiger , April 14, 2005
  19. ^ Main post office on Münsterplatz now houses a finance center , General-Anzeiger, February 26, 2009
  20. ↑ Post office building is repainted , General-Anzeiger , April 4, 2018
  21. ↑ Cornelia Kirschbaum:  Residential buildings of the court nobility in the royal Cologne residence city of Bonn in the 17th and 18th centuries . P. 242.
  22. ^ Andreas Denk, Ingeborg Flagge: Architekturführer Bonn .

Coordinates: 50 ° 44 '4.4 "  N , 7 ° 5' 55.4"  E