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Grenzwacht house from the station forecourt

The Grenzwacht building is a listed high-rise building in Aachen , which serves the Aachen city administration as an administrative building. It emerged from the shell of the Lochnerhaus, which the entrepreneur Rudolf Lochner originally wanted to build on this site and which was considered Germany's most famous investment ruin at the time . The Aachen weather pillar is visible from afar on the roof of the building .

Location and surroundings

Aerial photo of the Grenzwacht house (in the center of the picture) and its surroundings

The building with the addresses Römerstraße 10 and Hackländerstraße 1 is located in the Aachen city center in the Aachen-Mitte district between Hackländerstraße, Vereinsstraße and Römerstraße (section of Bundesstraße 1 and the Alleeenring) in the immediate vicinity of the main train station . It extends in an east-west direction and borders on the west side of the station square. The Aachen Hauptbahnhof bus stop is located on the station forecourt directly in front of the Grenzwacht building, and is served by numerous lines of the Aachen transport association and a line to Maastricht operated by the Dutch Arriva .

description

The building in the New Objectivity style consists of a 40 meter high tower with 12 floors on the west side facing the station forecourt, in the middle a seven-story long building 48 meters long and 20 meters high and a likewise 20 meter high extension on the east side facing Vereinsstrasse, in which there was initially a movie theater . The tower and the long structure are the result of the shell of the Lochnerhaus built in 1925 and are designed as a steel frame structure , while the cinema extension and other additions on the long side and the staircase of the tower at the top of the building are reinforced concrete . The frame-like tower structure consists of four columns strands on each side, two of which with gussets and each bars over rigid corners are connected to rigid frame. The construction is 36-fold statically indeterminate , but by choosing the unknowns it is reduced to a 12-fold indeterminate system. As connection technology were rivets used the props were not anchored to the foot. The entire steel skeleton was erected by the Duisburger Aktiengesellschaft for the iron industry and bridge construction formerly Johann Caspar Harkort . Grenzwacht House is one of the first high-rise buildings in Germany to be built using a steel frame construction.

The base of all three parts of the building has a rectangular shape, with the lower half of the tower building being wider and giving the visual impression that it is almost completely enclosed on three sides by the long building. Overall, the building has an angular shape . The net floor area is 12,123 square meters. Originally the building had a closed and unplastered brick facade , later this was replaced by yellowish-brownish Eifel tuff . All parts of the building have a flat roof .

One of the last paternoster elevators in Germany still in operation is located in the tower . It is not open to the public and may only be used by employees of the city administration.

History of origin

Steel skeleton of the planned Lochnerhaus

From 1923 the city of Aachen planned to build a new administration building on the property at the train station. The main users were initially intended to be the Belgian occupation troops (Armée belge d'occupation) during the Allied occupation of the Rhineland, which was limited to 1934 according to the Versailles Peace Treaty . The city's plan stipulated that the construction would be largely financed by the imperial government . With the design of the building was Theodor Veil , architect and university lecturer at the RWTH Aachen , commissioned after its plans until the spring of 1924, the excavation of the excavation took place. In the summer of 1924 it became known that, contrary to the city's expectations, the Reich government would not participate in the construction financing. The city of Aachen therefore looked for a private investor and finally sold the property to the Aachen entrepreneur Rudolf Lochner , whose Lochner'sche Bauunternehmungs AG was then also earmarked for the construction.

Lochner had Veil's plans revised by the Aachen-born Emil Fahrenkamp , professor of architecture at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . In its edition of March 21, 1926, the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung presented the plans for the Lochnerhaus together with the Düsseldorf Wilhelm-Marx-Haus , the Cologne Hansahochhaus and the silo tower of the Bremen Rolandmühle as a sensation. In mid-1925, the actual construction of the project, now known as the Lochnerhaus, began, and according to the planning at the time, the building should be ready for occupancy in spring 1926. A central slewing arm crane was used for the tower construction , the location of which had to be changed three times during the construction of the steel frame. The steel skeleton was completed quickly in 1925, but there were again financing problems due to unexpected cost increases and all construction activities were stopped that same year. One reason for the high costs was the high demand for steel due to the bending moments that occur . At the beginning of 1927, the city began to consider buying part of the shell and finishing it itself. The building that was created in this way was to be used for the employment office, but the financial means were also lacking for this plan. After almost two years of standstill, during which the Lochnerhaus became Germany's most famous investment ruin, the building police demanded its demolition in August of the same year, but in October an investor was finally found in the Essen construction company Hochtief and the city decided to continue the project and commissioned the construction.

Hochtief acquired the property and the shell from Lochner and commissioned Jacob Koerfer to change the plans again. Like his predecessor, he was a native of Aachen and made major changes to the plans. The changes included, for example, the extension with the cinema, which Koerfer always planned for his high-rise buildings. In addition, Koerfer expanded the building by adding an extension on the northern long side and adding a stairwell on the west side of the tower and raised the long building by another storey, the facade of which is set back from the rest of the facade. These additions are made in the reinforced concrete skeleton construction method used by Koerfer in all of his buildings, whereas the parts of the building created from the steel skeleton of the Lochnerhaus form Koerfer's only large steel skeleton structure. Decisive for the decision to implement the additions in reinforced concrete instead of steel frame construction were the shorter construction time and lower costs as well as the greater flexibility during the execution. The reinforced concrete structures were carried out by the Aachen construction company Heinemann & Busse. So that the tower building also jumps back on the south side in the upper half compared to the long building as on the north side through the extension, the existing steel structure was cut off in this area. The cross girders, which now protruded beyond the previous row of columns, were given a reinforced concrete casing and formed a cantilever structure with the floor slabs , which resulted in considerable cost savings compared to the use of new columns. For the additional upper floor of the long building, the girders of the floor below, which should take the load, were reinforced with reinforced concrete. The stairwell extension was approved with a significant delay, so that the construction of the other parts of the building was well advanced. The reinforced concrete construction made it possible to complete the shell of the stairwell within three weeks. When building a came Torkret - suspended scaffold used, which was suspended by wire ropes at the highest points of the skeletal support structure and its altitude could be varied by the workers. In April 1929, construction work on the building, now known as the Grenzwacht House, continued and was completed in February 1930.

History of the building

Tower of the Grenzwacht house and the main train station in the 1930s
Blackboard of the Ways Against Forgetting project

After completion, two thirds of the building were used by the Aachen city administration. It also housed a restaurant, several shops, storage rooms for the wine wholesaler Nagel & Hoffbaur and, in the rear area, the former Capitol cinema. This had more than 1,100 seats and a cinema organ from M. Welte & Sons for the background music of the silent films shown.

During the time of National Socialism , the health department of the city of Aachen was also housed in the Grenzwacht building. a. was responsible for the implementation of the law passed by the National Socialists for the prevention of genetically ill offspring . This was intended to promote the National Socialist racial hygiene and provided for the compulsory sterilization of the disabled , which could be applied for by medical officers . The Aachen medical officers made such applications from 1934 for several hundred people, who they classified as "inferior". From 1941 to 1945, the disabled and sick were deported from Aachen with the help of the health department and then systematically murdered as part of the T4 campaign . Often they were previously abused for cruel human experiments in disregard of ethical principles . The Ways Against Forgetting project commemorates the involvement of the Aachen medical officers in the crimes with a plaque attached to the western tower facade of the Grenzwacht building .

In 1951 the building was taken over by the city of Aachen. The Aachen weather pillar has been on the roof of the tower since 1958 , and its colored fluorescent tubes show the weather forecast for the following day. In the 1960s, the Grenzwacht house was also used by the Aachen Administration and Business Academy.

From the mid-1990s, extensive renovation work was carried out on the building, which was only completed in 2011. From 1995 to 1997, the interior was first renovated on the second floor, the interior renovation of the other upper floors took place from 1999 to 2007. A total of 8 million euros were invested in the interior renovation in these years. During the renovation were u. a. the steel girders are coated with fire protection materials and the interior is made more spacious. Further fire protection measures for 234,000 euros were carried out in the two basement floors and in the stairwell. In 2008 and 2009 the ground floor was finally renovated. The facade was also renovated between 1994 and 2007. This became particularly necessary after the earthquake in Roermond in 1992 , which exacerbated existing damage. The renovation was carried out in three stages. In the first section, renovation work was carried out on the facade facing Hackländerstraße and the tower facade; in the second section, the facade on Römerstraße followed from 2003, where the main entrance was then. The main entrance was relocated from Römerstraße 10 to Hackländerstraße 1. The flat roofs were also renovated in 2001 and 2011. The costs for the facade renovation alone amounted to 1.5 million euros, the total costs were estimated in advance at 2.145 million euros and were borne by the city together with the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The Grenzwacht building will continue to be used as an administrative building by the city of Aachen and is open to the public. The citizen service is located on the ground floor and offers various services for the citizens of Aachen. It is registered with the address Römerstraße 10 in the list of monuments of the city of Aachen and is considered a landmark of Aachen.

See also

Web links

Commons : Haus Grenzwacht  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Wilhelm Petry: Advances in reinforced concrete building construction in 1929 . In: construction and execution . Supplement to the Deutsche Bauzeitung No. 23–24. 64th year, no. 6-7 , March 19, 1930, pp. 41–60 , here pp. 53–55 ( online [PDF; 3.0 MB ; accessed on April 1, 2019]). Also published with other images in: Der Bauingenieur . 11th year, issue 19, May 9, 1930, pp. 325–334, here p. 331 f. ( online [PDF; 2.6 MB; accessed April 1, 2019])
  2. ↑ a b c Alfred Hawranek: The steel frame construction with consideration of the skyscrapers and tower houses . Julius Springer publishing house, Berlin / Vienna 1931, ISBN 978-3-642-51382-4 , chap. V. Tower, high-rise buildings and skyscrapers , p. 265–267 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed March 30, 2019]).
  3. ↑ a b Lochnerhaus (later the Grenzwacht house). In: arch INFORM ; accessed on March 28, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b c facade renovation administrative building. (1925). (PDF; 1.3 MB) City of Aachen, accessed on March 30, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Energy pass for non-residential buildings in accordance with §§ 16 ff. Energy Saving Ordinance (EnEV) for the Hackländerstraße 1 building on the website of the City of Aachen, accessed on March 30, 2019
  6. ↑ a b c d Skyscraper crumbles like the Matterhorn . In: Aachener Nachrichten . August 8, 2003 ( aachener-nachrichten.de [accessed March 30, 2019]).
  7. ^ "Haus Grenzwacht" at Aachen train station. In: aachen-stadtgeschichte.de. Jorg Mühlenberg, April 8, 2012, accessed March 30, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Werner Lorenz : Building system and structure - steel. In: DenkmalPraxisModerne. Wüstenrot Foundation , accessed on April 1, 2019 : “There are two twelve-story steel frames on each of the four sides of the tower; the contemporary commentator expressly points out the increased costs due to the bending moments and the resulting increased steel consumption. [Schulze 1928, p. 24] "
  9. ↑ a b Jacob Koerfer in the German Biography , accessed on March 30, 2019.
  10. ↑ 29 - Bahnhofsplatz, administration building. In: ways against forgetting. Volkshochschule Aachen, accessed on April 2, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Europe . In: Werner Schuder (Ed.): Minerva - Yearbook of the Learned World . tape 1 . De Gruyter, Berlin 1966, ISBN 978-3-11-126480-6 , pp. 7 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed April 9, 2019]).
  12. ↑ a b interior renovation of the administration building. (PDF; 1.1 MB) City of Aachen, accessed on April 9, 2019 .
  13. ↑ a b c d High-rise is being renovated. In: Aachener Nachrichten . March 29, 2006, accessed March 30, 2019 .
  14. ↑ a b c Hochhaus Bahnhofsplatz: master plan administration building . In: City of Aachen (Ed.): Ten Years E26: Annual Report of the Facility Management of the City of Aachen 2004–2014 . S. 44 f . ( online [PDF; 10.6 MB ; accessed on April 9, 2019]).
  15. ^ List of monuments in the area of ​​the city of Aachen. (PDF; 223 kB) City of Aachen, September 27, 2016, p. 24 , accessed on April 9, 2019 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 6.7 ″  N , 6 ° 5 ′ 28.5 ″  E