House Lichtenstein
The Lichtenstein House , often just called Lichtenstein or Kleiner Römer , was a historic building in the old town of Frankfurt am Main with an interesting architectural history from Gothic and Baroque . It was on the Römerberg south of the Römer in a block of houses; the street address was Römerberg 11.
In the Middle Ages it was a popular trade fair district , in the early modern times it was a coveted viewing and meeting point for European court societies on the occasion of the imperial coronations taking place on the Römerberg and in the first half of the 20th century one of the centers of the Frankfurt art scene.
In March 1944, Lichtenstein's house burned down completely after the Allied bombing raids on Frankfurt . The largely intact surrounding walls were only torn down in a storm in 1946. A little later, the building plot was built over in a modern way, so that it must be counted among the lost monuments of Frankfurt's old town.
history
Date of origin until the baroque reconstruction (1326 to 1725)
The two first documented mentions of the Lichtenstein family date back to 1326. Furthermore, according to the corresponding fascicle of the Institute for City History, it was already named as the ancestral home of the Schurge zu Lichtenstein patrician family at that time - but without making any statement about the appearance of the house at that time. In fact, there is no concrete information about the time the building was built; on the other hand, as a verifiably gothic stone house, it was a type of only about 20 Frankfurt buildings with such great similarities that the early building history can be approximately reconstructed using analogies.
The core of the old town with the Römerberg was already so densely populated around 1150 that an initial city expansion was necessary. The first mention of the stone buildings of the nearby Roman complex dates back to the early 14th century, which means that it is likely that the core structure of the Lichtenstein was also located at that time. A look at the size of the parcel in comparison to the surrounding parcels, such as the Schrothaus (house address: Römerberg 13 ) and Jungfrau (house address: Römerberg 15 ), also suggests that the building is being built on two parcels of previous buildings that have been combined for the new construction has been. Such a procedure is even documented for another Gothic stone building, the stone house on the market .
Walter Sage, however, held that the eaves and the roof turrets (cf. picture after Caspar Merian ), which can only be detected on buildings in the late Gothic period in Frankfurt, speak for a new building at the end of the 15th century. On the other hand, the art historian and connoisseur of Frankfurt's old town, Fried Lübbecke , in his main work also spoke out in favor of building it in the 14th century.
Both views can be easily reconciled in the fact that a Lichtenstein house built in the early 14th century was rebuilt in the roof area around 1500 while retaining the remaining construction. However, whether the builders of the building are to be found in the patrician family Schurge, who like some later house owners, added the house name to their surname, or in the somewhat better-known patrician family Glauburg , who owned the Lichtenstein from 1460 onwards, is no longer clear due to the incomplete tradition clarify.
As with most of the houses in Frankfurt's old town, the etymology of the house name is likely to be found in a family name that has been passed over to the building. The single family name Lichtenstein occurs several times in documents that have survived from the 14th century, albeit in a wide variety of spellings due to the lack of spelling at the time. A direct connection between the independent Lichtenstein family and the house of the same name cannot be proven. It remains speculation that she owned the previous buildings, which the Schurge family acquired for the new building in the early 14th century.
Regardless of this, the Lichtenstein, like its structural relatives, such as the Fürsteneck house built in 1362 on Fahrgasse or the aforementioned stone house built in 1464, was primarily characterized by the builder's wise and foresighted choice of location. Located near the Fahrtor , through which merchandise shipped across the Main to Frankfurt was brought into the city, with its fireproof vaults it was a welcome and certainly well-paid protection against the constantly threatening conflagrations of the wooden half-timbered towns .
The fact that the city administration itself was afraid of this, shows that until the town hall, which was acquired on Römerberg in 1405, was expanded to include its own stone archive tower in 1438, all important documents and privileges were stored in the vault of the fortress tower at Leonhardstor, which was demolished in 1808.
The Frankfurt goods fair, which was already extremely important in the 14th century, was closely linked to commercial goods. As the tax books of that time show, some homeowners earned more by accommodating trade fair guests than in the rest of the year. The luxurious room sizes of the Lichtenstein at the time are likely to have attracted particularly wealthy trade fair visitors. So it is not surprising to find a document from 1474, according to which 48 guest beds were available throughout the house.
During the Reformation , Johann von Glauburg lived in Lichtenstein, who is one of the most important political figures of the 16th century in Frankfurt. After completing his studies, he returned to his hometown in 1526 and was a lay judge there as early as 1532, later several times senior mayor and a skilled diplomat .
When, from 1562, Frankfurt became the city of choice for the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperors and the Römerberg became the site of this regularly held ceremony, the value of the building is likely to have multiplied again. The usual rental of window seats in good locations at the celebrations, similar to the possibility of accommodating trade fair guests mentioned above, brought the respective owner considerable income. Although no exact figures have been obtained for Lichtenstein, here, too, analogies can be drawn to other buildings in the same location. The fact that the enormous wealth of windows in most of the buildings facing the Römerberg can only be explained by the high window rent that can be achieved as a result can serve as further confirmation.
Probably only a little later a court building was built west of Lichtenstein to Kerbengasse , the late Gothic remains with the coat of arms of the Glauburg family, Carl Theodor Reiffenstein recorded in a few sketches in the middle of the 19th century. In its unadorned functional form, it probably served for a long time more as a warehouse than as a dwelling and also had a very spacious vaulted cellar used by all owners of the Lichtenstein for the storage of wine.
The back of the house was shown in detail for the first time on the famous bird's eye view plan by Matthäus Merian , which shows Frankfurt in 1628 (see picture). Accordingly, in the courtyard between Lichtenstein and the rear building on Kerbengasse there was also a striking stair tower built on the rear, which stylistically also moved between late Gothic and early renaissance .
From the baroque renovation to the Second World War (1725 to 1944)
In 1694 the Lichtenstein changed hands again and passed on to the Leerse family, who immigrated to Frankfurt from Breda in the Netherlands in the same century . During this time, the alternative house name Zum kleine Römer also appeared, which was certainly due to the stepped gables of the northern and southern firewalls and the stone architecture that was otherwise not repeated on the Römerberg.
In the taste of the 18th century, which was soon to dawn, the Gothic buildings were seen as little worth seeing and were demolished en masse or massively rebuilt in baroque style. In this respect, the then head of the house, Johann Georg Leerse , proceeded comparatively carefully with the renovation of the house, which was carried out in 1725 by the Darmstadt master builder Louis Remy de la Fosse . De la Fosse had already distinguished himself by building the Darmstadt Palace and quickly gained great recognition in Frankfurt for his work on the Römerberg.
So it commissioned just two years later, in 1727, the Frankfurt noble family Holzhausen with the construction of bears her name until today Holzhausenpark received small castle . Interestingly, this was built on the foundation walls of a medieval moated castle, which at the end of the 14th century belonged to the possible builders of Lichtenstein, the Schurge zu Lichtenstein family.
As you may have more than two centuries before the renovation changed only the roof of Lichtenstein in its substance really profoundly by this one Zwerchhaus vorblendete. The appearance of the facade was standardized and architectural parts such as windows and portals were given a baroque style. Internally, the rooms on the first floor facing the Römerberg were fitted with stucco ceilings of extraordinarily high quality, but their execution suggests that they were not built until the middle of the 18th century.
In 1774 the building changed hands again and passed to the Manskopf family of wine merchants from Frankfurt as heir ( Fideicommiss ) for Leerses great-grandson Jakob Philipp Manskopf (who had to call himself Leerse in the following) . Under her, the building was carefully rebuilt again in 1777. The rear building on Kerbengasse was moved down to its late Gothic ground floor, the street entrances were walled up and converted into windows. The storeys above were rebuilt in an architecturally inconspicuous way and access was created from the courtyard via a staircase decorated in the Rococo style.
The Holy Roman Empire was already in decline at that time, and the Römerberg only saw two pompous imperial coronations in the 1790s. Once again, the building moved to the center of European history: the future king of one of the new European great powers, Friedrich Wilhelm III. von Prussia , met his future wife, Duchess Luise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz , on March 14, 1793 at a ball in Lichtenstein (see picture).
In 1806 the Holy Roman Empire had collapsed after almost a millennium, and with the end of the imperial coronations and the dwindling importance of the mass, Frankfurt's old town began to decline rapidly in the 19th century. With her, the Lichtenstein House also fell into a deep slumber, but also a time in which it could only enjoy little appreciation in the once again changing taste of the times. In 1822, almost like some houses on the Römerberg, the show facade would have fallen victim to a classicist renovation, which was never carried out.
Most likely it was the massive construction, more than the numerous half-timbered buildings in the old town, especially in the second half of the 19th century, that saved it from total decay and kept the rents at a level that did not give it up to total misuse. Nevertheless, contemporary pictures by the photographer Carl Friedrich Mylius show it with broken windows and disfigured by large advertising signs on the facade.
As a Frankfurt address book from 1877 reveals, the Lichtenstein, in which the Frankfurt historian and school reformer Anton Kirchner had worked as tutor of the Manskopf family at the beginning of the century , had long been just a property that was rented to the common bourgeoisie and workers. At that time, the owner family already had a residential address in Fischerfeld, where large-scale and for the time luxurious new building districts in the classicist taste of the time had emerged. The head of the family at the time, Gustav D. Manskopf , nevertheless acted as a generous patron : one of his most famous foundations was the new bronze fountain of justice inaugurated on the Römerberg in 1887 .
Shortly before the First World War , the building was bought by the city and extensively renovated. This showed how well the original building structure had been handled in the past centuries: the original wooden beams with Gothic painting were still located under the stucco ceilings, the former pointed arches were still visible behind the plastering of the round arches on the ground floor.
After completing the careful renovation, the city made the Lichtenstein available to the Frankfurt art world. The so-called artist's kitchen was held in the courtyard in the early 1920s, and the premises were used by Frankfurt artists such as Rudolf Gudden , Hans Brasch and Wilhelm Reiss as living space and gallery for exhibition purposes .
Second World War and the present (1944 to the present day)
During the Second World War , the roof of the building was badly damaged by fire bombs during the first heavy air raid on October 4, 1943 . During the bombing of Frankfurt in March 1944, which destroyed the entire medieval old town in a few hours, the Lichtenstein also burned down to ground level. Due to the massive construction and the lack of direct explosive bombs, the enclosing walls remained almost completely in place, so the house was still relatively well preserved.
From an art-historical and urban planning point of view, the inadequate security of the ruins immediately after the war is to be regretted, as it happened immediately after the end of the fighting with the nearby Roman complex. By the end of 1945, mainly due to frost damage, more and more, but only small parts of the unstable facade had collapsed. At the beginning of 1946 a heavy storm then tore down everything except the arched openings to the Römerberg, so that in 1948 the decision was made to clear away the remains, although the reconstruction had already been estimated at 380,000 Reichsmarks .
In the 1950s, the plots of the former Römerberg 3–17 houses and thus also of the Lichtenstein were built over in a historicizing way. Although the houses at least partially cite the architecture of their predecessors, for example by slightly protruding from the ground floor, the original subdivision of the area can no longer be read from them (see picture). The failure to rebuild the Lichtenstein seems incomprehensible from today's point of view in view of its historical and architectural importance and the degree of destruction of other town houses reconstructed after the war (e.g. Goethehaus , Steinernes Haus). On the other hand, the subdivision of the area has changed relatively little compared to the pre-war state, so that a reconstruction of the building would be possible in the medium term.
architecture
General
The architectural details of the Lichtenstein, especially the interior, are only preserved in an extremely brief monograph from the end of the 19th century. Almost all documents that could still provide information about the content of the structural changes in past centuries were destroyed with the files of the city building authority during the Second World War. In this respect, they have to be reconstructed from a very manageable number of photographs and older non-photographic images. Much can therefore only remain a guess, which, like many historical details, is more or less supported by analogies to comparable buildings.
Nevertheless, the local art-historical importance of the Lichtenstein should not be underestimated: It was one of the few examples of a larger, artistically demanding baroque renovation of a Frankfurt old town house that survived until 1944. At that time, conversions only rarely went beyond adding stucco ceilings or changing the roofs; completely new buildings were much more common, but only in the context of the classic craft tradition and certainly not with the assistance of a non-local master builder such as Louis Remy de la Fosse. After all, the Lichtenstein was already a rarity in its building type, even in medieval Frankfurt there were estimated only about 20 comparable stone buildings, of which ultimately only the stone house and the canvas house came to us after severe war destruction and reconstruction.
Exterior
The medieval building (1326 to 1725)
The massive of stone- built building covered an almost square plot. This was most certainly the result of the amalgamation of two smaller plots of land, if you consider the size of the formerly surrounding parcels on older land register plans. Since the Lichtenstein was located between the Schrothaus and Alt- Strahlberg buildings (house address: Römerberg 9 ), apart from the roof, it only had two architecturally designed sides.
One of the most architecturally accurate images of the Römerberg facade of the medieval Lichtenstein before the baroque renovation comes from the coronation diary of Leopold I , which was engraved by Caspar Merian, the son of the famous Matthäus Merian (see picture). On the basis of this view, the well-known Frankfurt painter Carl Theodor Reiffenstein made a detailed sketch in the middle of the 19th century (see picture) which, from today's scientific perspective, very accurately reproduces the building as it was at that time.
It shows the 5 meter high ground floor from south to north or left to right with a small arched entrance, followed by a large arched entrance, followed by two smaller pointed arches. The large, arched entrance was 4.50 meters high and led along a closed corridor inside at the rear of the house through a gate of the same size into the back yard. The other entrances opened into the interior. Above the portals were the canopies , called `` Schoppen '' , which were quite common in medieval Frankfurt (see for example the illustration by Caspar Merian, in which almost all houses have the canopies).
While the number of windows on the unadorned west side of the medieval Lichtenstein facing the courtyard has not been handed down, the east and actual face of the Römerberg had four large cross-frame windows in each of the four-meter-high upper floors . This type of window, which was very large and expensive by medieval standards, can only be seen today in Frankfurt on the stone house.
The high gable roof , bordered by staggered firewalls at the southern and northern ends of the facade, was the only one that was aligned with the eaves in this area of the Römerberg . It had four small dormers on each side of the roof, two of which were always built in a row. In addition, semicircular windows had been built into the upper end of the fire walls on each side, which additionally illuminated the top of the three attic floors.
Already on the roof of the medieval Lichtenstein at the level of the first attic there was a kind of dwelling, three of which were covered with small turrets with pointed helmets . They were most likely to represent quotations from sacred architecture and were possibly only shown in the early 16th century on a roof truss that was previously only occupied by dormers (see historical section). At the House for Angels on Saturday Berg this form can still be observed from the roof tower today.
Apart from a stair tower, the back courtyard did not have any additional rear buildings built directly onto the Lichtenstein until 1725. The stair tower had certainly existed since the house was built, as the beamed ceilings of the main house had no openings for a staircase that was once internally laid. In addition, this would have made a wooden beam construction necessary, which the Lichtenstein, unlike most other Gothic stone houses, did not have either. Due to the still relatively small plot of land, the beam ceilings managed without additional support.
Opposite the back courtyard was a building built sometime in the 16th century in the late Gothic style, facing west towards Kerbengasse. The fact that it had a round-arched passage on both the front and the back, which led directly into the backyard, suggests that it was to be assigned to the Lichtenstein as the rear building from the beginning. The bird's eye view plan by Matthäus Merian from 1628 shows it as a simple, two-story house with a gable roof.
The baroque redesigned building (1725 to 1944)
During the baroque renovation, the ground floor was only slightly changed to standardize the appearance: the pointed arched gates were converted into round arched gates and the large gate of the passage was made smaller. The pots were broken off in favor of round skylights, popular at the time, called ox eyes , above every gate.
The number of window openings on the front side of the Römerberg was retained and only slightly reduced. The new windows were provided with a finer subdivision, keystones , ears and a richer profile. In addition, a filigree, artfully forged grille was added to the windows of the second floor in the lower area.
In the area of the roof, the three late-Gothic towers were replaced by a dwelling with a large volute gable in front of it. This brought the baroque refreshed facade to a calm conclusion, which did not let the building stand out excessively between the surrounding, mostly medieval houses. The two volutes and the upper end of the pediment were crowned with antique vases. Between the two baroque windows in the gable, which were also richly framed but, unlike the floors below, had no keystone, there was a cartouche on a console with the initials of the builder Johann Georg Leerse. Like the oval window above it, it was richly framed with baroque curves.
Since the outdated stepped gable was not removed on this occasion, it can be considered certain that the entire roof structure was only changed, but not completely rebuilt. The fact that the four dormers were only moved and the lower two were kept in a more finely detailed version also suggests that nothing has been changed in the basic inner division of the roof.
In contrast, the changes that were made on the courtyard side appear more profound. The old stair tower was demolished and two elongated half-timbered houses were built on stone ground floors, reaching north and south to the rear building on Kerbengasse:
The southern of the two extensions only reached under the roof of the main house for the first third of its length, as it housed a staircase as a replacement for the abandoned tower. The other two thirds were designed as an upper storey built on pillars attached to the rear building. The northern longitudinal building rested on a ground floor pierced by round arches, the two floors above cantilevered on corbels decorated with baroque foliage . It was completed by a two-story mansard roof with a dwelling. Its loading hatch proves that at least the roof, perhaps also the entire outbuilding, was primarily used for storage purposes.
1777 and the back house to notch lane to give the late Gothic ground floor was demolished, with its large cellars and above in a simple, already in the Louis XVI opens period style with two floors and a mansard roof rebuilt (see Fig.). In the courtyard, a staircase that begins freely, is decorated with forged bars and leads into the newly created house. On this side, due to the interlocking with the other rear buildings, the house only had two windows on the first floor, in the one above and in the mansard roof there were four windows, on the roof there were another three dormers. On the side facing Kerbengasse, the layout was more uniform with four windows per floor and in the mansard roof.
It remains unclear whether the arched passage was walled up on both sides at that time or not until the 19th century in order to make the ground floor as a whole usable. On the side facing Kerbengasse, the passage was transformed into a large central window, the doors to the right and left of it into two smaller windows, the round-arched lintels of which are reminiscent of the original use. A simple door was broken in the middle of the walled-up arch on the courtyard side, which was surrounded on the left, right and above by an additional window that was broken into it.
- Inner courtyard views of the Lichtenstein house, Jörg Ott's virtual old town model
View to the west
View to the east
Interior
ground floor
As with almost all medieval stone buildings in Frankfurt's old town, the floors, partition walls and ceilings in Lichtenstein were not massive, but wooden structures borrowed from half-timbered buildings. It is possible that the ceiling of the first floor was even equipped with a vault, which later fell victim to renovations; What is more certain is the original presence of a mezzanine floor , known as a bobbed floor in old Frankfurt, for storing goods - however, there are no reports about either of these features.
The original interior division of the ground floor remains unclear due to a lack of tradition. However, a comparison of the only existing floor plan from the end of the 19th century (see picture) with the floor plan of the stone house, in which the original interior layout was demonstrably preserved, suggests that the floor plan reflects the medieval situation.
Accordingly, there was a large room behind the two right-hand gates seen from the Römerberg, which in the Middle Ages led into the stair tower attached to the rear of the house. More recently, a simple door to the courtyard had been broken into the western wall. In the Middle Ages, the room was primarily used for trade and measurement purposes. Behind the second gate on the left, seen from the Römerberg, there was probably a passage separated on the left and right by half-timbered walls, which led through a round arched gate on the back into the back yard. The gate on the far left of the house led to the south-western courtyard annex after 1725. This housed an elaborately turned staircase from the 18th century, made of precious woods and replacing the original tower structure, which opened up the two floors above from here.
When the house was renovated in the early 20th century, contrary to the original floor plan, but in favor of more usable space, the entire room was made coherent; as far as the photos of the renovation preserved in the Institute for Urban History show. The gate that opened back into the courtyard was walled up and provided with windows to brighten the room, which was otherwise only lit by the skylights facing the Römerberg.
Upper floors and roof
The above-mentioned staircase in the south-western courtyard extension led to the upper floors. Their internal division had changed comparatively little. Each floor was divided into two large, interconnected rooms, each with two windows facing the Römerberg. It remains unclear whether this division was inherited from the Middle Ages or whether the Baroque even further subdivided only one room per floor. What is clear, however, is that the renovation of 1725 added magnificent stucco ceilings to the two rooms on the first floor. The plasterer is unknown, perhaps it is the Mainz artist Hennicke , known only by his family name , who worked in the electoral room of the nearby Roman in those years. The execution speaks in any case for an artist who also met courtly qualities.
Nothing is known about the three floors of the roof structure. Apart from the lower floor, which is always illuminated by larger windows - whether through late Gothic turrets or the baroque gable - it should have been so dark here that it could have been used for little more than pure storage purposes. In addition, the dormers offered an excellent view over the roofs of the entire old town, as the Lichtenstein towered over almost all of the surrounding buildings.
literature
- Johann Georg Battonn : Local description of the city of Frankfurt am Main - Volume IV. Association for history and antiquity in Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main 1866. ( digitized version )
- Rudolf Jung , Julius Hülsen: The architectural monuments in Frankfurt am Main . Third volume. Private buildings. Heinrich Keller, Frankfurt am Main 1914, p. 78–81 ( digital copy [PDF]).
- Paul Wolff, Fried Lübbecke : Old Frankfurt, New Series. Verlag Englert & Schlosser, Frankfurt am Main 1924, pp. 36–39.
- Walter Sage: The community center in Frankfurt a. M. until the end of the Thirty Years War. Wasmuth, Tübingen 1959 ( Das Deutsche Bürgerhaus 2), pp. 30, 31.
- Georg Hartmann , Fried Lübbecke: Old Frankfurt. A legacy. Verlag Sauer and Auvermann, Glashütten 1971, pp. 45, 65-67.
- Hans Pehl: Emperors and Kings in the Romans. The Frankfurt City Hall and its surroundings. Verlag Josef Knecht, Frankfurt 1980, pp. 87-90, ISBN 3-7820-0455-8 .
- Wolfgang Klötzer : Frankfurt's old streets. Ariel Verlag, Sulzbach im Taunus 1982, pp. 18, 19.
- Hartwig Beseler , Niels Gutschow: War fates of German architecture - losses, damage, reconstruction. Volume 2: South. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1988, p. 820.
Web links
- House Lichtenstein. altfrankfurt.com
swell
- ^ Johann Friedrich Boehmer, Friedrich Lau: Document book of the imperial city of Frankfurt . J. Baer & Co, Frankfurt am Main 1901–1905, Volume II, Certificate No. 291, February 12, 1326: […] de domo dicta Lithinstein [...]
- ^ Johann Friedrich Boehmer, Friedrich Lau: Document book of the imperial city of Frankfurt . J. Baer & Co, Frankfurt am Main 1901–1905, Volume II, Certificate No. 293, March 12, 1326: […] the ligin fiere uf dem hus zu Liehtenstein uf Hennekins deyl gein der winschroder hus […] (Note: With the winschroder hus , in the context of the source, only the house of the old Lit. J 160 can be meant - as the house with the address Römerberg 13 , still known in the 20th century as the Schrothaus , which in fact came up against the Lichtenstein and with it divided the firewall).
- ↑ a b Emperors and Kings in Römer. The Frankfurt City Hall and its surroundings. Verlag Josef Knecht, Frankfurt 1980, pp. 87-90.
- ↑ a b The community center in Frankfurt a. M. until the end of the Thirty Years War. Wasmuth, Tübingen 1959, pp. 30 & 31.
- ↑ a b c d e f Alt-Frankfurt. A legacy . Verlag Sauer and Auvermann, Glashütten 1971, pp. 45, 65-67.
- ↑ Dr. Heinrich Voelcker: The old town in Frankfurt am Main within the Hohenstaufen wall. Moritz Diesterweg publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 1937, pp. 28–37.
- ^ Georg Ludwig Kriegk: History of Frankfurt am Main in selected representations. Heyder and Zimmer, Frankfurt am Main 1871, pp. 195, 196.
- ↑ a b c d e The architectural monuments of Frankfurt am Main - Volume 3, private buildings . Self-published / Völcker, Frankfurt am Main 1914, pp. 78–81.
- ^ Gerhard Bott: Frankfurt am Main . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1953, p. 40.
- ↑ a b c Frankfurt's old streets . Ariel Verlag, Sulzbach im Taunus 1982, pp. 18 & 19.
- ↑ The fate of the war in German architecture. Loss, Damage, Reconstruction - Volume 2, South . Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1988, p. 820.
- ↑ The old town in Frankfurt am Main within the Hohenstaufen wall. Moritz Diesterweg publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 1937, p. 49.
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 36.2 " N , 8 ° 40 ′ 54.6" E