House to Esslinger
The Haus zum Esslinger , in contrast to the neighboring house to the west, often also called Junge Esslinger or Aunt Melber 's house, is a rebuilt historical building in the old town of Frankfurt am Main . It is located in the northeast corner of the chicken market between Römerberg and Dom ; there it forms the corner house between the old town street, Hinter dem Lämmchen , which extends to the west, and Neugasse, which leads to the north . The house address before the destruction was "Hinter dem Lämmchen 2" or "Neugasse 3", today it was again "Hinter dem Lämmchen 2".
Although it in its construction as strong baroque altered half-timbered house of the late Gothic period not excelled over its built environment, it was a former residence of Johann Wolfgang Goethe's aunt Melber well known of his stay there in detail in his book Poetry and Truth described.
In March 1944, the Esslinger building was largely burned after the air raids on Frankfurt . Individual preserved parts were blown up or stored in 1950, the parcel with the technical town hall built over from 1972 to 1974 . After its demolition in 2010, the building was reconstructed as a creative replica along with part of the old town that once surrounded it as part of the Dom-Römer project .
In September 2019, the Struwwelpeter Museum opened in Haus zum Esslinger and in the neighboring Alter Esslinger house (Hinter dem Lämmchen 4). It is reminiscent of Struwwelpeter and its author, the Frankfurt psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffmann .
history
Date of origin up to the baroque redesign
Since building history research has never been carried out on the house, or at least written down, from today's perspective only what has been handed down must be considered - i.e. on the basis of documents, a few photographs and detailed architectural drawings of the so-called old town photograph from the early 1940s. It is uncertain to what extent source research could bring an improvement here, as files on structural redesigns in the old town in particular are attributable to the war losses.
A house with the name of the Esslinger was first mentioned in a Bedebuch as early as 1320 ; the first house deed dates from 1359. As far as we know today about the Hessian-Franconian and especially the Frankfurt half-timbered building, the building destroyed in 1944 was certainly much younger. The construction method of the ground floor, which was originally split into pointed arches , points to the first half of the 16th century at the earliest, if you look seriously and without further clues. For similar buildings, for example in Limburg's old town, which is often comparable to Frankfurt, such a date is now also dendrochronologically documented.
The Frankfurt painter Carl Theodor Reiffenstein attempted a graphic reconstruction of the original building (see picture), which, however, is at least partially doubtful. It shows the second floor facing the chicken market with an overhang, which was certainly never the case, because this would have been preserved in the baroque redesign, as is practically always in Frankfurt. Despite the strict building regulations issued after the Great Christian Fire of 1719, which only allowed a small overhang, building owners tried not to give away any space in the densely built-up old town. The renaissance- style roofs are also pure fantasy products without the slightest evidence.
The further history of the house up to the baroque period is almost completely in the dark. Johann Georg Battonn showed a few documented mentions of the building in the 14th to 16th centuries, which, however, can hardly be put into context without further research on the sources. One of the very few pictorial representations can be seen on the Merian plan from 1628, where the roof area of the house seems to have a very Gothic-looking pointed helmet end. This corresponds to what z. B. can still be observed today at the Großer and Kleiner Engel on Römerberg .
On an engraving by Salomon Kleiner from 1738, which shows the chicken market to the west, the Haus zum Esslinger is scarcely cut, but at least suggests a facade painting typical of the time. Since Kleiner, in contrast to Matthäus or Caspar Merian , tended to neglect architectural details, the engraving can in no way serve as evidence of the appearance at that time.
Baroque remodeling by the end of the 19th century
Not even the exact date of the baroque redesign that took place a little later, which at most based on stylistic criteria can be dated to the early second half of the 18th century, is documented in the literature. The only thing that is clear is what can be seen in a few photographs from 1860 to 1944: the very Gothic appearance of the house was, as is so often the case, only whitewashed, but not destroyed.
The numerous arches below the ground floor to the Hühnermarkt, but also along the upper floors on Neugasse, were preserved, and numerous baroque window openings were broken into the facade, which probably completely changed the impression of the half-timbering, which was originally made on sight. Accordingly, the house was plastered and the corners were given a cuboid structure to simulate contemporary stone architecture.
Interestingly, the elongated east side of the house, which faces almost all day dark Neugasse, has been modified more strongly and more representative than the side facing the market: the windows received magnificent, artfully forged locksmith work , the wooden doors and shutters were no less lavishly decorated with lively carvings in the style of the time. As the only element of the house, the roof was completely rebuilt as a mansard roof with a dwelling with a triangular gable and oculus window facing the chicken market. On the inside, at least the shop on the ground floor received a magnificent stucco ceiling (see picture).
What is better known and unequivocally documented is that the house was owned by Goethe's uncle Georg Adolf Melber in the same century . He had married Johanna Maria Textor , the second daughter of the city schoolmaster Johann Wolfgang Textor and younger sister of Catharina Elisabeth Goethe . Goethe told of his aunt, but indirectly also of the house, in poetry and truth :
" So we were z. B. employed and entertained in a variety of ways when we visited the second daughter who was married to a material dealer Melber, whose apartment and shop were in the middle of the liveliest, most crowded part of town on the market. Here we watched the throng and crush, in which we were afraid to lose ourselves, with great pleasure from the windows; And if, among so many different goods, we were initially only interested in liquorice and the brown, stamped tents made from it in the shop, we gradually became acquainted with the large number of objects which flow in and out of such an act. "
The house passed into other hands during the first half of the 19th century. Better-off citizens, including the Melber family, moved in those years from the decaying old town to newly emerging, representative residential areas in Frankfurt. On August 27, 1841, Johann Matthias Andreae bought the house with the "material and color goods store" located in it for 27,000 guilders . The pharmaceutical wholesaler Andreae-Noris Zahn later developed from this .
In keeping with this consideration, the name Melber can only be found once in the address book from 1877 - ironically in Goethestrasse , which after its creation in a street breakthrough mainly consisted of representative new buildings. In direct contrast to this, the address books of the time in the Haus zum Esslinger - as in almost all old town buildings - contain rather simple professions and shops. Large billboards on the facade and a shabby condition can be seen in photographs from around 1900.
Rehabilitation, war destruction and reconstruction
From 1922 onwards, on the initiative of the historian Fried Lübbecke , the Association of Active Friends of the Old Town campaigned for the renovation of the old town and an improvement in living conditions. Under the National Socialist rule, the old town's recovery was continued with the aim of a fundamental renovation of the building fabric of the old town. By the early 1940s, around 600 buildings had been thoroughly renovated, and many others were externally renovated. Finally, the Haus zum Esslinger also had a relief head of Goethe's aunt below the window on the first floor with her life data and the literal quote from poetry and truth that characterizes her:
“ In her house too, everything around her was moved, cheerful and cheerful, and we children owe her many a happy hour. "
On March 22, 1944, the house burned with the rest of the old town in an air raid on Frankfurt am Main. Since the city decided on modern reconstruction after the end of the war, the ruins of the front building were blown up in 1950 and the remains cleared away. A few individual parts of the facade of the house on Neugasse that had survived the war destruction and post-war disdain for historical values - window bars and shutters as well as the keystone of a portal arch - were stored in the Historical Museum.
At the beginning of the 1970s, the Technical Town Hall was built in brutalist concrete style on the site of the former chicken market, Neugasse and Hinter dem Lämmchen . Some historicizing buildings along Braubachstrasse from the first third of the 20th century, which, due to their massive construction, survived the firestorm of World War II more or less unscathed, had to give way for the new building. This also included the building facing Braubachstrasse, in the northern connection to the former Haus zum Esslinger in a similar style in 1912 with the address Braubachstrasse 25, into which parts of an original facade from 1766 had been integrated.
After the demolition of the technical town hall became apparent in 2005, which was also carried out in 2010, the Frankfurt city council decided on September 9, 2007 to redevelop the area that became free. On a floor plan as closely as possible to the historical model, 35 new buildings were built as part of the Dom-Römer project , including 14 other important historical buildings as well as the Haus zum Esslinger as a faithful reconstruction . Over 70 years after the end of the war, the city received one of its once so numerous cultural and historical gems back. In September 2019, the Struwwelpetermuseum moved into the Haus zum Esslinger and the neighboring Alter Esslinger .
literature
- Johann Georg Battonn : Local description of the city of Frankfurt am Main - Volume III . Association for history and antiquity in Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main 1864, p. 130
- Hans Lohne: Frankfurt around 1850. Based on watercolors and descriptions by Carl Theodor Reiffenstein and the painterly plan by Friedrich Wilhelm Delkeskamp . Waldemar Kramer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1967, pp. 148 & 149
- Georg Hartmann , Fried Lübbecke : Old Frankfurt. A legacy . Verlag Sauer and Auvermann, Glashütten 1971, pp. 112 & 113
- Hartwig Beseler, Niels Gutschow: War fates of German architecture - losses, damage, reconstruction - Volume 2, south . Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1988, p. 827
- Dieter Bartetzko : Last chance for old Frankfurt. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Frankfurt am Main June 14, 2007.
Web links
- Chicken market with Haus Zum Esslinger. altfrankfurt.com
- Magistrate's draft M 112 for the redevelopment of the Dom-Römer area from June 20, 2007 (PDF file; 354 kB)
- Minutes of the 15th public plenary meeting of the city council on September 6, 2007, contains resolution by M 112 (PDF file; 131 kB)
- Documentation Old Town from October 2006 (PDF file; 14.1 MB)
- Website of the Struwwelpeter Museum
swell
- ↑ This and all the following address information corresponds to the last Frankfurt address book from 1943, published before the destruction of the old town in World War II (unless explicitly stated otherwise)
- ↑ The Fate of War German Architecture - Loss, Damage, Reconstruction - Volume 2, South . Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1988, p. 827
- ↑ a b Last chance for old Frankfurt. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Frankfurt am Main June 14, 2007
- ^ Haus zum Esslinger on the website of the Dom-Römer project
- ↑ a b Local description of the city of Frankfurt am Main - Volume III . Association for history and antiquity in Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main 1864, p. 130; the Bedebuch of 1320 quoted by Battonn was burned in the Second World War. Bedezahler was an Albertus de Esselingen , probably an immigrant from Esslingen am Neckar , whose name was later transferred to the house. He must have immigrated before 1311, as he is not mentioned in the citizen registers from that year.
- ↑ Current state of knowledge about the Frankfurt half-timbered building at Walter Sage: Das Bürgerhaus in Frankfurt a. M. until the end of the Thirty Years War. Wasmuth, Tübingen 1959 and Manfred Gerner: Fachwerk in Frankfurt am Main. Waldemar Kramer publishing house, Frankfurt 1979; on the Hessian-Franconian half-timbering is the standard work by Heinrich Walbe that is still relevant today: The Hessian-Franconian half-timbering. 2nd Edition. Brühl, Gießen 1954, supplemented in some respects by the latest edition by Manfred Gerner: Fachwerk. Development, structure, repair . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2007
- ↑ a b see documentation of the old town under web links, especially the photographs and cracks on pages 38 and 42
- ↑ Struwwelpeter moves
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 40 ″ N , 8 ° 41 ′ 1.9 ″ E