Kaiserplatz (Aachen)
The Imperial Square is in the southeast of Aachen downtown. There the Alleenring crosses at the transition from Heinrichsallee to Wilhelmstraße, the Adalbertsteinweg leading to the east and the Eifel and the Adalbertstift leading to the west and the pedestrian zone.
history
The nucleus of Kaiserplatz is the Adalbertstift , the successor of which still dominates the square today. The original building was given by Emperor Otto III. commissioned to house a relic of St. Adalbert (Bishop of Prague in the 10th century). He chose a seven-meter-high rock in a swampy depression on the outskirts of the city, on the Roman road to Trier , as the location . At this point, at 158 meters above sea level, the deepest point of the medieval city, the city streams Johannisbach , Pau and Paunell flowed together and were led through a water gate, the water tower , into the Wurm flowing in the lowlands . The rock, still partially visible today, consists of folded sand and clay stones from the Upper Devonian Condroz Formation. Henry the Holy , the successor of Otto III, extended the building, which was inaugurated in 1005. St. Adalbert is the second oldest church in Aachen after the Aachen Cathedral .
In the 19th century, large avenues and city quarters with richly ornamented Art Nouveau houses were built around the church . In 1879 the square that was previously called Adalbertsrundplatz was given its current name; he received a planting and a roundel with a cast iron fountain. The Aachen entrepreneur Gerhard Rehm had this set up there on the occasion of the golden wedding of the imperial couple after he had seen and admired it a year earlier at the Paris World Exhibition . On October 18, 1911, the bronze Kaiser Friedrich monument created by the Berlin sculptor Hugo Lederer in honor of Kaiser Friedrich III. inaugurated.
The imperial imperial foundation was abolished by Napoleon . The Adalbertkirche , a 5-aisled Romanesque basilica , was completely renovated from red sandstone by the Cologne architect Heinrich Wiethase . The new church was consecrated in 1898 and 1936 in continuity of their tradition back to the provost says Church.
This second, neo-Romanesque building was destroyed to the ground in the night of July 13-14, 1943 in an air bomb attack. The current - so third - building dates from 1949, which had to be renovated again in 1985–1997. The interior is destroyed.
The rest of the building around St. Adalbert was also 80% destroyed in the Second World War. Only a few of the historic Art Nouveau buildings have been preserved. In the 1950s, new buildings for residential and business purposes, a cinema palace and a pedestrian underpass were built across the board. In the second half of the 20th century, Kaiserplatz developed more and more into a traffic junction. Due to the increasing car traffic on the Alleenring and the fragmentation into individually accessible areas, the square was perceived less and less as a uniform ensemble and, despite the shopping mile (pedestrian zone) established on its west side, fell into disrepair due to the noise pollution. The historic Aachen tram , which had operated here since 1880, was replaced by bus routes in 1974.
With the construction project for a shopping mall decided in 2006 and opened in 2015 - the so-called Aquis Plaza - the city of Aachen hoped for a new upgrade of the square and the quarter.
Kaiserplatz today: social hotspot
In the 21st century, the historical core area of the square with the Adalbertkirche on the slate rock, which is designated as a geological natural monument ( geotope ), is surrounded by a quarter that is heterogeneous in its building fabric and social structure.
The quarter is popular with students and young professionals looking for affordable living space, walking connections to local public transport (bus lines) and to the shopping streets west of the square (Stiftstrasse, Adalbertstrasse, Beeckstrasse). There are a large number of small retail shops, cafes and fast-food restaurants, grill bars and service companies in international hands; The St. Adalbert parish is also international and looks after Koreans and Spaniards in particular.
During the day there is a high traffic frequency on the Alleenring (east side), which creates other problematic environmental conditions in addition to the noise level: The limit value for nitrogen oxides that will apply from 2010 is currently continuously exceeded; In 2006, the maximum permissible fine dust values were exceeded on 20 days.
The local residents complain about the drug scene as an increasing social problem. According to a broadcast by Radio Aachen 100, one on September 25, 2006, which evaluated a survey among 2,750 people, 60% of the residents would move away from Kaiserplatz if they could afford it. 95% of the respondents stated that they no longer feel safe in their neighborhood, especially in the evening after the shops have closed. They ask the city to pay more attention to the grievance. In 2013 there was a private initiative calling for the city to intervene against overt prostitution, disturbance of the peace and drug trafficking. There is a drug advice center at the Aachen addiction center, which is supported by the Diakonie and Caritas . The drug consumption room belonging to the facility was closed on January 1, 2012. Since autumn 2011 it has been forbidden to meet in larger groups under the Kaiser-Friedrich-Monument. For this reason, when the monument was relocated in 2013, all benches and seating were removed.
Aquis Plaza project
Aachen's largest shopping center, Aquis Plaza , opened directly on Kaiserplatz on October 28, 2015 .
Local transport
The following bus lines operate at Kaiserplatz:
Web links
- Aquis Plaza
- Citizens' initiative Kaiserplatzgalerie
- Information from the city of Aachen on the Aquis Plaza
Individual evidence
- ^ Gabriele M. Knoll: DuMont art travel guide Aachen and the border triangle. DuMont, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-7701-1829-4 , p. 157
- ↑ Robert Esser: Kaiserplatz: “What's going on here is a scandal!” Aachener Zeitung , August 18, 2013, accessed on December 28, 2014 .
- ^ Website of the Aachen addiction aid
- ↑ Robert Esser: Emperor Friedrich III. must make room for new buildings. Aachener Zeitung , June 11, 2013, accessed on December 28, 2014 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 29.5 ″ N , 6 ° 5 ′ 44.2 ″ E