Kornmarkt (Frankfurt am Main)
| Kornmarkt / Buchgasse | |
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| Intersection of Kornmarkt and Berliner Strasse with the town hall buildings (left) | |
| Basic data | |
| place | Frankfurt am Main |
| District | Old town |
| Created | 12th Century |
| Connecting roads | Katharinenpforte (N), Leonhardstor (S) |
| Cross streets | Hirschgraben , Berliner Strasse , Bethmannstrasse , Alte Mainzer Gasse |
| Buildings | Katharinenpforte (†), Hauptwache multi-storey car park , Große Stalburg (†), German Reformed Church (†), former Federal Audit Office, Bethmann Bank , town hall extensions, Leonhardskirche , Leonhardstor (†) |
| Technical specifications | |
| Street length | approx. 500 m |
The Kornmarkt and its southern section, called Buchgasse since early modern times , are a street in the old town of Frankfurt am Main . While the street in medieval Frankfurt was one of the three most important north-south main streets that connected two city gates and two large churches , today it leads an inconspicuous existence. Their urban context has largely been lost - due to road breakthroughs and the destruction of the war in the bombing war , but above all the reconstruction of the 1950s, which took no account of the historic cityscape.
The street's relatively low level of awareness today contradicts its historical significance as the place of origin of the Frankfurt Book Fair , a short-term meeting place for the Frankfurt National Assembly and the centuries-long residence of Frankfurt patrician families.
Origin, location, meaning
The Kornmarkt was created after the city was expanded in the 12th century. His first mentioned in a document of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Dated August 15, 1219. In it he gave the citizens of Frankfurt at her request - ad supplicationem fidelium nostrorum universorum de Frankinfort - one the kingdom belongs, situated on the grain market Hofstätte - AREAM seu curtem iacentem iuxta forum frumenti - for the construction of the Leonhardskirche .
After the construction of the Staufen wall , the city, which mainly stretches along the Main , was expanded to the north, i.e. inland, and thus doubled its walled area. In addition to the main streets running in an east-west direction, such as the Alte Mainzer Gasse , the Saalgasse or the Markt , three new main streets have now been added, connecting the new districts with the previous ones. Another function was to start traffic between the two new landside city gates and the existing gates leading to the port on the banks of the Main:
- As the east of the three parallel main streets, the Fahrgasse led from the Bornheimer Pforte (near today's Konstablerwache ) to the Main Bridge , which was secured by a bridge tower . The Fahrgasse became the most important main thoroughfare in Frankfurt due to its supraregional traffic importance (the only Main crossing between Mainz and Aschaffenburg ).
- The middle connection, the Neue Kräme , did not take on through traffic because it did not open into a city gate in the north. However, it connected the two most important squares of the old town, the Liebfrauenberg and the Römerberg . The drive gate leading to the Mainhafen was connected to the latter in the south . At both ends of the street there were important churches, in the north the Liebfrauenkirche , in the south the Nikolaikirche .
- The western of the three streets was the Kornmarkt . It led from the northwestern city gate, the Bockenheimer Pforte (later Katharinenpforte ) at today's Hauptwache to the Leonhardstor at the Mainhafen. Important churches were also located at these two gates, the Katharinenkapelle and the Leonhardskirche .
Street names
The entire street between Katharinen- and Leonhardspforte had the uniform name Kornmarkt in the Middle Ages . Later a distinction was made between three sections: the northern one to the intersection of Weißadlergasse and Grosse Sandgasse was called Kleiner Kornmarkt , the middle one to the intersection with Schüppengasse and Paulsgasse was called Großer Kornmarkt . The southern section from Münzgasse to Leonhardskirche was named Buchgasse in the 17th century . Today there are two street names, the section north of Bethmannstrasse is called Kornmarkt, and the Buchgasse south of it.
Medieval patrician palaces
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| 1628 | 1862 | today |
As the name suggests, Frankfurt's fruit and grain markets took place on this street until the 18th century. In addition, the Kornmarkt was a popular location for upper-class city palaces, most of which were named after their owners. Examples of this are the Zum Frosch or Zum Großen Goldstein houses . The most famous bourgeois house on the street was the Great Stalburg , which was built in 1496 by the then richest citizen of the city and multiple mayor Claus Stalburg (1469–1525). The well-fortified Gothic stone building with a stepped gable and turret was a splendid late medieval building well known in the city, similar to the stone house on the old market that has been preserved to this day .
The birthplace of the Frankfurt Book Fair
In the Middle Ages, the southern part of the street was the quarter of the arms and armor smiths. Towards the end of the 15th century, the first printers and booksellers settled here, displacing the previously local crafts. The southern part of the Kornmarkt was given its current name after the new residents: Buchgasse . From 1480, dealers held a book fair here twice a year , which soon became the most important in Europe. Due to the liberal regulations of the Free Imperial City , at the beginning of the Reformation even the writings of Martin Luther could be traded here, which were forbidden elsewhere because of heresy . At the 1520 fair, a Frankfurt bookseller sold over 1,400 copies of his writings. On his trip to the Worms Reichstag on Sunday, April 14, 1521 and also on his return on Saturday, April 27, 1521, Luther stayed at the Zum Strauss inn . The Gasthof zum Strauss was on the corner of Schüppengasse and Buchgasse; it was broken off in 1896 when Bethmannstrasse broke through.
While his opponent Johannes Cochläus - at that time dean of the Liebfrauenstift - preached against him, the Frankfurt patricians Philipp Fürstenberger , Arnold von Glauburg and Hamman von Holzhausen gave him an enthusiastic reception. Until late at night they discussed with the prominent guest, whose writings they were already familiar with.
The next day Luther first visited the municipal Latin school opposite his inn, in the Goldstein house , which had been founded in 1519 to train the patrician sons. The founder, Mayor Hamman von Holzhausen, appointed the humanist Wilhelm Nesen as the first rector. During his visit, Luther also got to know Nesen, who followed him to Wittenberg in 1523. A letter that Luther wrote to his friend Spalatin from Frankfurt has been preserved. In it he describes the physical hardships of his journey and continues: “But Christ lives! and we want to come to Worms to defend all the gates of hell and princes of the air ... I did not want to write any other letters until I first saw something to do myself: that we don’t inflate Satan, but rather that we should are frightened and willing to despise. "
On the return journey from Worms, too, Luther stopped in for a night at the Strauss . His visit again became a public event. The next morning Luther wrote a letter to Lucas Cranach in which he indicated his retreat at the Wartburg : “I let myself be drawn in and hidden, I don't yet know where ... It must have been silent and suffered for a little while: a little you do not see me, but a little, so you see me, says Christ. ”At 10 o'clock he left for Friedberg .
In 1530, the book printer Christian Egenolff from Hadamar settled in Frankfurt and opened his shop on the Großer Kornmarkt near Buchgasse. The first German Bible printed in Frankfurt came out of his printing house in 1535, and he also printed Faber's plan of siege from 1552.
The booksellers and publishers in the Buchgasse had 20 vaulted cellars in which books, engravings and exhibition catalogs were sold. The sellers included Dürer's wife Agnes and Maria Sibylla Merian . In 1682 a flood on the Main flooded the vaults of the booksellers and caused great damage to the goods stored there.
The English world traveler Thomas Coryat visited the Frankfurt fair in 1608. He wrote:
“In Buchgasse I saw such an infinite number of books that I admired them very much. This road surpasses anything I have ever seen in my travels. It seemed to me to be a true embodiment of all of the most important libraries in Europe. "
After the Thirty Years' War the intellectual center of Germany shifted from the imperial cities on the Rhine to the absolutist states in the north and east, and the book trade gradually migrated there, especially to Leipzig . The book fair there took on Frankfurt's leading role until the Frankfurt Book Fair went out completely after 1750.
The Kornmarkt in classicist Frankfurt
Even after the end of the international book trade and the relocation of the city center from the old to the new town , the street remained a residential area of the upper class. The house Zum Großen Korb , built in the 18th century, was considered one of the most beautiful buildings on the street. The Große Stalburg was sold in 1788 to the German Reformed Congregation, which demolished it the following year and had Georg Friedrich Mack and Salins de Montfort build their new congregation church on the property .
The neighboring house Liebeneck (Großer Kornmarkt 15) was inhabited by the banking family Schönemann, whose daughter Lili entered into a short-lived engagement with Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who grew up a few streets away. In the branching off from the grain market Great Sandgasse the house was the Golden head , since 1777 the family residence Brentano , birthplace Bettina and death her mother's house Maximiliane . In the neighboring house was the Naumann'sche print shop , which produced the postage stamps for the thurn and taxic post.
In the 19th century, the Bethmann banking family , one of the most important banking dynasties of their time alongside the Rothschilds , who also came from Frankfurt, built the representative main building of their bank on the corner of Schöppengasse and Buchgasse.
Between November 6, 1848 and January 9, 1849, the Frankfurt National Assembly took its seat in the German Reformed Church, as its actual quarters, the Paulskirche , could not be used due to renovation work. The Kornmarkt thus became the venue for 40 sessions of the first freely elected German parliament.
During the free- urban period , the Großer Kornmarkt 12 building opposite the Reformed Church was the seat of the city-state's appellate court .
Wilhelminian style redesign
The urban development of Frankfurt increased considerably towards the middle of the 19th century . Despite the late industrialization, the population increased sharply, the built-up urban area grew beyond the centuries-old border of the ramparts and covered in a short time the soft landscape of the old city, which was previously characterized by arterial roads, gardens and country houses . Large infrastructure projects were required to adapt the rapidly growing city to the new times. However, this development largely bypassed the old town. The narrow maze of alleys, inaccessible to modern traffic, was largely dependent on the structural development of the city and increasingly led a life of its own. The move of wealthy citizens to more contemporary parts of the city gave rise to fears that the old town could become a slum area .
To counter this danger, the magistrate under Lord Mayor Franz Adickes initiated another major project in the mid-1890s, through which the old town should catch up with the rapid development of the Wilhelminian city. With a street breakthrough , a wide street was to be driven from east to west through the entire old town. The further renovation of the old town was to be stimulated through representative architecture , and in the course of the new traffic lane the old town was finally to be connected to the tram , which had been in service since 1872 .
Construction of the new road started in the west. Hundreds of old town houses fell victim to it, including well-known and important for the town's history such as the Nürnberger Hof or the Rebstock farm on the market . The Zum Goldstein house and the Baseler Hof fell in Buchgasse . Cross streets like Schöppen-, Pauls-, Römer- or Kälbergasse even disappeared completely from the Frankfurt city map. The new street, which was given the name Bethmannstraße , was laid out roughly in the course of the previous Schöppen- and Paulsgasse. On both sides of Bethmannstrasse, 1900–1908, on the east side of Kornmarkt and Buchgasse, the massive buildings of the New Town Hall were built according to plans by architects Franz von Hoven and Ludwig Neher , crowned by the two town hall towers Langer Franz and Kleiner Kohn on Buchgasse.
The tram in Bethmannstrasse began operating on May 1, 1899 and was given a stop on the corner with Kornmarkt.
Destruction and reconstruction
The western old town of Frankfurt and with it Kornmarkt and Buchgasse were almost completely destroyed in several air raids , especially during the attack on the evening of March 22, 1944 . 80 people were buried in cellars at the Kornmarkt. The rescue workers dug a tunnel in the direction of the trapped. Before the rescue could be successfully completed, the next major attack took place on the day after next (March 24th). Remaining residents used the rescue tunnel as a shelter when it received a direct hit from an air mine . A total of 129 people, including the 80 people buried two days earlier, died.
The entire development of the Kornmarkt fell victim to the explosive and incendiary bombs and the subsequent firestorm . With the exception of the roof structure, the two blocks of the New Town Hall and the heavily damaged outer walls of the Bethmann Bank have been preserved.
Kornmarkt and Buchgasse today
View of Kornmarkt and Buchgasse. North (Hauptwache) is left, South (Main) is right.
overview
The Kornmarkt was rebuilt in the radically modern taste of the early 1950s. Both the small-scale parcelling and the uniform street lines were completely abandoned. Due to the large buildings, which were juxtaposed without any relation to each other, the impression of a street was lost; today the Kornmarkt looks like a series of remaining urban areas. The street has lost its importance in terms of traffic as well as functionality; today it is one of the little-known side streets of the Zeil .
The construction of the intersecting, six-lane traffic lane Berliner Straße also led to the complete loss of the historical street scene, not only due to the destroyed building structure, but also due to the no longer recognizable urban structure.
Berliner Strasse divides today's Kornmarkt into two areas that are no longer perceived as a single street. The northern part, as the location of well-known retail stores, belongs to the shopping city around the Hauptwache, the much quieter southern section, which is characterized by administrative and residential buildings, is part of the old town.
North of Berliner Strasse
The department store Kaufhalle (design: Richard Heil ) has formed the northern end of the street since 1956 and occupies the entire west side of the Katharinenpforte from the main guard to the Kleiner Hirschgraben. This building now houses a Saks Fifth Avenue branch .
The next section is dominated by the Hauptwache multi-storey car park (Kornmarkt 10), which covers the entire east side of the street between Bleidenstrasse and the connecting lane to Sandgasse over a length of around 75 meters. The street space of the Kornmarkt was completely converted into an irregular, square forecourt for the parking garage. The Kornmarkt carriageway runs diagonally across the square, with the entry and exit of the parking garage branching off to the east. The areas not used for car traffic are not usable remaining areas.
The four-story Hauptwache car park opened on September 18, 1956, was the first car park in Frankfurt and one of the first of its kind in Europe. It was erected as a reinforced concrete skeleton and partly glazed, partly clad with clinker tiles. After the opening, it offered parking spaces for 430 vehicles. The architects were Max Meid and Helmut Romeick , the owner of the city-owned Frankfurter Aufbau-Aktiengesellschaft . The opening was carried out by Mayor Walter Kolb , who died two days later. The car park was listed as a historical monument in 1986 and renovated shortly afterwards.
There are restaurants and shops on the ground floor of the parking garage.
A three-part structure was built on the opposite side of the street between Kleinem Hirschgraben and Weißadlergasse, the alignment of which is not parallel to that of the parking garage, but rather spans a trapezoidal area to it. Here (Kornmarkt 9) is the coffee shop Wackers Kaffee, founded in 1914, with its own roastery and coffee house, a well-known institution in the city.
Between Weißadlergasse and Berliner Strasse there are two house numbers on both sides of the street; The bookstore at Paulskirche Erich Richter is located in the corner house on Berliner Strasse (Kornmarkt 3), separated from the four-lane traffic of the Kornmarkt, which is actually insignificant in terms of traffic .
South of Berliner Strasse
The first section of street south of the broad break in Berliner Straße is still called Kornmarkt , the name only changes one junction further south on the considerably narrower Bethmannstraße in Buchgasse . There are only two buildings left in this section today: on the east side the north building of the Frankfurt City Hall (1900-08), which extends to Paulsplatz , on the west side the eight - story high - rise building of the Federal Audit Office in Frankfurt am Main (architects Werner Dierschke and Friedel Steinmeyer , 1951-53).
The intersection with Bethmannstrasse is of little traffic importance, but it is almost entirely dedicated to car traffic, the main flow of which is directed from west to north, the rest of the space is taken up by restricted areas and traffic islands. The trams of lines 11 and 12 cross here, but without stopping.
Buchgasse begins beyond the intersection. On the west side of the street is the main building of the Bethmann Bank , on the east side the New Town Hall with the town hall towers Langer Franz and Kleiner Cohn, which were incompletely rebuilt after war damage .
To the south of the intersection with Münzgasse (west) and Limpurgergasse (east) are row houses from the 1950s, which take no account of their location in the middle of a historic European city center and even have front gardens in the style of suburban post-war settlements.
Since the reconstruction, nothing on site reminds of the former international importance of Buchgasse. In an extremely unspectacular urban planning way, the Buchgasse leads into the Leonhardskirchhof, the forecourt of the Leonhardskirche . The corner house to Alten Mainzer Gasse (Buchgasse 2), the former parsonage , was a branch of the Sions from 1968 to 2007 . The Haus Leonhard nursing home was demolished in 2005 and replaced by the St. Leonhard Living House, which has been operated by the Caritas Association since 2011.
In 2007 the city council applied for a kind of walk of fame from the Paulskirche to the Buchgasse to commemorate the winners of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. The Buchgasse is also on the route of the Parade of Cultures and serves as the home of the Buchgasse Festival, which is organized by the Hessen Literature Society in the courtyard and bistro of the Lebenshaus St.Leonhard.
See also
- Federal Audit Office (building, Frankfurt am Main) , Kornmarkt Arkaden construction project .
literature
- Ernst Nebhut : Frankfurt streets and squares . 2nd edition, Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-7973-0261-4 . (with drawing by Ferry Ahrlé )
- Armin Schmid: Frankfurt in the firestorm. The history of the city in World War II . New edition, Societäts-Verl., Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-7973-0420-X .
- Walter Gerteis: The unknown Frankfurt . 8th edition, Verlag Frankfurter Bücher, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-920346-05-X .
- Wolf-Christian Setzepfand: Architecture Guide Frankfurt am Main. Architectural guide . 3rd, revised. and exp. Ed., Reimer, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-496-01236-6 . (Text in German and English)
Web links
- Frankfurt am Main: Kornmarkt. altfrankfurt.com
- Local government application for the "Historical appreciation of the Buchgasse as the cornerstone of the book fair", September 27, 2006
Individual evidence
- ↑ Messe Frankfurt: a glimpse into history ( memento of March 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on June 12, 2007
- ↑ a b Foray through history ( Memento from February 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), Frankfurt Book Fair website, accessed on June 15, 2007.
- ^ Ernst Nebhut, Ferry Ahrlé: Frankfurter streets and places . First edition, Societäts-Verl., Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-7973-0261-4 , page 20.
- ^ Achim Mittler (frankfurt-nordend.de): Martin-Luther-Straße
- ^ Wilhelm Bornemann, Luther in Frankfurt 1521 , in: Frankfurter Kirchenkalender 1921, p. 14ff.
- ↑ It began in wooden stalls on the Römerberg , Frankfurter Rundschau of March 14, 2003
- ↑ cit. after: Walter Gerteis: The unknown Frankfurt . 7th edition, Societäts-Verl., Frankfurt am Main 1961, ISBN 3-920346-05-X , page 231.
- ^ Ernst Nebhut, Ferry Ahrlé: Frankfurter streets and places . Societäts-Verl., Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-7973-0261-4 , page 22.
- ^ Bernd Kalusche, Wolf-Christian Setzepfand: Architecture Guide Frankfurt am Main. 1st edition, Reimer, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-496-01100-9 , page 74.
- ↑ http://www.el-citaro.de/images/1899 Linien.gif (link not available)
- ^ Armin Schmid: Frankfurt in the firestorm. The history of the city in World War II . Verl. Frankfurter Bücher, Frankfurt am Main 1965, page 136.
- ↑ Construction of the first parking garages . aufbau-ffm.de. Archived from the original on April 13, 2013. Retrieved May 10, 2013.
- ^ Caritas Frankfurt: Lebenshaus St. Leonhard
- ↑ Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels: Literature Path Peace Prize: Frankfurt City Councilor wants to honor Peace Prize winners , accessed on June 8, 2007
- ↑ Map and directions on the website of the Parade of Cultures
- ^ Frankfurter Blog: Buchgassenfest 2012 in Frankfurt
- ↑ Simplified assignment of 'Kornmarkt Arkaden' (completed). City of Frankfurt, accessed on January 6, 2018 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 38.8 " N , 8 ° 40 ′ 46.1" E
