Krameramtsstuben
The Krameramtsstuben in Hamburg are located on Krayenkamp in the Neustadt below the " Michel ". Formerly used as apartments for widows from the Krameramt, the half-timbered houses built between 1620 and 1700 now form the last closed courtyard buildings of the 17th century in Hamburg.
Today used by small shops, galleries, restaurants and an apartment that has been preserved as a museum, the ensemble of the two front buildings, with the courtyard houses erected on both sides along a narrow corridor, best illustrates the appearance of the parts of Hamburg that were large until the 20th century Old and new town hallmarks of the Gängeviertel .
History and architecture
The oldest houses in the complex at Krayenkamp 10/11 (house a and n / m) are also the oldest surviving residential buildings in Hamburg's old and new town center . With their projecting storeys and ornamentally cut studs , they were built around 1620 (rear houses 1615–20; front house 1625) as a country house and garden house on a plot of land that was otherwise designed as an ornamental and pleasure garden . At the same time, this still underdeveloped part of the Neustadt was included in the fortification of the Hamburg ramparts . The painting on the ceiling of the courtyard houses uncovered today suggests an upper-class user of these houses.
In 1676, the wealthy Kramer Office had free apartments built for 20 widows of deceased members on the land it had acquired with the existing houses. The Krameramt was a guild-like association of small traders (Kramer, Krämer, later also grocer's) who owned their shop or stand in Hamburg. In 1375 this (probably even older) association, in which, among other things, spice, silk and iron traders were represented, gave itself a statute. The symbol of the office shows a stone embedded in the wall of the upper floor with a representation of a scale . Opposite an old plaque, beginning with ANNO 1676, provides information about the names of the elders and co-owners of the praiseworthy Krahmer Ambts, among whom the apartments were built from funds to honor God - and to serve the needy Ambts brothers widows , followed by a protective formula against fire and Other Noth and the renovation dates 1867 and 1927.
The construction of the two rows with the widow's apartments, which were cut in the same way, was not only carried out for social reasons. At the same time, it was also in the interests of the Krameramt to relocate widows or unfit for work colleagues from the shops in order to allow new traders again, since women were not allowed to run these businesses alone. In addition to rent-free apartments, the widows also received fuel and a small pension.
In the five houses in each row, which gained more space due to the protruding construction at the time, there were initially two apartments on the ground floor and top floor with a chamber, hall and cooking area. These were later merged into a single apartment. Also noticeable are the turned brick chimneys and the wooden frames in front of the windows, which were typical of the corridors and courtyards, the doe, on whose rods the laundry was dried.
The house through which the gateway leads to the courtyard was built around 1700. It did not belong to the actual Kramer widow apartments and was rented out as a residential building.
On February 1, 1865, the Hamburg law of November 7, 1864 on freedom of trade came into force. The more than forty offices that still existed in Hamburg were dissolved and in 1866 the Free and Hanseatic City took over the Krameramtswohnungen. From then on, older single women were housed there by the city. Shortly before 1900, the apartments received a water connection after a well in the courtyard had previously served as a water supply. As early as 1933 the entire ensemble was placed under monument protection.
The Krameramtswohnungen, which are now surrounded by multi-storey buildings from the turn of the century, survived the bombing of the Second World War without major damage, but a residential building next to the front building was badly hit (Krayenkamp 9 is still an older house).
Despite various renovations, the poor sanitary hygiene and the structural condition gradually made it impossible to use it as an apartment for the elderly. A thorough renovation was deemed necessary in an expert report in 1968. By 1971 the city developed a usage concept for the houses that had been vacant since 1970. From 1972, due to static relocation of the building, which was caused by structural changes in the area, a thorough renovation for 1.6 million marks. In June 1974 the leased houses were inaugurated as a cultural center and an example of a successful old town renovation.
Museum Kramer widows apartment
One of the three-storey old apartments has been preserved in its original state as the Museum Kramer-Witwen-Wohnung , a branch of the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte (Hamburg Museum). It has been furnished with complete furnishings from around 1850/60, some of which come from the apartments themselves or other shopkeepers, and can be visited.
It illustrates the living conditions in the widow's apartments and at the same time, since these apartments were by no means inhabited by poor sections of the population, the seldom shown living conditions of the middle class in a large city in the middle of the 19th century.
A beam balance and a cubit from around 1800, the most important Kramer measuring instruments and as a guild sign on a board on the houses, can also be seen there.
Krayenkamp and the surrounding area
The Krayenkamp (formerly also Kraienkamp) runs in an arch southeast around the raised square of the main church St. Michaelis. It begins at the partial field with a passage to the monument of the Zitronenjette and leads to the English plank.
After a plague cemetery had already been located here in the 16th century, the area was again used as a burial place in 1623, on which the first St. Michael's Church was built from 1647. The street name probably comes from a Heinrich Kraye who leased the Kamp around 1614 and not from the earlier widespread interpretation as a crows' field in relation to the crows in the old cemeteries.
literature
- Reinhold Pabel (1915–2008; Antiquarian Pabel in the Krameramtsstuben): In the shadow of Michel The Kramer office in Hamburg and his widow's apartments at Krayenkamp , Christians-Verlag, 1978 (1st edition)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ralf Lange : Architectural Guide Hamburg Ed. Menges, 1995
- ^ Ernst Christian Schütt: The Chronicle of Hamburg. Chronik-Verl. 1991
Coordinates: 53 ° 32 '53 " N , 9 ° 58' 49" E