Canvas House (Frankfurt am Main)
The screen house is a historic building in Frankfurt's old town located south of Frankfurt Cathedral on the Weckmarkt . Together with the Stone House and the House of Fürsteneck, it was and is one of the few secular Gothic buildings in Frankfurt.
Building history
The medieval canvas house
The canvas house was built south of the cathedral in the area of the old town in which the old Jewish quarter extended. In the course of the plague pogrom in 1349, the city acquired the land in this Jewish quarter. 1396–1399 the canvas house was built there on three neighboring properties. The archaeological remains of the three previous Jewish buildings were uncovered during the reconstruction of the canvas house, which had no basement and was destroyed in the war, but was not scientifically documented and removed.
Various public functions were initially housed in the building, later known as the “screen house”. The hall on the ground floor was used for the fair and the market, the upper floor was used as a meeting room for various municipal bodies. With a council ordinance of August 21, 1399, the future role of the building was determined by law. Accordingly, outside of the trade fairs, all linen , yarn , flax and hemp had to be brought to the stede hus and measurement and house fees had to be paid for them. During the fairs, the canvas was to be measured there, but yarn, flax and hemp were weighed in the municipal scales and fees were paid there. Furthermore, balls of canvas over 100 yards long could only be removed from the sworn canvas knife. The canvas knife was also a prison guard in later times. The name "canvas house" was generally used from the second third of the 15th century at the latest. It has remained in the building to the present day.
The linen trade was a major source of the city's prosperity from the Middle Ages to the 18th century. As long as it existed, the city's customs regulations gave rise to protests and violations. A wide variety of council resolutions and ordinances, such as those handed down from the 15th to 17th centuries, did not change anything. Accordingly, cases are repeatedly documented where retailers had to pay high fines because they offered their goods without having to declare them in the canvas shop beforehand.
Building description
Architecturally, this original building has remained unchanged to this day, despite severe damage in the Second World War. The two-storey canvas house, constructed as a quarry stone building , shows all the features of profane high-Gothic architecture - around the steeply towering hipped roof , which houses three attic floors, runs a functional battlement-enclosed walkway with four polygonal, two-story corner turrets, below the battlement a three-pass that encircles the entire building - Frieze .
On the north front facing the cathedral, there are three portals into the interior with pointed arches on the ground floor. The first floor has seven relatively large cross - storey windows on the north and south sides and four on the west side. The first floor had two windows and a rather unusual arched window decorated with tracery . From renovations in 1890 to 1892 until its reconstruction in the 1980s, it was part of an independent chapel on the ground floor.
Noteworthy are the niches on the first floor on the north side, which should serve as space for figures. There is no evidence whatsoever that these were ever occupied with such. The only exception is a bronze figure located in a canopy at the north / east corner, which, however, only found its place there during the redesign at the end of the 19th century.
Use from the 15th to the 19th century
In the centuries that followed, the canvas house was mentioned again and again in a wide variety of contexts, so that in addition to its primary function as the center of the city's canvas trade, it can also be seen as the oldest public multi-purpose building in the city, often unintentionally used as such:
The medieval city registers state that the building was initially used throughout the 15th century as a storage facility for a wide variety of municipal supplies such as grain, coal, flour, salt, war material and barrels. In addition, since 1419 it was also a prison for debtors, prisoners on trial and convicts, and later also the mentally ill for several centuries. As is customary in medieval penal institutions, torture was also carried out here, and in 1449 it is even documented that a criminal's eyes were gouged out in the canvas house. Until 1499, the house was also occasionally lent to citizens and patricians of the city for private festivities, with lighting and cooking being prohibited in order not to endanger the easily flammable supplies of canvas. Ultimately, at the end of the 15th century, this danger was also an argument for stopping the award.
On October 26, 1542, the city council decided to buy “ the old house behind ” in order to expand the canvas house to the south. It is not entirely clear when this house behind the screen house actually became an integral part of it. The woodcut by Konrad Faber from 1552 (see picture) shows at least a small southern extension to the canvas house, showing the buildings in the old town of Frankfurt very precisely . It can therefore be assumed that the expansion took place until around 1550.
From 1688 to 1690 the building even served as a church for a short time: the German Reformed congregation in Frankfurt , which at that time had not yet had its own house of worship, was allowed to attend the services of the Hessian troops present in the canvas house.
From July to August 1752 the house was “ completely repaired and repaired, whitewashed, whitewashed, decorated with windows, also cellars and vaults were provided with external doors and shutters, everything else that was damaged was also renovated to the best ”, which was done by a Document found during the construction work in 1891 is attested.
During the coalition wars in the early 19th century, the screen house played a not insignificant role:
After the French army under General Augereau occupied the city with more than 9,000 men in January 1806, the canvas house was quickly converted into a barracks. 600 soldiers alone were housed here, no less distributed among the city churches, offices or inns.
In 1813, after the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig , the canvas house was used as a hospital , which was hopelessly overcrowded because of the many injuries. The result was a typhus epidemic that could only be mastered by taking the dead as quickly as possible to the Bornheimer Heide and burying them there in mass graves .
With the loss of the trade fair function to Leipzig, the canvas trade in Frankfurt had already declined sharply since the middle of the 18th century. The onset of industrialization and rail transport finally ended the classic canvas trade and the associated functions of the canvas house in the 19th century. The freed-up capacities made it possible for the jury to meet from June 29, 1857 to March 4, 1889 on the upper floor, which was specially converted for this purpose. The renovations, valued at 22,500 guilders, included the installation of a wooden staircase and the suspension of the newly drawn ceiling of the hall on the roof structure. The customs administration also moved into its headquarters on the ground floor.
From 1880 to 1881, major renovations were again carried out on the ground floor, for which 11,000 marks were approved. The conversion of the first floor into temporary slaughter rooms for mutton and calves required a. a separation of the building from the southern extension. Correspondingly, as Carl Theodor Reiffenstein remarked on March 2, 1881, the "beautiful pointed arches that separate it from the northern part [...] were walled up [...] and the hall-like impression was completely erased."
The canvas house as a historical museum
In preparation for future use as a museum, the canvas house was rebuilt from 1890 to 1892 with a strong historical character. Part of the museum had already moved to the neighboring archive building (see picture). The large neo-Gothic building had replaced the old city scales that were located there in 1877 before it was demolished in 1874.
The renovations brought about the biggest changes to the interior of the building since its construction:
First, several houses were demolished in the alley Am Schlachthaus, which leads west from the Leinenhaus to the Main . Large parts of the building were then built with a cellar, with the foundations marked by age being largely stabilized with additional masonry. After that, all the stone carvings were restored and the smooth window frames, which had apparently been installed during the renovation in 1752, were returned to their original condition.
Just like the four corner towers, the roof was renewed, which was also dismantled and the battlements on top of it were accessible again. A free-floating connecting corridor was drawn across the courtyard below to the archive building to the east. Before that, a connecting wall had been laid down between the two properties, thus creating a large courtyard. The courtyard had been surrounded by a wall since the demolition of the city scales and made accessible through ogival portals on its north and south sides. A medieval stone relief with the Frankfurt city eagle, taken from the old city scales, had been inserted above the northern portal to the Weckmarkt. In other places in the canvas house, more stone reliefs and consoles of old Frankfurt houses were walled in.
Finally, the two corner canopies on the north side were decorated with copper knight figures in tournament armor from the 15th century, which were to serve as a reminder of a tournament camp in the canvas house mentioned at that time. The knight on the northwest corner came from Rudolf Eckardt, the one on the northeast corner from Karl Herold. A corner canopy that was newly created on the extension on the southwest side was decorated with a figure of city governor Hermann von Rodenstein created by the sculptor Karl Rumpf . As city governor in 1405 during the procession of King Ruprecht against the Wetterau nobility, he had rendered services to the city.
Inside, most of the partition walls that had been drawn in over the centuries were broken out in order to gain exhibition space for the future museum. The massive pillars on the ground floor, each carved from an oak, were also exposed. The southern half of the entrance hall and the southern extension behind it were raised in height for reasons of flood protection. Then a stone staircase was built in the middle of the room. The elevated part was connected to the street level of the Weckmarkt, on which the northern half, accessible through three pointed arched portals, was located. A small chapel was added in the south-west corner of the ground floor, where there was a tracery window on the outside. Another window of this type was added towards the east wall, i.e. towards the interior of the ground floor. Then the outside window, which was still decorated with medieval stained glass, was built into the inside window to protect it. The ribbed vault of the chapel was painted historically in order to beautify it as a future exhibition space for objects with church reference.
In the south building, numerous new rooms were gained through the renovation, including a. an exhibition room, study, toilets and a boiler room for a new low-pressure steam heating system. The stairwell in the south building was completely rebuilt in the neo-Gothic style and decorated with plenty of historicizing jewelry such as paintings, coats of arms and tracery. In the large hall on the upper floor, too, the heavily damaged roof beam construction was largely replaced and furnished with additional neo-Gothic decoration (see pictures).
On December 7, 1893, the Historical Museum , which at that time was spread over several buildings in Frankfurt's old town, was able to move into the building as a further "branch office".
World War II and post-war period
The canvas house was damaged in World War II : even before the heavy bombing of March 22, 1944 , it suffered fire damage to the roof and the southern transverse wing in an air raid on December 20, 1943. Almost three months later the main building burned out completely inside, but was spared from direct hits by high explosive bombs , so that compared to the rest of the old town at least the walls up to just below the roof were well preserved. However, parts of the museum located in the building, which could not previously be outsourced due to their size, were irretrievably lost or damaged. The southern extension with its elaborate neo-Gothic jewelry was hit directly by an explosive bomb and almost completely destroyed.
In contrast to large parts of the old town, the remains of the building were only cleared after the war and, until the 1980s, determined the appearance of the Weckmarkt as the last war ruin in Frankfurt overgrown by weeds. At times it was considered to leave the area near the cathedral to the responsible diocese of Limburg .
Reconstruction and present
Already at the end of the 1960s, the architects Giefer / Mäckler started the preliminary planning for a reconstruction of the canvas house on the initiative of Alois Giefer. It was already involved in the restoration of the Frankfurt Cathedral and numerous modern construction projects in Frankfurt. In a letter dated April 21, 1971, Giefer expressed his ideas about the future use of the reconstructed building to the magistrate.
On November 1, 1971, a municipal resolution was passed to rebuild the screen house " for cultural use in historical form ". Even if the exact future purpose of use was discussed for another five years, with the estimated costs rising steadily, this original idea was no longer deviated from. A progress note from the city's cultural department said in 1976: “ The canvas house as a Gothic structure should enable citizens to identify with the history of their city. “On June 15, 1978, the safeguarding of the ruin as well as conservation preparation and investigation work were approved.
From 1980 to 1983, the exterior of the building was largely reconstructed true to the original (see pictures). Only the extensive southern extension, which was badly damaged in the war, was abandoned. Instead, a modern, barrier-free staircase extension was integrated into the building on the south side. As recently as 1980, there had been differences of opinion about its shape. Contrary to the ideas of Giefer, who advocated a glass staircase, the magistrate decided on a stone construction with windows reminiscent of the original building. The only copper statue that survived the war undamaged was put back in its original place in the northwest corner after restoration by the sculptor Edwin Hüller .
The interiors have also largely been restored to the state they were in before the renovations in 1890 to 1892. The basement rooms were enlarged and reinforced with reinforced concrete to protect against the buoyancy associated with flooding. In the enlarged part, technology and toilets for visitors were accommodated, the original, medieval barrel vault was preserved in its function as a storage facility. The ground floor was brought back to one level, the remains of the chapel were dismantled and the room was regained in its original size. The tracery window in the south-west corner was preserved on the outward-facing side. Here a new stained glass window by the artist Magarethe Keith, which takes up the past of the canvas house in its motifs .
The upper floor was restored to its original form, but divided into two smaller rooms by a partition. They were decorated with oak parquet, partial oak paneling of the walls and simple, vaulted stucco ceilings. A modern air conditioning system was also installed in an adjoining room to supply the entire house.
Finally, the roof was rebuilt in its original form as a hipped roof using glued wood trusses. Then it was clad with natural slate in an old German covering. The original floor plan with three attic floors was also observed and set up as exhibition and technical rooms. The crenellated wreath, reconstructed from prefabricated reinforced concrete parts, with its corner turrets has since then been reached again via the top floor and, as in the past, completely bypassed.
It is particularly worth mentioning that - despite the higher costs - the still abundant historical building fabric was not demolished, but treated for conservation purposes and then included in the reconstruction. The canvas house is by no means a reconstruction in the classical sense. On the other hand, this caused another problem: the basement and walls were no longer stable according to modern structural requirements. The massive oak pillars on the first floor therefore had to carry most of the weight of the building above. However, since no oak logs 60 cm thick were found anywhere in Europe, which were apparently still easy to cut in the 14th century, the wood had to be imported from French Guiana at great expense.
The exact funds ultimately spent on the construction are not known, but the construction and financing proposal approved at the end of 1980 indicated a cost of DM 8,637,300. On March 16, 1984, the newly acquired screen house was ceremoniously reopened.
Today, the canvas house is the seat of the communal gallery and the Frankfurt Photography Forum international and, like the Stone House , primarily serves the Frankfurt art scene. The Portikus exhibition hall of the Städelschule was housed here until 2006 , and has since moved into a new building on the Old Bridge .
On October 1st, 2008, the Caricatura Association opened the Museum für Komische Kunst gallery in the canvas house .
literature
- Architects & Engineers Association: Frankfurt am Main and its buildings , Frankfurt am Main 1886, self-published by the association
- Hartwig Beseler, Niels Gutschow: War fates of German architecture - losses, damage, reconstruction. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1988, ISBN 3-529-02685-9
- Georg Hartmann, Fried Lübbecke (Ed.): Alt-Frankfurt. A legacy. Sauer and Auvermann publishing house, Glashütten 1971
- Fritz Quilling: Guide through the Städtisches Historisches Museum zu Frankfurt a. M. , self-published by the Historisches Museum, Frankfurt am Main, 1902
- Wolf-Christian Setzepfandt : Architecture Guide Frankfurt am Main / Architectural Guide . 3. Edition. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-496-01236-6 , p. 7 (German, English).
- City of Frankfurt am Main: The canvas house in Frankfurt am Main , Frankfurt am Main 1984, City of Frankfurt am Main
- Holger Wilhelm: Against the fear “that the guests will drive away the landlord”. Immigration and Foreigners in the City of Frankfurt am Main . Frankfurt 2016. ISBN 978-3-922179-52-8
- Carl Wolff, Julius Hülsen, Rudolf Jung: The architectural monuments of Frankfurt am Main , Frankfurt am Main 1896–1914, self-published / Völcker
Web links
- The canvas house. altfrankfurt.com
- State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Canvas house In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hessen
Remarks
- ↑ Council ordinance of August 21, 1399: The speeches have come, that all lynwat, yarn, flasz and hanff are given to the fair in the stede furen sulle and from them messegelt and huszgelt when they are born. Inside the fair, too, one likes the above-mentioned Kauffmansch works in other houses, so if the Kauffmansch works are bought, then one then measures the linwat in the town of hus furen sulle and they measure it in it and give the town hustle and messegelt away, so umb daz yarn, flasz and hemp sal man weigh in the stede wagen and the stat of it also give huszgelt and wigegelt. Also sal nyman ubir a hundred linwads then measure the sworn knife.
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 36 ″ N , 8 ° 41 ′ 7 ″ E