Planken (Mannheim)
The planks are Mannheim's main shopping street . They form one of the two main axes of Mannheim city center, the so-called squares . The planks are designed as a pedestrian zone in the eastern half, including the "extended planks" (officially Heidelberger Strasse) leading to the Mannheim water tower . It is the most popular shopping street in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region and is one of the top locations in German cities with a population of around 300,000. In order to visually enhance the planks, new pavement was laid in 2019, as well as new seating and lanterns. The tram stops on the planks also received a new, high-quality look.
course
The planks are an essential part of the broadly developed "water tower axis", which predominantly runs through Mannheim city center as a shopping street in an east-west direction. The horseshoe-shaped Mannheim city center has a right-angled road network. Two wider streets form the main axes of the city center. The planks are part of the east-west axis that ends at the water tower . At the central Paradeplatz , the planks cross with the second main axis, the Breite Strasse (officially Kurpfalzstrasse) , which runs in north-south direction . In the east the water tower axis is extended by the Augustaanlage , in the west it leads to the Kurt Schumacher Bridge , which connects Mannheim with Ludwigshafen am Rhein .
In Mannheim city center, street names do not appear on street signs or in addresses, but the rectangular blocks - the so-called squares - are named using a combination of letters and numbers. Names have only been adopted for the most important streets, such as Planken or Breite Straße, but these are not binding. "Planken" actually only refers to the middle part of the east-west axis, in the east up to the squares O 4 / P 4 and in the west up to the squares D 4 / E 4. This is followed seamlessly by the Heidelberger Straße and in the east Rheinstrasse to the west. In common usage, however, “planks” mostly refer to the entire east-west axis, especially the pedestrian zone in the eastern part between Paradeplatz and the water tower. The western part is sometimes referred to as "elongated planks".
history
The planks originally extended from today's Paradeplatz to the wall of the former Friedrichsburg citadel , which separated the city from the castle district and was thus a fortress within the fortress. The name Planken comes from the 17th century and referred to the palisades in front of the moat between the citadel and the city. They were laid out on sandy ground and were therefore called on the sand . They moved in an east-west direction from city gate to city gate, from the Heidelberg gate to the Rhine gate. The so-called Breite Straße , which is officially called Kurpfalzstraße today , led from Mannheim Castle to the third city gate, the Neckartor in the north.
After the city was rebuilt and the citadel was abandoned, the planks formed the boundary between the upper and lower towns. They were upgraded when a tree-lined promenade was laid out in the 18th century . Until the 18th century. was the name of the street in front of the squares E 4 to P 4 "Alarmgasse", named after the former alarm place, today's Paradeplatz. In the event of a defense, the city defenders had to gather along the planks at the alarm site.
The former narrow planks (squares P 5 and P 6) formed a bottleneck , which can still be recognized today by the location of the tram tracks, which pivot at this point. The narrow planks were only about 11 meters wide, while the further course of the street was about 27 meters wide. The first ideas for eliminating the bottleneck, the so-called plank breakthrough , existed as early as 1897, but were then rejected again. The breakthrough, however, remained under discussion. a. in the case of new construction plans for the Haas'schen Druckerei in 1911 or in the case of planning in the municipal building department in 1922/23.
It was only between 1934 and 1939 that the plank breakthrough was actually carried out on the initiative of the city administration, also in the west at E 5 and E 6. Ultimately, the decisive factor was the idea of a main road from the end of the Reichsautobahn through Augustaanlage and Planken to the commercial port and from here over to set up a second Rhine bridge to Ludwigshafen. For this purpose, a total of 18 houses in P 5 and P 6 were demolished and replaced by new buildings in order to achieve a uniform house front. The demolished buildings also included the old Mannheim mint at the corner of P 6, which, although it had been representative remodeled by Dyckerhoff in the 19th century, was ultimately classified as insignificant in terms of architectural history due to structural changes that had taken place in the meantime, like all other demolished buildings.
The new plank buildings were provided with architectural decorations in the style of the time, the motifs often drawn from Mannheim's city history. Based on a design by Zenta Zizler , a 22-meter-long bronze hunting procession from Elector Theodor was created for the balcony railing of the Kossenhaschen coffee house. Erwin Spuler created large-format wall ceramics on the upper floor of the coffee house that praised Mannheim as a city of arts, sciences and inventions. The glass painter Erwin Drinneberg equipped several buildings with glass windows with allegorical and historical motifs. Otto Hodapp and Otto Scheffels created views of old Mannheim and the Durlacher Hof.
The redesigned planks did not last long; the buildings, like a large part of Mannheim's inner city, fell victim to the Second World War. The reconstruction after the war follows the historical quarters.
On the occasion of the Federal Horticultural Show in 1975, the planks in the eastern part including Heidelberger Strasse were redesigned into a pedestrian zone, through which the RNV trams run as before .
In 2003, a glass cube was erected on the planks in the middle of the footpath in front of the square P 2 as a local memorial for the Jewish victims of National Socialism from Mannheim . The names of the murdered Mannheim Jews are written in mirror writing on the glass cube. The cube itself was placed at an angle so that one axis relates to the center of the parade ground .
A comprehensive renovation of the planks took place from March 2017 to April 2019. This was expressed in new paving stones, brighter street lamps and barrier-free stops for the light rail vehicles.
literature
- Hans-Joachim Hirsch: I called you by your name - the memorial sculpture for the Jewish victims of National Socialism in Mannheim . With contributions by Peter Kurz, Jochen Kitzbihler and Helmut Striffler. 120 pages. Small writings of the Mannheim City Archives No. 23. Verlagbüro v. Brandt, Mannheim. 2005. ISBN 3-926260-65-3
- Gustaf Jacob: Die Mannheimer Planken (Writings of the City of Mannheim, Issue 2), Mannheim 1937
supporting documents
- ↑ Jones Lang LaSalle: Top location Planken. August 27, 2010, accessed April 25, 2014 .
- ^ Rehabilitation of the Mannheimer Planken. Retrieved February 21, 2020 .
- ↑ See the entries “Planken” , “Heidelberger Straße” and “Rheinstraße” in the street name archive of the Marchivum .
- ↑ a b MARCHIVUM: Mannheim street names, planks. Retrieved September 17, 2018 .
- ↑ City sign board opening and new town hall building E 5
- ↑ Jacob 1937, pp. 20-24.
- ↑ ´´Projekt Planken 2019´´ website of the city of Mannheim. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
Web links
Official website of Mannheimer Planken
Planken at "Visit Mannheim"
Coordinates: 49 ° 29 ′ 15 ″ N , 8 ° 28 ′ 1 ″ E