Marienviertel (Berlin)
1a Nikolaiviertel
1b Heilige-Geist-Viertel
1c Marienviertel
1d Klosterviertel
2a Schlossviertel
2b Marktviertel
2c Neu-Kölln
3a Gertraudenviertel
3b Schleusenviertel
Sources:
Content: CEGeppert: Chronicle of Berlin from the development of the city to the present day , Berlin 1840 , August Brass: Chronicle of Berlin Potsdam and Charlottenburg, Berlin 1843
Map basis: District Office Mitte von Berlin
The Marienviertel is one of what used to be four quarters in the historic district of Alt-Berlin , which is part of today's Mitte district. The name has existed since at least 1727 and refers to the St. Marien Church . Today the term is once again important in the field of urban planning.
history
The first settlements in the area of the Marienviertel took place around the year 1200, when the founding cities Kölln (1237) and Berlin (1244) emerged from Slavic settlements . The construction date of the Marienkirche is probably around 1270. It was first mentioned in a document in 1292 as a church on the " Neuer Markt ". In the late Middle Ages , Berlin consisted of the four districts Marienviertel, Heilig-Geist-Viertel , Nikolaiviertel and Klosterviertel .
The new market was one of the two old town squares in old Berlin . This is where the high court was. In 1324 the provost Nikolaus von Bernau was lynched by angry Berliners . They leaned against the Pope to the country's sovereignty and were for the excommunication punished. The white atonement cross next to the portal of St. Mary is evidence of this.
This was due to the Spandau street corner Bischofstraße purchase or Kramhaus that served as a warehouse for commercial goods. At the beginning of the 17th century it lost its previous function and was set up by the council as a city cellar under the name "Der Grüne Baum". Next to the Kramhaus , a small alley led to the Neuer Markt, in which the fire ladders and extinguishing devices were housed and which was therefore called Leitergasse. Stadtkeller and Leitergasse went into private ownership in 1677.
After the Thirty Years' War (1648), when Berlin became a garrison town, plans began to develop the city as a fortress city. Construction work began in 1670/1671. Up until the 19th century the city center developed into a completely overcrowded fortress city. In 1862 the Hobrecht Plan decided to improve the hygienic and infrastructural conditions in the city.
On Neue Friedrichstrasse (later: Littenstrasse , today: Anna-Louisa-Karsch-Strasse ) stood the garrison church built by the builder Johann Philipp Gerlach in the years 1720–1722 , which was subsequently rebuilt several times and destroyed by bombs towards the end of the war .
After the death of the sculptor Paul Otto in 1893, the sculptor Robert Toberentz was given the task of completing the Luther memorial with the three and a half meter high statue of the reformer on the Neuer Markt. After all the accompanying figures of the memorial complex had been melted down before the end of the war and the square was destroyed in World War II , the Luther figure was placed in the Stephanus Foundation in Weissensee . The accompanying figures on the base, Melanchthon , Bugenhagen , Spalatin and Cruziger , Reuchlin , Jonas , von Sickingen and von Hutten , are no longer available. The return of the monument to the north side of the Marienkirche near its original location on the Neuer Markt took place in October 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall .
The old synagogue was built in Heidereutergasse between 1712 and 1714 and later redesigned several times. The baroque building in a back courtyard was the first independent community synagogue in Berlin and was one of the largest synagogues in Germany at the time. Desecrated in 1938 and damaged in a bombing raid, it was only demolished after the end of the war. Today a plaque and uncovered foundations still remind of the old synagogue in Heidereutergasse, where Rabbi Michael Sachs was once one of the great personalities of German Jewry in the 19th century. A memorial by Ingeborg Hunzinger on Rosenstrasse commemorates the women's protests of February 27, 1943 .
The Marienviertel was badly damaged by the bombing raids in World War II. After clearing away numerous destroyed buildings and repairing the existing structure, the Marienviertel was an urban landscape characterized by numerous vacant lots and open spaces from the mid-1960s until the extensive redesign of the Berlin city center.
Marienkirche on Neuer Markt with the Luther Monument , postcard from 1906
Comparable perspective, 1954
The Marienviertel today
Today, in the area of the Marienviertel, the Berlin TV tower and the Red Town Hall , as well as the high-rise buildings on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße and Rathausstraße are located . The Marienkirche still stands from the original development.
In autumn 2010, archaeological excavations in connection with the underground extension of the U5 line found well-preserved remains of the high medieval town hall (foundations, cellar and vaults of the ground floor [cloth hall], oldest part probably 13th century). The excavations will continue in spring 2011; the archaeologists suspect that well-preserved remains of the court arbor and the clock tower can be found. All three buildings formed the complex of the Old Town Hall of Berlin.
Before the Second World War, the Marienviertel consisted of more than 140 pieces of land, on which there were residential and office buildings, business and department stores, offices and market halls. In the course of clearing the construction for the construction of the television tower, numerous residential and commercial buildings that were only war-damaged but restored and were in function until the end of the 1960s were demolished until the beginning of the 1970s. The entire area between Karl-Liebknecht-Straße and Rathausstraße was designed as a green, spacious open space with water features and the Neptune fountain moved here, taking into account the historical street layout .
With up to ten-lane traffic aisles in the course of Gruner- and Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse, the rounded town plan typical of many medieval towns was cut, which resulted from the old town walls and the surrounding walls. Only the light rail on the old moat between the Alexanderplatz and Hackescher Markt stations traces this to this day.
There are efforts to restore the urban character of the district from the pre-war period. In 1999 the Berlin Senate decided on the “ Inner City Plan ” as an urban development model, although no consensus could be found for a new development in this area . A long-standing discussion developed between proponents and opponents of a reconstruction . Plans for an Alexanderplatz dominated by high-rise buildings also envisaged a conversion of the base of the television tower at the historic eaves height as well as individual structural objects between the Red City Hall and the Marienkirche. More recent plans range from an extensive reconstruction of the historical street layout to the redesign of the area as an open space, park or water basin.
literature
- Karl Voss: Travel Guide for Literature Friends Berlin, Ullstein Non-Fiction Book 1980, ISBN 3-548-04069-1
- Heinrich Alberts: Die Chronik Berlins, Chronik Verlag 1986, ISBN 3-88379-082-6
Web links
- The International Expert Commission "Historic Center Berlin" ( Memento from April 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Friends of Berlin Historic Center e. V. to regain the old town center
- What should Berlin's center look like? In: Berliner Morgenpost , April 22, 2009
- Pros & Cons - Should a district be built between Alex and the palace? In: Der Tagesspiegel , April 26, 2009
swell
- Architect Helmut Maier, Berlin
Individual evidence
- ↑ CEGeppert: Chronicle of Berlin from the development of the city to the present day , Berlin 1840
- ↑ Readers' debate: What do you think of the proposals for Mitte? In: Der Tagesspiegel , December 17, 2009
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 10 ″ N , 13 ° 24 ′ 30 ″ E