Merian bath

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View of the Merian bath after its conversion into a café

The Merianbad was a municipal bathhouse , a so-called "Volksbrausebad", in Frankfurt 's Nordend district . Today there is a café in the octagonal building on Merianplatz on Berger Straße .

history

The building was modeled on a model made by the hygiene specialist Oskar Lassar from Berlin. In 1886 he presented a similar building in the shape of an octagon . In 1888 the Frankfurt banker Theodor Stern donated such a shower house for the then rapidly growing residential areas around the Frankfurt Wallanlagen . At that time it was not common practice to install showers in one's own apartment . The Merianbad, built in 1887, was the first of its kind in Frankfurt. Others followed in Bockenheim , Sachsenhausen and Bornheim .

In addition to a checkout area, the building offered space for 14 shower cubicles, four for women and ten for men. In the middle of the building was the boiler for hot water preparation. Above that there were drying rooms and in the lantern above the tent roof there was room for a hot water reservoir.

The construction costs amounted to 18,600 marks , the entrance fee 10 pfennigs per shower bath. In the early years between 150 and 200 people visited the public bath every day, in 1895 alone almost 46,000 people. Even in 1981, 61,000 visitors were counted. Since most households had more showers, the number of visitors fell steadily. In 2000 it was just forty a month.

After the baths were closed in the early 2000s, the listed building was converted into a café, which opened in 2005. The city's property office was required to continue to provide public showers. The seven shower cubicles are hardly used.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Adam Silk : About Stadtbad Merianplatz, the master plumber Meder, the building activity and industrialization in Bornheim and about the duck Klara. In: Carla Schutt, Heinz Schutt: The Bornheim Book. Society in Bornheim. Frankfurt am Main 1988, pp. 46-53.
  2. ^ Volker Rödel: Civil engineering in Frankfurt am Main 1806–1914. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-7973-0410-2 , p. 296 f.
  3. ↑ Jürgen Walburg: When the people still showered away. In: Frankfurter Neue Presse from November 14, 2011

Web links

Coordinates: 50 ° 7 ′ 14 ″  N , 8 ° 41 ′ 44 ″  E