Hauptwache car park
The Hauptwache parking garage in Frankfurt am Main is Germany's oldest public parking garage . It was opened on September 18, 1956.
history
" Luck on the new parking garage! We will build more parking garages and thus prove that we have understood the signs of the times, "
Frankfurt am Main was the busiest city in Germany in the 1950s. With the economic upturn, space in the city center became scarce for the increasing number of vehicles, and ruins of land initially used for parking were rebuilt. Accordingly, the city planners tried to create a car-friendly city .
The building owner of the 3.3 million DM (inflation-adjusted today about 8 million euros), four-story building for 400 cars and 70 motorbikes with its large window front, several shops on the ground floor and a gas station in front of it was Frankfurter Aufbau AG , the plans come from the architects Max Meid and Helmut Romeick .
Despite all the optimism, the multi-storey car park was initially little used: First the drive over the eight percent steep spiral, then park at right angles between concrete pillars - this was new technical driving territory and deterred many with regard to the value of their own car.
You also had to be able to afford the prices: the hourly price was 20 pfennigs , a day ticket for 3.00 DM (for comparison: the average hourly wage of an industrial worker was 2.17 DM in 1956) , mostly high-income business people could financially afford it. Whereby - when it came to “parking for money”, the Frankfurt motorists were used to grief: The Main metropolis was the first German city to start setting up parking meters ( parking meters ) in the inner city in 1954, which devoured 5 and 10 pfennig coins to put a stop to long-term parking .
The gas station in front of the parking garage was demolished in the 1970s. In 1986 the Hauptwache multi-storey car park was added to the monument topography of the city of Frankfurt am Main. It was completely renovated in the mid-1990s, as concrete ramps and floor slabs in particular had been very heavily worn over the years. In 1993 the metal sculpture "Modulor" by Eberhard Fiebig was erected near the entrance .
architecture
Extending in a length of 65 meters at the grain market along stretching building reinforced concrete is evident in the graceful elegance of the 1950s. The parking spaces are spread over four upper floors and a basement, the ground floor (except for the entrance and exit areas) is reserved for shops and restaurants. The curtain-type, vertically divided clear glass facades of the four upper floors allow a generous view of the interior, a kind of viewing of the car, as it were in an exhibition. The spiral ascent is covered on two sides by yellow clinker walls over the entire height . In contrast to this clear and straight-lined main building, the small gas station in front of it with its expansive, multi-curved roof looked downright graceful and playful. At that time it was still possible for the architects Meid and Romeick to consider aesthetic components as well as a pure cost-benefit calculation of functionality .
literature
- Edwin Bayer (Ed.), “Parking garages - but right.” Verlag Bau und Technik, Erkrath 2005.
- Werner Bendix, "The capital of the economic miracle." Frankfurt am Main 1945–1956. (Studies on Frankfurt History, Volume 49); Frankfurt am Main 2002.
- Jürgen Hasse, "Overlooked spaces - on the cultural history of the parking garage." Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, 2008.
- SC Holz, “A car park / problems and experiences.” In: “Frankfurt. Lebendige Stadt. " , No. 1 (1957), p. 13.
- Wilhelm Opatz and Deutscher Werkbund Hessen (Eds.): Frankfurt 1950–1959 Niggli-Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-7212-0906-8
Web links
- Frankfurt is building - construction of the first multi-storey car parks ( Memento from April 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- Preservation of monuments in Hessen: Frankfurt's oldest parking garage.
- Hauptwache car park on the operator's side
- State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Hrsg.): City-Parkhaus In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hessen
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 43.6 " N , 8 ° 40 ′ 47.8" E