Prager Strasse (Dresden)
| Prague street | |
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| Prager Straße, looking towards the old town, in the background the sculpture "Friendship of Nations" | |
| Basic data | |
| place | Dresden |
| District | Lake suburb |
| Created | 1851 to 1853 |
| Newly designed | 1965 to 1978 |
| Connecting roads |
Waisenhausstrasse |
| Cross streets | Ferdinandstrasse, Trompeterstrasse |
| Places | Wiener Platz |
| Buildings | Rundkino Dresden , Centrum-Galerie |
| use | |
| User groups | Pedestrian traffic , bicycle traffic |
| Road design | Sculptures, fountains |
The Prager Straße in Dresden Seevorstadt connects the main station to the Old Market Square . Built between 1851 and 1853, it quickly developed into a major shopping street. Starting with the reconstruction after the destruction of the Second World War , it has been a pedestrian zone since the 1970s .
history
In the course of industrialization, new apartments and streets were needed, which should also relieve the narrow streets of the old town. Residents were already complaining around 1840, and when the Bohemian Railway Station was to be built south of the old town center, a connection between the city center and the railway station became necessary. This connection was established as Prager Straße between 1851 and 1853. The demolition of the Höferchen Wollboden on Waisenhausstraße created a new breach , and from this inner-city starting point the new street was extended as an extension of Seestraße to Wiener Platz in front of the Böhmischer Bahnhof.
Within a very short time, first wealthy citizens, later bankers, lawyers, but also bakers etc. settled here. Due to the shortage of building land, it was decided to build on Prager Straße using a closed construction method. It developed into one of the most splendid streets in Dresden with numerous shopping and entertainment options. Some architecturally particularly remarkable buildings were the Viktoriahaus , the residential department store and the building of the fire insurance company . The location on Prager Strasse, Dresden's most important shopping street, was an important reason why the Bohemian Railway Station was expanded and converted into the new central station, which took place in the 1890s, while other proposals were rejected.
In 1945 the area was almost completely destroyed in the air raids on Dresden , the damaged buildings were torn down and the entire area was completely cleared in the course of clearing large areas. Only one hotel, the Hotel "Excelsior", was temporarily used until it was also demolished in 1969.
reconstruction
Urban planning and architectural conception
Reconstruction began in 1962 with an architectural competition. There were different opinions about the implementation. While some architects pleaded for the structure to be partially true to the original, others rejected this idea and advocated a complete new building. However, none of the architects was in favor of restoring the space-saving closed construction. A reason that was cited again and again for this was that the people in the firestorm during the destruction of Dresden in 1945 either found it very difficult to escape from the winding houses or the far too narrow streets. In addition, the urban development model had fundamentally changed in the 1960s: the historic perimeter block development was also considered outdated and out of date. This came close to the demands of the SED on Dresden's urban planning, which Walter Ulbricht formulated in 1956, to build more city with fewer houses.
As a result of the clearing of large areas and the "socialization" of the soil, the new Prager Strasse was able to create a large-scale urban and architectural vision from 1965 in the form of a 700-meter-long and more than 60-meter-wide, precisely composed, modern urban landscape modeled on the Rotterdam Lijnbaan . The 240 meter long residential row separated one of the first pedestrian zones in Germany from the new north-south tangent and gave the ensemble its backbone. On the opposite side, the large-format mural “Dresden greets its guests” at the “ Bastei ” restaurant marked the beginning of the tourist route into the city center; continuous pergolas in front of the adjoining shop pavilions and hotels gave the complex a clear structure.
The Interhotel “ Neva ”, but above all the public buildings built in the 1970s at the northern end of Prager Strasse, such as the “ Rundkino ” movie theater, the “International” restaurant and the Centrum department store, as well as the intricately composed open spaces with several different designed fountains set not only urban planning, but also architecturally decisive accents.
The Centrum department store remained in the shell for years and was not completed until 1978. Another high-rise complex with an Interhotel and a “Teacher's House” functioning as a conference center, which closes off Prager Strasse towards the Altmarkt, was no longer realized despite the construction of the excavation and the foundation.
Despite clear specifications with many industrially manufactured components (implemented primarily in the hotels), the scope and freedom that still existed in the artistic implementation of the buildings on Prager Strasse in these "golden years" of the GDR were evident. The residential line developed from the P 27 residential building type "breathed the spirit of Le Corbusier's residential machines". Small glazed shop pavilions were placed on the ground floor between the pilotis and linked the building with the shopping activities in the adjacent pedestrian zone. The four rooms on the roof with the adjoining roof terrace initially functioned as an open communal area.
The concrete cylinder of the round cinema came from a series program of industrial construction. “The exciting facade design made of vertical, white enamelled sheet steel panels and filigree steel bars hanging horizontally in front of them turned the free-standing rotunda into an architectural work of art. The restaurant complex "International" impressed with a folding roof, and the Centrum department store had the charm of the space-loving sixties thanks to its crystalline aluminum honeycomb facade. "
Individual buildings and systems
On the western side, three hotels named Bastei, Königstein and Lilienstein named after rocks in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains were built between 1967 and 1970 . The hotel complex was built from 1968 to 1969 by the architects Kurt Haller , Manfred Arlt and Karl-Heinz Schulze "in a crest to Prager Straße". The three buildings have twelve floors. Two-storey low-rise buildings with shops connect the high-rise buildings with one another. The complex was equipped with a panel construction with a horizontal facade structure and concrete parapets with glass-ceramic mosaic. Jürgen Seidel and Karl Bergmann created the wrought-iron wall reliefs. When they opened, the three hotels had a total of 1917 beds, and the restaurants had 330 seats. The hotel was taken over by the Interhotel chain.
The second longest residential building in Germany after a 330 meter long residential building in Leipzig- Probstheida with a length of 250 meters was built between 1966 and 1969 with 614 small apartments based on Le Corbusier's “ Unité d'Habitation ” model on the eastern side of Prager Strasse. The residential complex (St. Petersburger Strasse 26-32), known as Pragerzeile , was rebuilt in 2007 so that a total of 561 residential units (one and two-room apartments as well as 12 three-room apartments and 4 penthouse apartments) were created.
Various water features by Leoni Wirth and Vinzenz Wanitschke and green spaces were created on the wide street . This is how the terrace of the “Pinguin” ice cream parlor was created with a drinking fountain by Vinzenz Wanitschke (1969) on Prager Strasse, with the ceramic wall by Dieter Graupner (1966/1967) in the background.
A tourist garden was set up between the Königstein and Lilienstein hotels , with a fountain by Josef Pietsch and bronze sculptures. These include the reading girl by Johannes Peschel (1969), a youth sculpture from 1967 by Wilhelm Landgraf , two mothers with children by Karl Schönherr , wrestling boys created by Siegfried Schreiber (now in the Bautzen Museum ) and a sculpture by Constantin Meunier that represents a load carrier. The youth sculpture was stolen in March 1996 and only returned in 2015. The remaining sculptures have been removed due to construction work and redesign, for example the porter is in Neustadt harbor . In addition, there is another sculpture by Karl Schönherr on the street, which depicts the fairy tale table set you, donkey and stick out of the sack . It was also the road with a free-standing ceramic wall of Dieter Graupner from the years 1966/1967, the mural Dresden, the city's modern socialist industry, science and art greets guests at the restaurant Bastion of painted ceramic plates of Kurt Sillack and Rudolf Lipowski from the years 1969/1970 and a natural stone mosaic by Franz Tippel , which depicts a Neva landscape at the hotel of the same name.
In the course of the reconstruction, the Prager Straße was partially submerged. A driveway is located in the north between the round cinema and the UFA-Kristallpalast and can be reached from St. Petersburger Strasse . This leads to an underground car park, which has a cellar under the pedestrian zone between Pragerzeile and the two shop pavilions up to the Hotel Pullman . The shops in the pavilions and the hotel above have been supplied with supplies since construction. In addition, garbage collection from these buildings and the Pragerzeile is made possible via the deep driveway. The exit runs along the southern half of Pragerzeile on the St. Petersburger Straße side.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Prager Straße became the most important pedestrian boulevard in Dresden due to its development. In the northeast of the street, the 25 meter high round cinema was built from 1970 to 1972. Only a few years later, between 1976 and 1978, the shell of the Centrum department store, which had been unfinished for years, was completed in 1970. This building was characterized by its striking aluminum honeycomb facade.
From 1986, the development of the open spaces northeast of Prager Strasse began with residential buildings of the type WBS 70 / 14.40, which were to cover the empty spaces as four quarters with inner courtyards. A large part of Quartier C was completed by 1990, with the exception of the northern transverse bar, which was only completed as an office building in 1994. Quartier A , which was to form part of the northern roadside development on Prager Strasse, was largely built up to and including the ground floor. In this context, the foundation of the Teacher's House from 1968 was also removed.
These buildings impressively show the greater design freedom of the architects of public buildings, which is why they are worth preserving from a cultural and historical point of view. In contrast, socialist architecture today is often referred to as a mistaken urban development which is now to be corrected step by step, but which fails to recognize the importance of this epoch of “modernity”.
After 1989
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On October 8, 1989, the Group of 20 was founded on Prager Strasse during the demonstrations against the SED rule . A memorial plaque and a lettering embedded in the floor remind of this today.
After the reunification of Germany, the central part of Prager Strasse with the four hotels, the circular cinema and the pavilion buildings was characterized as worthy of preservation as part of the "inner city planning concept" (draft 1991, decision 1993), while the subsequent southern and northern part of the former street width should be reduced by 18 meters. As early as the summer of 1990, the then mayor for urban development, Ingolf Roßberg, announced a construction freeze for all unfinished prefabricated buildings.
The (former) Centrum department store was a striking feature of the discussions about the urban planning concept: Karstadt first moved in there in 1990, and Hertie built a department store with a glass facade diagonally across the street . In 1994 Karstadt took over Hertie and now moved into the Hertie department store, the former Centrum department store was only underused , the basement was closed.
When the Elbe floods in 2002 , Prager Strasse was completely flooded by the Weißeritz, which had overflowed from the main station. In the course of the renovation work in December 2004, among other things, the wells were renovated, the flooring was completely redesigned and new trees were planted. In this context, the pavilion buildings were completely redesigned and extended.
In this context, the former Centrum department store was so damaged that the owner Karstadt now initiated the sale and its demolition, which began in 2006. In this context, there was heated controversy over the demolition of the distinctive department store. Critics of the demolition spoke out in favor of preservation, as it is a building-historical testimony to the modernist era. Together with the round cinema and the Kulturpalast , it was an outstanding example of GDR architecture of the 1960s and 1970s apart from residential buildings. In its place, the Centrum-Galerie was built as a new shopping center . The architect Peter Kulka copied the previous building with the use of the honeycomb elements and the resulting characteristic facade. Originally even the original honeycombs were supposed to be used again, they had to be recreated because the old honeycombs were worn out. The gallery opened in October 2010.
The UFA Crystal Palace is to the side of Prager Strasse . This cinema was built in 1997/98 according to plans by the Viennese architectural office Coop Himmelb (l) au and is characterized by the deconstructivist construction made of glass concrete. Even if the original idea could not be fully implemented for economic reasons (the glass crystal was originally supposed to completely enclose the concrete part), the architecture office received the German architecture award in 1999.
In 1995/96 the "Wöhrl-Plaza" was built, which in the form of an L frames the circular cinema towards the west and north-west.
At the end of April 2006, after a few construction delays, the Prager Spitze was completed as the southern end between Prager and St. Petersburger Strasse , and the first shops opened in it. The name symbolizes the tapering shape of the building and the location at the end of Prager Straße.
For years no investor could be found for the large neighboring property to the west. Because of the structural and organizational connection with the road tunnel and the underground car park, it was usually assigned to Wiener Platz and was nicknamed “ Wiener Loch ” because it was an unfilled excavation pit for almost twenty years . After the city was able to sell the property below its value in 2013, a building complex with apartments and shops was built there by 2016, marketed as the Prager Carrée .
Events
Every May the Dixieland Festival takes place for a week in Dresden , along with other locations in the city, also on Prager Straße. Since its inception in 1970, it has grown into an international event on the jazz and blues scene.
See also
- List of historical and important places and streets in Saxony
- Hans-Jürgen Westphal , Dresden city original ("Man with the Red Flag")
Web links
- Tanja Scheffler on the modern REGIONAL to Prager Strasse - with many historical pictures
- Thomas Kantschew: The New Dresden - New beginnings and memories: "Prager Strasse, buildings from 1963–1970"
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cf. Matthias Lerm: Farewell to old Dresden . Hinstorff, Rostock 2000, pp. 147/148.
- ^ A b Tanja Scheffler: Dresden .
- ↑ May et al., No. 1 (h) Interhotel Bastei, Königstein, Lilienstein
- ↑ Friedrich Reichert: Goldbroiler and spezialx-crease-resistant. GDR living conditions in Dresden in the sixties . In: Stadtmuseum Dresden (Ed.): Dresdner Geschichtsbuch. Dresden (DZA-VERLAG for culture and science) 1997 p. 176
- ↑ Exclusive living in the city center. In: Dresdner Nachrichten of June 21, 2007, p. 3 ( pdf version , 3 MB).
- ↑ After 19 years: Art thief returns the Dresden statue ( memento from April 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Article by Morgenpost Dresden from November 10, 2015; Retrieved April 25, 2016
- ^ Art in public space . Information brochure of the state capital Dresden, December 1996.
- ^ Walter May , Werner Pampel , Hans Konrad : Architectural Guide GDR - Dresden District . 2nd, unchanged edition, VEB Verlag für Bauwesen Berlin, 1979, unchanged reprint 1981
- ^ Gunter Wölfle et al .: The Prager Strasse in Dresden. On dealing with the legacy of post-war modernism . In: Kunsttexte.de, No. 1 (2006), 21 pages, www.kunsttexte.de
- ↑ Tina Schneider: Do the dandelions have to go? An artist defends herself against the mutilation of her fountain . In: Saxon newspaper . February 19, 2004 ( Online ( Memento from September 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive )).
Coordinates: 51 ° 2 ′ 42.1 ″ N , 13 ° 44 ′ 9.6 ″ E