Prussian main guard (Mainz)
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The Prussian Hauptwache in Mainz is a building erected in 1829 on Liebfrauenplatz in the high classical style. It was the seat of the Prussian military police during the occupation of the federal fortress Mainz with a Prussian garrison. The Hauptwache was used for military purposes until 1902, then for civilian use. Only the facade remains of the building, which is now part of the so-called Haus am Dom (Liebfrauenplatz 8).
Historical background
After the withdrawal of French troops, Mainz became a fortress of the German Confederation in 1816 . Up to 7,000 soldiers, mainly Austrian and Prussian troops, were stationed in the city. A respective military police took over the important function of controlling the garrison guard service for the two troop contingents, between which the urban area was precisely divided. He was responsible around the clock for guarding the fortifications of Mainz Fortress, its city gates and all other important buildings such as warehouses. The soldiers on watch were relieved every two hours and the crew on duty was stationed in the two main guards.
While the Austrian military police had their main guard at Flachsmarkt , the Prussian military police were quartered in the old electoral guard . Since this turned out to be unsuitable after a short time due to its dilapidation, the new Hauptwache was built on Liebfrauenplatz in 1829 according to plans by a Prussian engineer officer . At the site, the remains of the cloister of the Liebfrauenkirche , which was destroyed in 1793 and demolished in 1803, had to be removed .
After the German War in 1866, the Austrian troops left the city and Mainz became a Prussian fortress. The Hauptwache was used for military purposes until the late 19th century. In 1902 the civil use of the building, which has meanwhile been classified as a building worth preserving by the Hessian Monument Protection Act , is documented as an art gallery. Until the 1930s, the "Städtische Kunsthalle plastic collection" was located here. In 1943 a new function was added to the former Hauptwache, the Kaiserhof coffee shop moved into the building and changed its name to “Konditorei Kaffee Hauptwache”.
During construction work on the new “Haus am Dom” in the mid-1960s, the rear parts of the main guard were demolished and other parts of the building were severely damaged. Only the facade remained reasonably intact. A complete demolition of the remaining parts of the building could ultimately only be prevented by the veto of the State Office for Monument Preservation and with the help of the Ministry for Education and Culture and the commitment of Mainz personalities such as Fritz Arens . The facade of the Hauptwache was integrated into the newly built house at the cathedral and the color was adapted to the new functional 1960s building.
Building description
The Geniedirektion, responsible for building projects in the Mainz Federal Fortress, was commissioned in November 1826 to submit a cost estimate for the construction of a new main guard house for the Prussian garrison. The following was defined as a specification: "The guard should be designed as a ground floor building and, apart from an officers' room and a room to accommodate 50 commons of the guard and NCOs, only contain an officer-detention room."
A draft drawing from 1827/28 that has been preserved shows the cross-section, facade, beam position and floor plan of a highly classical construction of the single-storey main guard house. Typical of this late phase of classicism (around 1795 to around 1820) is the monumental pathos that was founded in French revolutionary architecture, and the symbolism of a "speaking architecture" ( architecture parlante ). At the Hauptwache this is particularly evident in the strictly symmetrically structured cubic design and the symbolic facade decoration with laurel wreaths as a military symbol of victory and the lion heads symbolizing the strength of Prussia.
The facade was planned as an open hall in rustik-Ouaderung , behind which the closed rooms were. A console-supported cornice should lie between the arcade zone and the undivided attic . A hipped roof with a flat slope was planned for the roof . A plan from 1830, which has also been preserved, is now in the Secret State Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin . The colored plan drawing with a sectional view, facade, beam position and floor plan with the title “Newly built main guard in the federal fortress Mainz” is the first pictorial representation of the newly built main guard. Wide corner pilasters on both ends frame five arcades lined up in a row . In contrast to earlier planning stages, the upper part of the facade was artistically upgraded. Lions' heads sculpted in plastic form above the apex of the arcades were added, as were profile strips that divided the entablature several times, as well as six laurel wreaths as further decorative elements of the entablature. The cornice was not used in the construction of the building.
The rustic ashlar is missing from the part of the building that is preserved today. According to investigations by the Ecclesiastical Monument Preservation, this was probably only painted on during construction and removed during earlier work on the building (1836, 1852).
renovation
At the beginning of the 2000s, the Church Monument Preservation (which is responsible for the house at the cathedral) decided to renovate the Prussian main guard and restore the facade as true to the original as possible. The work required for this was carried out by the Mainz cathedral construction works , which completed the renovation at the end of 2002.
The originally open arcade arches of the vestibule had been closed since the beginning of civil use and were left in this state due to today's use. When renovating the facade, the gray and white paint from the 1960s was replaced by red sandstone paint, as the building was shown in a red shade on a lithograph from the 1850s. The lion heads were also painted the same color. The six laurel wreaths and the cornice below were gilded. The painted rustication ashlar was also restored in order to bring out the original proportions of the building.
Web links
- Prussian main guard - regionalgeschichte.net
- Walter Appel: lion heads, sandstone and gold . The Prussian main guard at Fortress-mainz.de
literature
- State Office for Monument Preservation Rhineland-Palatinate (Ed.): Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Volume 2.2 .: City of Mainz - Old Town. in: Monument topography of the Federal Republic of Germany . Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1997 (3rd edition), ISBN 3-88462-139-4
- Rolf Dörrlamm, Susanne Feick, Hartmut Fischer, Hans Kersting: Mainz contemporary witnesses made of stone. Architectural styles tell 1000 years of history. Verlag Hermann Schmidt, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-87439-525-1
Individual evidence
- ^ Documents on this are now in the Koblenz Federal Archives under BArch DB 6-II / Geniedirektion der fortress Mainz
- ^ Susanne Feick: The classicist style in Mainz. In: Rolf Dörrlamm, Susanne Feick, Hartmut Fischer, Hans Kersting: Mainz contemporary witnesses made of stone. Architectural styles tell 1000 years of history.
Coordinates: 49 ° 59 ′ 56 ″ N , 8 ° 16 ′ 30.7 ″ E