Radschläger fountain
The Radschlägerbrunnen is located on Burgplatz in Düsseldorf's old town .
The founder of the fountain, the Heimatverein Düsseldorfer Jonges , had some well-known sculptors among its members. In 1953 he asked them to submit designs for a wheel racket fountain. It was desired that not a single bike racket but a group should be shown. The competition was won by the sculptor Alfred Zschorsch , who created other works by Düsseldorf. In the following year, 1954, the fountain was ceremoniously handed over to the city on the day before the great Düsseldorf shooting festival . On a plinth it shows two boys in different positions of turning a wheel . One of the two bronze figures was modeled on a wheel racket model, known in his youth in the old town as "Rode Honk", which later became an "avid member" of the First Düsseldorf Fanfare Corps.
Usually the boys then asked for “eene Penning” remuneration “for a Düsseldorfer Radschläger ”. The wheel turning is a local tradition, the symbol of which can be seen in many places in Düsseldorf. On the edge of the fountain you can read in Düsseldorf Rheinisch by Hans Müller-Schlösser : "Radschläger wolle mer blieve, like jeck et de Minschen och drieve". Translated: We want to stay hackneyed, no matter how crazy people get it . There are four water dispensers on the square base.
For the ceremonial unveiling, the inscription was incorrect in that it reads in the original: “Radschläger wolle mer blieve, as jeck et de Minsche och drieve”. The plural of people in the Düsseldorf variant of the Rhenish Regiolect is "Minsche". An incident that has become an anecdote says that when this false inscription became known before the opening ceremony of the fountain, Hans Müller-Schlösser refused to take part if this “deformity” was not changed on the spot. Then the superfluous "n" was filled with cement. However, it is said to have reappeared by 1983 at the latest.
The surrounding Burgplatz had previously received a previously non-existent, uniform appearance through ornamental paving and newly planted, similarly also the Rheinuferstraße, with trimmed plane trees .
The processing of the one-block well basin made of Franconian shell limestone with a diameter of more than three meters and a height of almost one meter was extremely difficult. From the original weight of about 25 tons, about 13 tons remained after the work. The Herbert Schmäke art foundry , which produced many other works of art in the city, did the bronze casting of the pair of wheels .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Hans Maes, Alfons Houben and others: Düsseldorf in stone and bronze . Triltsch Verlag, Düsseldorf, 2nd edition 1984, pp. 23-24. ISBN 3-7998-0018-2 .
- ↑ a b c Theo Lücker: Stones speak. Historical guide through Düsseldorf's old town . Second edition, AZ-Verlag, Düsseldorf, April 1, 1983, p. 135.
- ↑ Theo Lücker: Stones speak. Small signpost through Düsseldorf's old town. Verlag T. Ewers, Düsseldorf 1977, pp. 58-59 [No. 25 The Radschlägerbrunnen].
Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 36.9 ″ N , 6 ° 46 ′ 17 ″ E