Town Hall (Esens)

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Town hall in Esens

The town hall of the East Frisian town Esens is located in the former Palais von Heespen . This got its name from a previous owner, the office administrator Wilhelm von Heespen (1669–1742). The core of the building dates back to the 17th century. Its current appearance is the result of extensive renovations that Heespen carried out in the early 18th century.

Building description

The Esens town hall is a two-storey rectangular brick building on a low base with ashlar plaster . The house is completed by a high hipped roof , which originally had two chimneys in the roof ridge. The hipped roof is supported by a horizontal oak roof truss.

Wilhelm von Heespen had the facade built in the Baroque style. It has nine window axes and takes up almost the entire eastern narrow side of the town's market square. The building has strongly profiled cornices and window frames . The market side is very orderly due to a central projecting only a few centimeters . This is flanked by two colossal corner pilasters made of sandstone, which are provided with capitals and support a complete entablature. The flat triangular gable above the central projection is decorated with the coat of arms of the von Heespen family held by two lions. After the renovation, the building was probably exposed to stone. Today's plaster was only applied during extensive renovation work in the course of the 19th century. The windows were also provided with straight roofs so that the building appears classicistic .

The entrance portal is located in the central axis and has a segmented arched gable . Of the interior, only the ancestral hall has retained its historical furnishings, which include a fireplace and several tapestries . The foyer was returned to its original state in 2013. The remaining rooms are clad in a modern way. The baluster staircase in the entrance hall has been preserved. The foyer, known as the “large front building”, is relatively flat. A staircase with restrained forms at the end of the room leads from it to the upper floor.

history

It is unclear whether one or more buildings stood on the site of today's town hall in the Middle Ages. There is no evidence of building material from this era to date. The core of today's town hall dates partly from the 16th century. The north wall and part of the east wall probably date from the second half of the 16th century. A dendrochronological examination of the roof structure carried out on behalf of the city revealed a construction time around 1610/15. This immediate predecessor building must have had a certain significance for the city due to its size, but never served as the town hall. This stood diagonally across from the passage to the church. It is not known who the client was. In the 17th century the bailiff Johann Vieth is named as the owner, who died in 1705.

When exactly it came into the possession of the office administrator Wilhelm von Heespen is not known. It is possible that the widow of Vieth lived in the house for a long time and that is why the heirs of Vieth probably only sold it in the years after his death. on the facade as well as the redistribution of the interior. Since the roof structure is made uniform, the building must have already existed in full at the time of its renovation by Wilhelm von Heespen. Heespen limited himself to the renovation work, which was probably carried out at the beginning of the second decade of the 18th century, to the facade and the redistribution of the interior. As part of this thorough renovation, the building was given a regularly structured facade in the spirit of the Baroque . It is unknown which architect von Heespen commissioned with the execution. The work must have been carried out in the years between the arrival of Wilhelm von Heespen, who came to the city in 1703, and 1713/1719. A view of the city by Wilhelm Christian Schneider, which shows the finished palace, has survived from this period.

After the death of Wilhelm von Heespen in 1742, some family members still lived in the house. After the death of her husband Christian Friedrich von Wangelin on January 28, 1756, his daughter Adelheid Auguste transferred her extensive inheritance, including the palace, to a foundation in honor of the von Wangelin, von Oldenburg, von Heespen and Tammena families, the Wangelin Widows' Foundation. This used the construction with an outbuilding for residential purposes. In 1943 not all monastery seats were occupied. The city administration then rented the ground floor. From 1946 refugees were accommodated on the upper floor. Since 1953 the city tried to buy the building from the foundation. This received a modern replacement in 1964/65. The town hall of the city and later also that of the Esens municipality finally moved into the former Palais Heespen. In 2013 the city commissioned an extensive restoration. In the course of the work, she also had the original wall and ceiling frames of the foyer uncovered and the “Great Portal” restored.

Furnishing

In the ancestral hall on the upper floor of the building there is a collection of tapestries, paintings and furniture that have been brought together from the entire building. The paintings come from the Heespens collection. He owned a rich collection of paintings, which his daughter also transferred to the foundation. Of the original over one hundred pictures, around 70 have been preserved. Some of them are exhibited in the ancestral hall and some in the town's local history museum.

literature

  • Georg Dehio : Former von Wangelinsches Wirtwenstift . In: Georg Dehio: Dehio - Handbook of German Art Monuments: Handbook of German Art Monuments, Bremen, Lower Saxony . German art publisher; Edition: revision, greatly expanded edition. Munich, Berlin (January 1, 1992), ISBN 3-422-03022-0 , pp. 455f.
  • Gottfried Kiesow : Esens. Town hall . In: Architekturführer Ostfriesland . Verlag Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz, Bonn 2010. p. 341.
  • Edzard Rust: The building of today's Esenser town hall and its builder Wilhelm von Heespen . P. 52 In: Emder Jahrbuch, Volume 78 (1998), Aurich 1999, pages 45-77

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Edzard Rust: The building of today's Esenser town hall and its builder Wilhelm von Heespen . P. 45 In: Emder Jahrbuch, Volume 78 (1998), Aurich 1999, pages 45-77
  2. ^ A b c Edzard Rust: The building of today's Esenser town hall and its builder Wilhelm von Heespen . S. 52f In: Emder Jahrbuch, Volume 78 (1998), Aurich 1999, pages 45-77
  3. ^ Edzard Rust: The building of today's Esenser town hall and its builder Wilhelm von Heespen . P. 49 In: Emder Jahrbuch, Volume 78 (1998), Aurich 1999, pages 45-77
  4. ↑ a b Gerd Rokahr (local chronicle of the East Frisian landscape): Esens, city, district of Wittmund . Accessed October 13, 2014.
  5. ^ Georg Dehio: Dehio - Handbook of German Art Monuments: Handbook of German Art Monuments, Bremen, Lower Saxony . German art publisher; Edition: revision, greatly expanded edition. Munich, Berlin (January 1, 1992), ISBN 3-422-03022-0 , pp. 455f.
  6. ^ A b Edzard Rust: The building of today's Esenser town hall and its builder Wilhelm von Heespen . P. 54 In: Emder Jahrbuch, Volume 78 (1998), Aurich 1999, pages 45-77
  7. ↑ a b c d Edzard Rust: The building of today's Esenser town hall and its builder Wilhelm von Heespen . P. 47 In: Emder Jahrbuch, Volume 78 (1998), Aurich 1999, pages 45-77
  8. ↑ a b Anzeiger für Harlingerland from August 19, 2013: Esens town hall is getting back its old splendor . Retrieved October 14, 2014.
  9. ↑ a b Esens-Museen.de: Palais von Heespen / town hall . Retrieved October 14, 2014.
  10. ^ Edzard Rust: The building of today's Esenser town hall and its builder Wilhelm von Heespen . P. 50 In: Emder Jahrbuch, Volume 78 (1998), Aurich 1999, pages 45-77
  11. ^ A b c Edzard Rust: The building of today's Esenser town hall and its builder Wilhelm von Heespen . P. 51 In: Emder Jahrbuch, Volume 78 (1998), Aurich 1999, pages 45-77
  12. ^ Edzard Rust: The building of today's Esenser town hall and its builder Wilhelm von Heespen . P. 42 In: Emder Jahrbuch, Volume 78 (1998), Aurich 1999, Pages 45-77

Coordinates: 53 ° 38 ′ 48.2 "  N , 7 ° 36 ′ 43.9"  E