Town Hall (Lorsch)

The Lorsch town hall

The historic town hall of Lorsch in the Bergstrasse district in southern Hesse dates from 1715 and was built based on the town hall in neighboring Heppenheim . Both buildings are important examples of half-timbered houses of the German high baroque .

history

At the location of the town hall on the market square in Lorsch there had been a two-storey half-timbered building since the middle of the 16th century. After this old town hall became dilapidated around 1700, today's town hall was built in 1714 and 1715 according to the construction plans of the town hall of Heppenheim, which was built around ten years earlier.

In 1902 the city had the town hall expanded by the Frankfurt architect Hans Rummel , who came from Lorsch . In the 1930s, the representative Nibelungen Hall on the upper floor of the building was decorated with large-scale wall paintings on the Nibelung saga and the history of Lorsch Monastery . The city's volunteer fire brigade was housed on the ground floor until 1953 , and the city administration was located on the upper floors until 1979. In the early 1980s, the historic town hall was extensively renovated. The fire bell in the cupola was founded in 1989 by a carillon replaced with 23 bells, which is known by 11, 12 and 17 o'clock tunes daily folk songs played.

The historic town hall of Lorsch is a listed building and today houses, among other things, a café and the tourist office . The Nibelungensaal is used as a concert and meeting room.

Appearance

The town hall of Lorsch has a total of three floors . It consists of a ground floor made of sandstone and two upper floors made of richly decorated half-timbering . There are bay windows on both sides and in the middle of the main façade to the east ; the middle bay window is crowned by a tower with a double hood. The tower facades, the tower dome and the roof of the building are covered with slate . The tower has a clock on the north and east sides , and the carillon is located in the tower dome.