Town Hall (Schwäbisch Hall)
The town hall in Schwäbisch Hall is a baroque building from 1735. It was built after the town fire of 1728 on the former site of the St. Jakob church . The town hall burned to the ground towards the end of the Second World War , but was subsequently largely reconstructed true to the original.
description
history
According to the chronicler Widman, the oldest town hall stood on the site of the former granary, which was down on the grass market. In the 16th century there is an old town hall on the harbor market and a new town hall on the Judenmarkt (from 1494). The New Town Hall from the 16th century, located on the Judenmarkt, contained the Katzhaus below , and in 1494 a mint workshop was set up in the Steinhaus am Judenmarkt. Next to it was the office building, where the Chursche House is located today. The need for a new town hall in Hall was awakened by the fire of August 31, 1728, which destroyed the old buildings.
The first reconstruction plans were made in September 1728 by Johann Philipp Meyer (1679–1735), who proposed the site of the ruins of St. Jakob as a building site for a new town hall, so that the church square could be used as a marketplace in the future. For the reconstruction of the city one then asked Duke Eberhard Ludwig von Württemberg for the Württemberg master builder Johann Ulrich Heim (1668–1737), who created a development plan, except for the above-mentioned relocation of the town hall, the Heilig-Geist-Spital and the Kornhaus essentially followed the old quarters, so that despite the almost complete rebuilding of the western city center, the medieval alleyways have been preserved.
The town hall was originally supposed to be rebuilt according to plans by Meyer, but Meyer was suspected of having acted partisanly in staking out the new plots, so that Heim was used again for further planning. According to his plans, the building at Am Markt 7, which later became the citizens' drink room, was built for the administration. This was available in 1732 and served as a provisional town hall, while the council still disagreed about the actual town hall building. After submitting various designs, a design by Heim was also used for the actual town hall building. The town hall was built by his nephew, the builder Eberhard Friedrich Heim (1703–1739), and his stonecutter and master mason Johann Georg Arnold . The foundation stone for the building was laid on August 31, 1731, in November 1733 the building was completed up to the roof; the inauguration took place on June 18, 1735.
On October 8, 1925, the town hall was included in the state directory of architectural monuments in Württemberg. In the final days of World War II, it burned to the ground after an attack by American fighter-bombers on April 16, 1945. Only the basement, spanned by vaulted ceilings, remained, so that the archive and library holdings in it survived the fire. The decision to rebuild the building was made in 1945, under the direction of Eduard Krüger . The topping-out ceremony for the reconstruction was celebrated on September 14, 1946. In 1951 the solid ceilings and windows were restored, the interior work began in the spring of 1953. In 1955, the town hall was re-inaugurated.
Architecture and equipment
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The facade is divided into three parts by an arrangement of pilasters. Smooth pilaster strips are located between the windows of the side panels. On the corner pillars of the roof balustrade and tail gable, and on the apex of the same gable, there were five statues - allegories of virtues. Above the central window of the gable was a stucco coat of arms eagle. On the pictures of the scaffolded town hall, 1949/50 (StadtA SHA FS 00105a) and at the ceremonial inauguration of the rebuilt town hall on April 30, 1955 (StadtA SHA FS 01305), these figures could be seen (apart from the Justitia on the gable). Today (as of 2012) the statues are missing on the facade.
The facade itself is made of stone, while the roof structures between the sections are plastered. The sides of the facade show a cuboid with horizontal joint lines. The roof is covered with tiles, while the town hall tower is covered with slate. The town hall tower has a lantern and a lattice dome with a clock and bell.
The building site slopes down so much on the back that the back of the house is one storey lower than the front. The front part of the building is divided into three rooms on the inside on all three floors, the facade is slightly curved in the middle part. The rear part of the building is divided in the basement by a partition wall and completely vaulted. On the upper floors of the rear building, the rooms are divided into three depths by two partition walls.
In the middle of the front part of the house is the vestibule with three doors on the ground floor. The vestibule shows a cap vault with simple frame stucco. In the niches on the back walls of the vestibule there are two bronzed plaster figures of Wisdom and Justice by Emanuel Pighini and Thomas Gavoni .
The central space of the rear part of the house contains a staircase with a three-armed staircase. The stairwell is decorated with figurative stucco, so the four seasons. The stucco work was done by the Württemberg court sculptor Maximilian Josef Pöckhl ( Böckel , from Bavaria). In the front part of the building there are the town hall halls on the main floor, which were painted by Livio Andrea Retti from 1736–1738 ; while the offices and registries are in the rear building. The archive is located in the vaulted cellar.
Further building jewelry came from the foremen who carried out the work. The sculpting work was done by Georg David Laccorn . The blacksmith Georg Melchior Bubinger created the door and window grilles, locks and fittings. The wrought iron tower dome was created by the blacksmith Johann Friedrich Jotz (also Joos ) in Königsbronn . Carpentry work by Johann Adam Hauckh and Johann Jacob Laccorn.
Lattice door of the locksmith Bubinger in Schwäbisch Hall, 1735
Ground floor plan
Floor plan of the attic
literature
- Eugen Gradmann : The art and antiquity monuments of the city and the Oberamt Schwäbisch-Hall . Paul Neff Verlag, Esslingen a. N. 1907, OCLC 31518382 ( archive.org ).
- Lucrezia Hartmann: The town hall in Schwäbisch Hall. In: Württembergisch-Franken. Yearbook. Vol. 53, 1969, ISSN 0084-3067 , pp. 63-79.
- Kuno Ulshöfer: A letter from the court painter Livio Retti about the town hall paintings in Schwäbisch Hall. In: Württembergisch-Franken. Yearbook. Vol. 57, 1973, pp. 287-289.
- Eduard Krüger, Wilhelm Prinzing, Lucrezia Hartmann: 250 years of the Schwäbisch Hall town hall. City of Schwäbisch Hall - Information and Culture Office, Schwäbisch Hall 1985.
Web links
- Am Markt 6 - Town Hall in the Schwäbisch Hall House Lexicon
Individual evidence
- ^ Eugen Gradmann : The art and antiquity monuments of the city and the Oberamt Schwäbisch-Hall . Paul Neff Verlag, Esslingen a. N. 1907, OCLC 31518382 , pp. 74 ( archive.org ).
- ^ Eugen Gradmann : The art and antiquity monuments of the city and the Oberamt Schwäbisch-Hall . Paul Neff Verlag, Esslingen a. N. 1907, OCLC 31518382 , pp. 75 ( archive.org ).
- ↑ see the pictures of the scaffolding of the town hall in 1949/50 and in 1955 for the inauguration ceremony
- ^ Eugen Gradmann : The art and antiquity monuments of the city and the Oberamt Schwäbisch-Hall . Paul Neff Verlag, Esslingen a. N. 1907, OCLC 31518382 , pp. 77 ( archive.org ).
- ^ Eugen Gradmann : The art and antiquity monuments of the city and the Oberamt Schwäbisch-Hall . Paul Neff Verlag, Esslingen a. N. 1907, OCLC 31518382 , pp. 76-77 ( archive.org ).
- ^ Eugen Gradmann : The art and antiquity monuments of the city and the Oberamt Schwäbisch-Hall . Paul Neff Verlag, Esslingen a. N. 1907, OCLC 31518382 , pp. 76 ( archive.org ).
Coordinates: 49 ° 6 ′ 44.6 " N , 9 ° 44 ′ 12.7" E