Essen Town Hall
| Essen Town Hall | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Basic data | |
| Place: | Porscheplatz 1, city center |
| Construction time : | 1975-1979 |
| Architectural style : | modern |
| Architect : | Theodor Josef Seifert |
| Use / legal | |
| Usage : | office building |
| Jobs : | 1900 |
| Client : | City of Essen |
| Technical specifications | |
| Height : | 106 m |
| Floors : | 23 |
| Usable area : | 69,000 m² |
| Building material : | Steel , reinforced concrete , glass |
| Building-costs: | approx. 189,000,000 DM |
| Height comparison | |
| Food : | 2. ( list ) |
| Germany : | 59. ( list ) |
| address | |
| City: | eat |
| Country: | Germany |
Today's Essen town hall has been the seat of the Essen city administration since 1979. It is located in the city center of Essen . There are three previous buildings known.
Today's town hall
Planning
In February 1941, the head of the building department, Sturm Kegel , drafted a future plan for the city center, which already included a plan to build a new town hall east of the Schützenbahn. The old town hall was to be continued as an office and commercial building. After the Second World War , in 1949, Sturm Kegel's plans were presented in the Capitol Theater, which included a town hall building east of the Schützenbahn to reorganize the inner city.
On April 27, 1963, an architectural competition to build a town hall east of the Schützenbahn was announced.
“For a long time, today's town hall has not met the requirements of a large city with 730,000 inhabitants, either spatially or functionally. The city administration offices therefore had to be scattered across numerous buildings, which is extremely detrimental to service operations and the public. It is therefore intended to build a new, modern city hall building, which will accommodate all central service steles, a symbol of the city and its self-government, on an available suitable site in the core city. "
The designs submitted came from architects Will Schwarz , Horst Berger, Werner Ruhnau , Rolf Allerkamp (son of Franz Allerkamp ), Wilhelm Seidensticker and Hans Rotthoff , among others . On June 17, 1963, a jury selected the one by the Bochum architect Theodor Seifert from 79 designs , and one by the Brunswick architect Friedrich Wilhelm Kraemer on the second place. Seifert's design was praised by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , a founder of Bauhaus architecture. Seifert initially designed two 126-meter-high office towers, each with 28 floors, which flanked a low central wing. For this purpose, a one hundred meter wide concrete slab was to cover the Schützenbahn street and Porscheplatz for a shopping center. The two office towers, however, were considered uneconomical, too expensive, impractical to use and not energy efficient. In May 1967 the architect and engineering contract was signed with Theodor Seifert and the Friedrich Krupp Bauplanung company. On June 8, 1970, an additional contract was signed with Seifert to prepare the plans for the central wing and the tower basements. In addition, there was an additional contract with Friedrich Krupp Bauplanung on July 21 of that year. On October 29, 1970, the city's special committee for the new town hall was constituted.
On March 22, 1971, the special committee for the construction of the new town hall said goodbye to the twin-tower town hall for reasons of cost. After the idea of a four-wing building, the current building with 23 floors on a Y-shaped floor plan, which is separated from the council wing that is now in front, came up. This draft was presented to the Special Committee by Seifert on June 28, 1971. Two contracts between the city of Essen and Neue Heimat Städtebau NRW were made on October 21, 1972: 1. Takeover of the general contractor for the new town hall building by Neue Heimat, 2. Sale of the city center property to Neue Heimat and construction contract of the city center. The completion of the ready-to-build plans by the architect Seifert took place on May 31, 1974. The tender for the building project was published on August 19, 1974. The estimated costs at that time were 130 million DM .
Construction of the town hall
The council of the city of Essen passed the council resolution on March 20, 1975 to start construction. The total bill for the new town hall building at that time was based on 164 million DM. Most recently, the actual construction costs were 189 million DM. The first groundbreaking ceremony took place on July 1, 1975 by the Lord Mayor Horst Katzor on Ribbeckplatz, which had previously been used as a fairground. A good two months later, on September 24, 1975, the largest concrete foundation to date in the Federal Republic of Germany was poured for the town hall. The official laying of the foundation stone by Mayor Horst Katzor took place on July 1, 1976. A special feature was the list of otherwise usual festival guests, which was supplemented by one hundred citizens selected by a municipal computer. It was also mentioned that the certificate of laying the foundation stone had been printed out by a computer. The celebratory speech recorded on a tape cassette , Essen daily newspapers, German coins, the special Olympic minting of the Canadian 5 dollar coin, an Essen city map, statistics about the city of Essen and the vacation spot calendar of 1976 were placed in the copper foundation stone shell celebrated exactly two years later, on July 1, 1977.
opening
The official opening of the town hall took place on November 7, 1979 with a first council meeting and a ceremony for invited guests. This was followed by the ceremonial opening of the town hall and the adjoining city center for the public from November 8th to 11th.
A laser beam mounted on the roof of the town hall (initially red for a short time, later green) swiveled over the city area from the start. Due to the susceptibility to failure and the high costs of the technology, which was still quite new at the time, the device was soon dismantled. The University of Essen then took it over for research purposes.
Location of the town hall
The new town hall was the first in the city to have a new location in the east of the city center on Porscheplatz, which was named in 1951 after the recently deceased Ferdinand Porsche . The local public transport stops were also called Porscheplatz . In the course of the timetable change of the then Essener Verkehrs-AG in December 2009, the bus and subway stops were renamed from Porscheplatz to Essen Town Hall . The City Center Essen shopping center was built in 1979 on a concrete slab that was spatially laid over large parts of the original Porscheplatz and the Schützenbahn street . With this the town hall was connected to the city center. After several years of renovation, it was reopened on March 25, 2010 as the Rathaus Galerie Essen . In this move, the town hall received a new roofed main entrance.
Town hall building
The town hall has a height of 106 meters with 23 floors. A visitor area on the 22nd floor at a height of around 100 meters offers a view of the city and part of the Ruhr area . The building has the ground plan of a Y , but its appearance is impaired by the subsequent addition of several escape staircases, which had to be attached outside on the north and east sides, as they had not been taken into account in the planning.
60,000 cubic meters of concrete, 6,500 tons of structural steel and over 360 kilometers of power cables were used to build the building. In addition, 15,000 fluorescent lamps, 3285 windows and 2100 doors have been installed.
In 330,000 cubic meters of enclosed space there are 69,000 square meters of office space, a parliamentary area, over 700 parking spaces in a multi-storey underground car park, the theater in the town hall , which opened in 1991 on the ground floor, and various rooms for technology. The town hall offers around 1900 jobs.
The sandstone sculptures of Saints Cosmas and Damian , already in the stepped gable of the old town hall on the market , created by Heinrich Kröger , who are also city patrons of the city of Essen, are installed in the entrance area of the town hall in the town hall gallery.
The entire building had to be evacuated for the first time on October 24, 2018. The reason was the no longer given road safety due to a total power failure that was triggered by a technical defect. The emergency lighting, the emergency elevators and the telephone system were also affected. After the error had been rectified, operations resumed the following day.
Planning of a town hall
The city of Essen is planning to set up a separate town hall for offers from the Essen job center , parts of the youth welfare office and the social and housing department. It will be built on the site of the main pool , which was closed in 2015, on Steeler Strasse and the administration building in Bernestrasse. The city puts the total cost of the new building in September 2019 at 114.28 million euros.
After an international architectural competition, which took place from September 14th to December 19th, 2018, the decision was made on July 10th, 2019 for the design by the general planning team agn Niederberghaus & Partner GmbH from Ibbenbüren . Construction is scheduled to start in 2021 and completion and opening in 2024.
prehistory
In 1244, Essen received city rights and the privilege to build the Essen city wall . From this a council constitution developed in the second half of the 13th century, with the council forming the city government and assuming the role of government. An Essen city council is mentioned for the first time in 1272, from which one can conclude that a council building exists. The council represented the city's interests externally and maintained public order internally. This included the fire police, the monitoring of market law, public building tasks, the collection of taxes and the administration of the city's property as well as the judiciary. A building was needed for these tasks - the town hall. The first mention of a town hall (domus consulum) can be found in a Latin document from December 15, 1301, which is in the town archives, when it comes to a booth near the town hall within the town wall.
All previous buildings of today's Essen town hall stood on the same property opposite the market church , on the south side of the old market on the corner of Kettwiger Strasse . From the 13th to the 19th century, this was the political and economic center of the city. After the third Essen town hall was torn down (1878–1964) , the Wertheim department store, which was closed down again until 1986, was built here . This was followed by today's commercial building on the market.
Previous building
13th century to 1840: medieval building
It is believed that the first town hall was built in 1275 after a major city fire. It can be assumed that it was rebuilt several times, expanded but also rebuilt. After another big fire in Essen in 1438, it was probably rebuilt. The medieval town hall not only served the council as a meeting place, but was also a courthouse, ballroom, department store and warehouse. As in other cities, it was located on the market and stood out from the surrounding buildings due to its size and shape. In 1483 the council bell with the inscription MCCCCLXXXIII Assendensis consulates campana constructa (in 1483 the bell of the Essen council was made) was cast. Below is the city's sword coat of arms. The bell was in a turret of the town hall and is now in the Ruhr Museum .
Major renovations are documented for the years 1546 and around 1576. The town hall probably received its late Gothic appearance during this period. Its location can be seen on a later reconstruction drawing. One long side of it stood on the market south across from the market church .
The house was a massive, two-story stone building on a floor area of about 180 square meters. It had two high stepped gables on the west and east sides. On the upper floor were the council chamber and the council chamber, in which the mayor Johann Conrad Kopstadt (1821–1833) and his successor Bertram Pfeiffer (1833 until demolition) worked. There was also an office and the room of the so-called twenty-four, who had control of the council, as well as closets for the dressmakers. Cloth merchants offered their goods in a hall on the ground floor. On the facade were the carved stone figures of the city saints Cosmas and Damian and medieval statues of the Mother of God. The facade was painted gray and had small arched windows. The mezzanine floor had a steep, hand-held stone staircase leading to the market. There was a guardroom for two police officers here. In the early days there was a court hall next to the town hall. As was not unusual at the time, the building was also used for other purposes.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the previous medieval town hall no longer corresponded to the changed framework conditions of local self-government, because it was still geared to the spatial program of the medieval city constitution and the function of the magistrate as municipal authority. After the Essen monastery was dissolved on April 18, 1803, the city of Essen and the entire monastery area fell to Prussia . The medieval city constitution was repealed by the Prussian government on February 28, 1804. With this, the magistrate lost the role of authority, because Prussia set up a municipal council, the city council, to control the magistrate, who represented the council. In addition, the population grew faster and faster in the first half of the 19th century, from around 3500 inhabitants in 1803 to over 8700 inhabitants in 1849. This means that the first medieval town hall was soon too small for the growing administrative tasks. In addition, the old building was in poor condition. Initially, a renovation according to plans from 1835 by Heinrich Theodor Freyse (1774–1851) , brother of the architect Heinrich Johann Freyse , was planned in the classicism style .
1842 to 1884: Classical building by Freyse
The decision to rebuild the medieval town hall from 1835 was withdrawn in 1839 and Heinrich Theodor Freyse was commissioned with a new building. At that time, Burgplatz was also considered as a location , which was not implemented. New financial opportunities made it possible for the old town hall to be demolished in 1840, as Mayor Bertram Pfeiffer had managed to settle the debts with the Prussian state that had been burdening the city since the Thirty Years' War . In the years 1840 to 1842, a three-story, classicist building was erected on the site of the previous building. At around 210 square meters, it had a slightly larger footprint. The foundation stone was laid on the birthday of the new Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV , October 15, 1840.
Exactly two years later, on October 15, 1842, the new building was inaugurated and handed over to its intended purpose. The festival program began the evening before with a vocal and instrumental concert at which, among other things, the composition Hallelujah by Georg Friedrich Händel was performed. Gun salvos preceded this. At 6 o'clock in the morning the festival was announced with gunfire in front of all the city gates, music from the tower of the town hall and bells ringing. The national and city flags waved on all public buildings. At 9 o'clock there was a public celebration at the Burggymnasium , with gun salvos being delivered again with the final song. At 11.30 a.m., the mayor, city councilors and members of the municipal building commission moved with musical accompaniment at the head from the administrative building to the new town hall, on the steps of which they were received by the builder Freyse with a speech. Then the mayor received the key, thanking the city council and the citizens of Essen for their wishes. There was a police station on the ground floor. This town hall quickly became too small in the course of the onset of industrialization and the rapidly growing city. In 1870 the city of Essen had 51,840 inhabitants and had increased its population tenfold within 40 years.
1878 to 1964: Neo-Gothic building by Zindel
As a result, the predecessor of today's town hall, a representative, neo-Gothic building based on a design by the architect Peter Zindel , was built between 1878 and 1888 and badly damaged during the Second World War , particularly in an air raid on March 5, 1943, with the striking tower being hit in particular was. From November 1964 to January 1965 it was demolished after being rebuilt after the property had been sold to the Wertheim Group .
1964 to 1979: no town hall building
Before the opening of today's town hall at the new location east of the Schützenbahn street, Essen had no town hall for 15 years, from 1964 to 1979. After the sale of the old town hall property opposite the Marktkirche to the Wertheim Group in the mid-1960s, there were no funds available to finance a new building. There were also no final plans for this yet. The town hall of the former mayor's office of Kray-Leithe , which was undamaged during the Second World War, and the rebuilt hall were used temporarily for council meetings . The Lord Mayor and the City Director were housed in the Amerikahaus Ruhr , which was closed as such in 1964 , now the Europahaus with Stratmann's Theater on Kennedyplatz . During these 15 years, this small house was mockingly called the town hall and is now a listed building.
The City Council of Essen met every month from 1955 to 1979 in the chamber music hall of the hall building, as no more conference hall was set up in the partially destroyed third town hall.
literature
- Till Schraven: (Social) democracy as a client. City hall construction in the 1960s and 1970s in Germany and Essen. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2009, ISBN 978-3-8375-0235-0 .
Web links
- Essen.de: The Essen town halls, a historical sheet of pictures , accessed on November 14, 2019
- Film about the construction of the Essen town hall , accessed on November 14, 2019
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Historical exhibition in the Essen town hall for the 40th anniversary in November 2019.
- ^ Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of August 17, 1974.
- ↑ a b c Thomas Dupke: Essen. History of a city . Ed .: Ulrich Borsdorf. Peter Pomp Verlag, Bottrop, Essen 2002, ISBN 3-89355-236-7 , p. 520 .
- ↑ Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of July 2, 1976.
- ↑ City Hall Gallery opened ; in: Derwesten.de of March 25, 2010; accessed on November 14, 2019.
- ^ City of Essen: press release from October 2, 2018 ; accessed on October 25, 2018.
- ↑ Further planning for the construction of the BürgerRatHaus decided. In: Press release of the City of Essen from September 25, 2019.
- ↑ Homepage of the city of Essen: From the concept to the move - how the BürgerRatHaus is created ; accessed on February 21, 2020.
- ↑ a b Monika Fehse: Food. History of a city . Ed .: Ulrich Borsdorf. Peter Pomp Verlag, Bottrop, Essen 2002, ISBN 3-89355-236-7 , p. 183 .
- ↑ K. Schorn: On the chronicle of the city of Essen . Hanstein, Bonn 1899, p. 145 .
- ↑ Thomas Dupke: Food. History of a city . Ed .: Ulrich Borsdorf. Peter Pomp Verlag, Bottrop, Essen 2002, ISBN 3-89355-236-7 , p. 278, 279 .
- ↑ Allgemeine Politische Nachrichten No. 84 of October 20, 1842.
- ↑ Amerikahaus in the list of monuments of the city of Essen ; accessed on November 14, 2019.
Coordinates: 51 ° 27 ′ 29 ″ N , 7 ° 0 ′ 58 ″ E