Town Hall (Sondershausen)
| Special houses town hall | |
|---|---|
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| Data | |
| place | Sondershausen |
| builder | Carl Scheppig u. a. |
| Construction year | around 1300, 1568 to 1570, 1856 |
| Coordinates | 51 ° 22 '16 " N , 10 ° 52' 21" E |
| particularities | |
| Seat of the city administration and the mayor of the district town of Sondershausen | |
The Sondershäuser Town Hall is the seat of the city administration and the mayor of the district town of Sondershausen in the Free State of Thuringia . The building is located on the east side of the market square in the center of the city opposite the former residential palace of the princes of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen .
The current appearance is essentially shaped by the classicist renovation carried out in 1856 by the Berlin Schinkel student Carl Scheppig .
history
Previous construction
Sondershausen was granted town charter around 1300 , so it can be assumed that the first town hall was built in the first half of the 14th century. A town hall was first mentioned in 1525 in connection with repair work.
In 1568 the building was demolished in favor of a new town hall due to its age and dilapidation.
Today's town hall
Today's town hall goes back to the fabric of the two-storey brick building erected in 1568 and 1570. This had a copper-covered tower with a weather vane in the shape of a lion and a clock, whose "rope bell is said to have had such a bright, beautiful tone that you could hear it very clearly in front of the Bendelebener Holze" (about 12 km away). The building had a cellar system with barrel vaults , which was used to store beer, wine and food. At that time there was a pharmacy in the basement to the north (to the left of today's entrance) and to the south a representative taproom with a cross vault extending over two floors , which was halved with a false ceiling during the reconstruction after another city fire in 1621. Up until the extensive renovation in 2018, there was the wedding hall and below it parts of the Ratskellerrestaurant. The former dimensions remained hidden for a long time until the decision was made to restore the old building core. During the gutting work, the remains of a music gallery from the 16th century were found in the southeast corner of the hall. The fabric of the room itself probably dates back to the time of the first town hall building around 1300. On the upper floor there was a dance floor above the pharmacy and next to it were the two council offices.
However, the devastating city fire of June 3, 1621 destroyed large parts of the newly built town hall. Reconstruction began 3 weeks later and was delayed until 1623, presumably for financial reasons. The work is said to have stalled so that the city council asked wealthy citizens for donations in 1622 - including Countess-widow Clara, née Duchess of Braunschweig-Lüneburg ( 1571–1658), second wife of Count Wilhelm von Schwarzburg-Frankenhausen , who lived at Heringen Castle . The town hall received another wooden floor with a large dance hall, but the tower was either dispensed with due to lack of money or built in a simple form and only then not rebuilt after another fire
In 1658 the city burned again and the east side was badly damaged again. Thereafter, no more town hall tower is mentioned. In 1794 part of the market side with the Ratskeller entrance was redesigned. At that time around 1798, a two-storey extension with a staircase, the so-called " Batzenhaus " , was also built on the west side of the market . This replaced an older one-storey extension, called “Auerbachs Höfchen”, in front of the stairs to the council chamber on the market side. Here the pavement, bridge and road money was paid. In the new Batzenhaus or stairwell there was a small tavern with an attached general store. The name was derived from the amount of the rent for the retail space, which was a chunk a day . Below the Batzenhäusens on the southwest corner of the town hall stood the pillory , which was later replaced by the collar , which was there until about the middle of the 19th century.
In 1848 the upper floor was completely rebuilt, so that in the middle of the 19th century the meeting rooms of the municipality board and for the municipal council, as well as the rendition office and the police office were housed. A side building housed the council servant's apartment and the city prison. The guest, storage and living rooms of the Ratskeller and its landlord were housed on the lower two floors of the town hall.
In 1856 the classicistic transformation began, which still largely shapes the exterior of the town hall today. Planning and implementation was carried out by the Berlin architect Carl Scheppig , an important student of Carl Friedrich Schinkel , who shaped German classicism like no other. Scheppig was brought to the Schwarzburg-Sondershäuser Hof by the then princely couple Günther Friedrich Carl II and Mathilde and was supposed to completely rebuild the residential palace in the then ultra-modern style of classicism. Due to a lack of funds, only partial plans were implemented, including the staircase and old guard ensemble on the market side of the Schlossberg, which is considered to be an extremely successful classicist complete work. Scheppig had the "Batzenhaus" torn down on the west side and built a spacious entrance system with a portico supported by four Ionic columns . The facade was structured strictly to measure according to classical ideas. A clear cornice was inserted between the 1st and 2nd floors and the windows were given sills and window canopies . Below the roof, the facade received a meander and coffered frieze. The extremely representative council chamber has been preserved from the interior of that time. This is spatially structured by columns and pilasters and decorated with an elaborate frieze with alternating sea deities and the special houses coat of arms. The hall is mostly colored in blue-gray and light brown tones.
In the years up to the GDR era, only urgent repairs and simplifications were carried out. Parts of the window groupings were removed from their strictly classical arrangement, semicircular window arches were broken on the east side for the Ratskeller and the portico was replaced by a simpler pillar construction in 1953 due to a dilapidation as a result of years of neglect. The large, colored coat of arms of the city hangs on the east side on the first floor.
The town hall is currently (2017-19) being extensively renovated. On the one hand, it is to be modernized, a new glazed inner courtyard is to be given, but parts of it are also to be carefully reconstructed to reflect the state of past eras. This also includes the uncovering of the late medieval and renaissance two-story vaulted hall as the future wedding hall.
Current usage
[obsolete] The town hall has been extensively renovated and rebuilt since 2017, probably until 2019. In addition to the city administration and the mayor's office, the wedding hall in its restored medieval form and probably the city's tourist information office will be housed.
literature
- Hendrik Bärnighausen: Sondershausen - historical buildings and sights , Arnstadt: Donhof 1990, ISBN 3-86162-004-9 .
- Apfelstedt: Local history of the principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, first part , Sondershausen: Eupel 1854.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Exact sources for the dating of the first town hall are not known due to city fires.
- ↑ a b c d Apfelstedt: Heimathskunde des Fürstenthums Schwarzburg-Sondershausen first part , Sondershausen: Eupel 1854, p. 71/72.
- ↑ Götz, Timo: City hall renovation in Sondershausen [1] , website of the Thüringer Allgemeine, May 16, 2018.
- ^ A b Hendrik Bärnighausen: Sondershausen - historical buildings and sights , Arnstadt: Donhof 1990, pp. 41–44.
- ↑ Sources inaccurate and z. Partly contradicting