Town Hall (Wolfsburg)

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City Hall A
Main entrance of City Hall A with city chronicle
Town hall B, west side

The town hall Wolfsburg is the town hall of the city of Wolfsburg in Lower Saxony . It consists of five parts of the building called Town Hall A, B, C, D and E. City hall A was built from 1955 to 1958 according to plans by Titus Taeschner . Town hall B was built in 1994 based on a design by Schweger and partners .

history

The city administration of the City of KdF-Wagons , founded in 1938 - renamed Wolfsburg in 1945 - was initially located in the Fallersleben District Court building before moving to the stone barracks on Nordsteimker Strasse. Some offices were also housed in wooden barracks on Schachtweg and Kleiststrasse (originally Clausewitzstrasse, later called Ernst-Toller-Strasse). In 1945 a council meeting room was built on Nordsteimker Straße, the building remained in place even after the construction of the town hall and was integrated into the Emmaus-Heim, which opened in 1957 , as the Wichernsaal .

In the mid-1950s, the rapidly growing city of Wolfsburg needed a new, larger town hall instead of the previous makeshift arrangements. In 1954, the design by Wolfsburg architect Titus Taeschner emerged as the winner from an ideas competition. The city administration attached great importance to the fact that the town hall was visually different from the buildings of the Volkswagen factory and therefore did not accept a clinker brick facade . The foundation stone was laid on September 20, 1955. For the west side facing the market, a carillon was designed by Erich Fritz Reuter from West Berlin . 1956, organized a contest to select appropriate folk songs for the carillon, which was installed in 1957. The town hall was inaugurated by Mayor Arthur Bransch on March 22, 1958, and the carillon has been ringing every day since that day.

In 1977/78 the town hall square got its present shape. The town hall could no longer be reached at ground level. The information pavilion built at the time, last used as a theater box office, was demolished again in 2013.

In 1994, City Hall B was built in the southern extension according to a design by Schweger and Partners.

Later, the following neighboring buildings, which are used by the city administration, were also referred to as town hall: former district court, Pestalozziallee 1 (town hall C), new building for the youth division, Pestalozziallee 1a (town hall D) and Piazetta-Eck, Porschestrasse 47 (town hall E).

Town hall A was renovated from 2012 to 2013. It received improved thermal insulation, new windows and a new, beige travertine facade. The green tarnished copper plates of the upper roof were replaced by new copper plates, in the flatter part the tarnished copper plates were preserved in sections.

Buildings A and B.

The town hall is located in a north-south direction in the city center, parallel to the main shopping street Porschestrasse , which expands to the market square at the town hall. It has the address Porschestrasse 49. Town hall A houses the offices of the mayor and the department heads as well as the community hall, which is used for exhibitions and events, and the council meeting room where the council of the city of Wolfsburg meets. In the hall the council members sit in a large circle; a circular skylight emphasizes the shape. Three cubic complexes penetrate each other, with the ten-storey, south-facing structure dominating with a height of 35 m. To the north are the Bürgerhalle, the meeting room and the Ratskeller. Originally, the separation of powers between the executive in the high-rise area, the legislature in the council meeting room and north of Pestalozziallee the judiciary in the local court at that time was symbolized.

The outer walls are clad with travertine, the roofs and cladding of the coffin roof are covered with copper. The windows on the west facade are of the same size and arrangement. Windows are only missing on the left side. A projecting roof in the shape of an irregular square is located above the carillon installed there. The roof is accessible, but only partially accessible to the public.

The carillon manufactured by Eduard Korfhage & Sons consists of 24 bronze bells that weigh 24 to 450 kilograms. Together they weigh 3000 kilograms. From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., folk song melodies are usually played every hour, and Advent songs during the Advent season.

The multi-leaf entrance door is made of bronze and shows a city chronicle up to 1958. Some of the door handles are figures of wolves . The floor of the citizens' hall consists of differently colored and shaped tiles and shows a map on a scale of 1:50 at the time of the opening of the town hall. The doors to the council meeting room are inlaid by Otto Heinrich Brock from Heiligendorf .

The four-storey town hall B is located slightly to the east in the extension of town hall A. There is a two-storey connecting corridor that is closed to the outside between the two houses. City hall B has an aluminum / natural stone / glass facade and a flat roof. There are other business areas of the city administration such as social and health, citizen services as well as urban planning and construction advice.

City hall B is partly to the east of the Alvar Aalto cultural center and close to the art museum , which was also designed by Schweger and partners. The three buildings enclose Hollerplatz. To the east is Rathausstrasse, a side street with numerous parking spaces.

literature

  • City of Wolfsburg (ed.): Lisa and Wolf in the town hall. Press and Information Unit, around 1994
  • City of Wolfsburg (ed.): Our town hall - Nele and Luca on a discovery tour. Communication Unit, 2012
  • Adolf Köhler: Wolfsburg. Building a city. 1948-1968. Wolfsburg, undated (around 1976). Pp. 50-56, 88
  • Nicole Froberg, Ulrich Knufinke, Susanne Kreykenboom: Wolfsburg. The architecture guide. Braun Publishing, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-03768-055-1 , pp. 68-69

Web links

Commons : Rathaus Wolfsburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Adolf Koehler: Wolfsburg. A chronicle. 1938-1948. Wolfsburg 1974, p. 54.
  2. ^ Adolf Koehler: Wolfsburg. Building a city. 1948-1968. Wolfsburg, undated (around 1976), p. 50.
  3. ↑ Wolfsburg. The Volkswagen city. Publishing house Schauen und Wissen, Bad Pyrmont, 1st edition 1954, p. 16.
  4. ^ A b c d Nicole Froberg, Ulrich Knufinke, Susanne Kreykenboom: Wolfsburg. The architecture guide. Braun Publishing, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-03768-055-1 , pp. 68-69
  5. ↑ The town hall is supposed to be the heart of the city. Wolfsburger Nachrichten of September 21, 1955. In: City of Wolfsburg (Hrsg.): 50 years of Wolfsburg in the mirror of the press. Wolfsburg 1988, p. 31.
  6. ↑ Bouquet for Arthur Bransch. In: Wolfsburger Nachrichten. Edition March 3, 2019.
  7. ↑ Eberhard Rohde: Glockenspiels from the town hall. In: Wolfsburger Nachrichten. Edition of August 6, 2016, p. 16.
  8. ↑ City hall renovation: 250 windows, insulation and new facade. waz-online from July 24, 2012 , accessed on May 10, 2013
  9. ↑ Building description of Town Hall A , accessed on May 10, 2013
  10. ↑ a b Website of the city of Wolfsburg on the Glockenspiel ( memento from June 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 10, 2013
  11. ↑ Stephanie Boy: Heiligendorfer decorated doors to the council chamber. In: Wolfsburger Nachrichten. Edition of June 28, 2018.

Coordinates: 52 ° 25 ′ 12 ″  N , 10 ° 47 ′ 13 ″  E