Delmenhorst town hall
The Delmenhorst Town Hall is a building complex designed in 1908 by the Bremen architect Heinz Stoffregen on the Town Hall Square in Delmenhorst . The ensemble consists of the water tower , the former fire station , the actual town hall building and a market hall , which was connected to the town hall by an arcade until 1955 .
history
- Development of the city
precursor
- First Delmenhorst town hall
In 1691 the city of Delmenhorst bought a count's greenhouse , which was initially used as a syringe house and was converted into the town hall in 1699. A recording said: “While the Rahthaus in Delmenhorst is completely dilapidated, and the repair of which would cost the citizens a great deal of money, then instead the house for the city and the city, which has been bought for the fire materials from the city and adapted for this purpose Rahtshaus, but then another convenient place to store the fire materials will be purchased again, should and may be used. ” The building was rebuilt in 1712, and in 1775 a courtroom was added. The town hall fell into disrepair by 1802, and in 1813 there was only one dilapidated room. In 1821 the remains of the building were torn down and the property was sold to Councilor Fitger and the postal administrator Lückens. Both built their own house in 1822 on the property on which the C&A department store is located today .
- The “closing shop” becomes the town hall
In 1821 Delmenhorst took over the so-called “closing shop” on the market from the grand ducal oldenburg state government. With the construction of a new prison , the building had become obsolete. The town hall was built in the autumn of 1821 as a result of renovation work. It was an “unadorned, but friendly-looking building close to the Delme, a little separated from Langen Strasse, 36 feet long, on two floors, painted white, with black edges below, green double doors and Lightning rod ” .
However, this town hall was not needed for a long time, because the municipality was subordinate to the Delmenhorst office. From 1854 to 1867 the building was rented to the customs administration , and it was not until 1884 that an office for the mayor was set up again.
- Rapid growth, different town halls
As a result of industrialization , not only did the economy grow, but the city administration also grew in size. The growth of the administration finally made the purchase of further buildings necessary: in 1895 Haus Wieting was acquired, in 1896/1897 expanded and set up as “Rathaus II”, then the old “Closing Shop” was demolished. In 1901 the house of Dr. Harbou at the market and rebuilt it to the "Rathaus I".
Until around 1900 Delmenhorst had neither a newly built nor a representative town hall. It had always been a matter of emergency solutions in the form of conversions or extensions to older buildings that were originally intended for completely different purposes.
New construction of the town hall
- Architecture competition
In 1901 Erich Koch was elected Mayor of Delmenhorst, two years later Gustav Gericke , the director of Delmenhorster Linoleum-Fabrik AG (“anchor brand”), became a councilor on an honorary basis . Gericke was considered a supporter of modern art, the left-liberal chef was open to new ideas. In the architectural competition for the new construction of a town hall and the redesign of the market square in Delmenhorst, which was endowed with 3,500 marks in prize money and whose deadline was December 15, 1908, both were part of the jury , which was otherwise well represented. To him belonged the director of the Bremen industrial museum, Emil Högg , Landesbaurat a. D. Carl Rehorst (alderman in Cologne ), the grand-ducal Oldenburg building advisor Adolf Rauchheld , town builder and councilor Kühn, and town councilor Mühlenbrock.
The city received 51 entries, 15 of which were shortlisted. Finally, the two best designs by the Bremen architect Heinz Stoffregen and his Berlin competitor Gerrit Emmingmann were awarded equal prizes (at 1,500 marks each), with Stoffregen the design of the building and with Emmingmann the “excellent design of the market square” . In January 1909, the city's magistrate commissioned Stoffregen to plan the implementation of his town hall design, taking into account Emmingmann's square concept. The trade journal Architektonische Rundschau saw Stofregen's planning as "a thoroughly independent, powerful creation."
Stoffregen was no stranger to Delmenhorst at that time: In 1905 he built a house for Hermann Coburg (1861–1934), the factory doctor of Nordwolle , which is now owned by the city of Delmenhorst and houses the Delmenhorst Municipal Gallery . In 1908 he had also taken part in an architecture competition for the expansion of Bahnhofstrasse and had been invited to design two retail houses for this street.
At the time of the competition, the space to be built on comprised today's Hans-Böckler-Platz, Rathausplatz, Bismarckplatz and the square at the Rathausbrunnen. Stoffregen originally designed a modern building for the town hall that integrated the water tower . The surviving elevation shows an almost castle-like facility that can hardly act glie horror or arranging of the surrounding squares. Emmingmann, on the other hand, put the structuring effect of the town hall building in the foreground; the buildings on his design correspond to the current layout in terms of their division and arrangement.
- Water tower and fire station
There was also resistance to Stofregen's draft. A member of the city council said, “This aberration of taste imported by the anchor brand will not last long. Rough plastering on the buildings is nonsense. ” In the following discussion in the city council, however, Koch and Gericke succeeded in prevailing against the critics. But the building was also controversial among the city's citizens. In a letter to the editor to the Delmenhorster Kreisblatt it said: “Should we let the most beautiful place we have in Delmenhorst be defaced by a water tower, the shape and design of which, in the opinion of many, is anything but beautiful, and also by a syringe house connected to it? "
The construction of the 42-meter-high water tower began in spring 1909; it was delayed by two months due to a strike by construction workers. The construction of the tower began at the same time as the laying of the municipal water supply lines and the construction of the waterworks on the Graft and was completed within less than a year. The building was inaugurated on April 29, 1910; it quickly developed into an urban landmark . The 29 meter high tank inside is made of riveted steel and has a capacity of 500 m³. The cost of building the water tower was 82,000 marks.
In 1910 the building of the fire station followed, the construction of which, like the water tower, was stylistically based on Stofregen's design. In 1914 the Delmenhorst volunteer fire brigade moved from their syringe house on the market, which had served as accommodation since 1906, to the new extension on the water tower. Initially, only some of the vehicles were housed here. The new building offered the fire brigade unfamiliar comfort: There was electric light and central heating . This averted the risk of syringes freezing up. The installation of a modern hose washing system also put an end to hand washing in the Delme. The old syringe house on the market lost its function and was demolished.
- town hall
Construction of the town hall only began four years after the original competition in 1912. In the meantime the taste of the time had changed, ornaments were in demand again. This was also reflected in Stoffregen's work; the town hall design was corrected in detail . On the designs, ornamentation reminiscent of the Middle Ages and some of the Baroque replaces the bare plaster. The entrance door is framed by an animal frieze created by the Bremen sculptor Ernst von Wachold. Stoffregen also designed the interior and equipment of the town hall: leather chairs and armchairs, sofas, coat racks, a clock, various lamps, bicycle racks, a letter box, writing boards, pictures, wallpaper, curtains, wastepaper baskets and radiator panels. Some of these items have been preserved and are in the possession of the city of Delmenhorst. The table and chairs in the large boardroom are still in use.
The town hall was completed in 1914, in June the authorities moved in, and on September 10, 1914, the city council met for the first time in the representative council chamber of the New Town Hall.
- Market hall and war honors
Due to the outbreak of the First World War , work on the building complex was interrupted and only resumed in 1919. Stoffregen placed the round building of the market hall exactly in the extension of the south-eastern axis of Langen Straße and connected the newly designed town hall square with the historic city. This fulfilled one of the requirements of the competition, which read: “The main traffic axis of the municipality is Lange Straße, which runs north of the market square. It is also the main traffic feeder to the market place. The necessity of proper access from Langen Strasse to the market square must be taken into account. ” The market hall was then connected to the town hall by an arcade, which was decorated with figures by Ernst von Wachold.
Since 1919 efforts had been made in the city to honor the soldiers who fell in the First World War; various plans had been developed and then rejected. Finally, the town hall complex came to an end with the establishment of the war ceremony that Stoffregen carried out in 1925. He himself wrote in an article for the Bremer Nachrichten in 1927: “After the war, the missing market hall was added and the space between the town hall and market hall behind an arcade that had already been built was still awaiting a structural solution with the background of beautiful old trees Warrior Court of Honor brought to completion. "
Stoffregen built a square within the building complex and the other squares, an intimate courtyard that was to form a quiet center of the city center. The memorial was inaugurated on October 25, 1925, and Stoffregen was very satisfied with the facility: (...) “an honor which, thanks to the utilization and expansion of a smaller square within the new urban building, is one of the most attractive and worthy in north-west Germany has become and will remain. "
Changes and present
However, Stoffregen was wrong in his assessment: the arcade was torn down in 1955 and the memorial lost its quiet, secluded character. In the meantime, a non-profit association is trying to rebuild the arcades, which the City Council described in 2007 as "undisputed" . The Lower Monument Authority in Delmenhorst formulated in 2008 that a reconstruction of the Stoffregen arcades would represent a “repair of the town hall complex” .
The initially good conditions for the fire brigade in the fire station at the water tower deteriorated over the decades. With the size of the city, the fire brigade grew, more personnel and material were needed and had to be housed. There was no longer enough space for all vehicles in the fire station. In 1947, the city bought a wooden barracks at the entrance to the graft to store vehicles. In 1952, storage rooms were also rented on Langen Strasse. The spatial separation of the fire fighters from the vehicles had a negative effect on the fire brigade's deployment times . In addition, the firefighters lacked a closed space for exercises and practical training.
These grievances were remedied by the fire station on Rudolf-Königer-Strasse, which they moved into in 1974. A large building complex was built on an old factory site, offering both the volunteers of the volunteer fire brigade and the men on duty on duty with sufficient space for vehicles, equipment, training and sleeping facilities.
The gates of the old fire station were removed, the openings walled up and provided with windows, and the interiors rebuilt. Today the former fire station houses the city archive .
The market hall experienced an eventful history from the 1970s, see
The water tower was still in operation as a pressure transducer until 2010, but was no longer needed with the shutdown of the Graft waterworks. The tower can be climbed at certain times (mostly on weekends and public holidays); Its future use has not yet been decided.
State of preservation
The entire building complex is a listed building .
Quotes
“Nothing else can be said about the plans but expressions of the highest praise. I have never seen such a lovely facility. The whole thing is made so delightful that there cannot be anything better. "
“The connection between the town hall and the market hall was formed by the arcades built in 1919 according to the Stoffregen plan. They were canceled in 1955. The aim was to make the front of the town hall more visible in its entire width. It was said: ›The arcades are an optical obstacle that spoils the portal of the town hall and makes the left wing of the town hall completely meaningless. '
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Edgar Grundig: History of the City of Delmenhorst. Volume II.
- ↑ a b c d e f Gerhard Kaldewei, Birgit Lohstroh (Ed.): Aufbruch in die Moderne. The Delmenhorst town hall by the Bremen architect Heinz Stoffregen 1908/1925. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-393-0 .
- ↑ a b c d e Nils Aschenbeck: Heinz Stoffregen 1879–1929. Architecture between tradition and avant-garde. Vieweg, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-528-08746-3 .
- ↑ German construction newspaper . 42nd year 1908, No. 64 (of August 8, 1908), p. 440. (Note on the competition announcement)
- ^ Report of the commission elected to examine the question of the inadequacies of town halls. In: Delmenhorster Kreisblatt from January 16, 1909.
- ↑ Architektonische Rundschau , Volume 25, 1909, Issue 7, Plate 49 (perspective drawing of the town hall with water tower) (and explanations on this in the unpaginated "1. Supplement" to Issue 7)
- ↑ a b c Alt-Delmenhorst. Pictures, stories, anecdotes. Verlag Siegfried Rieck, Delmenhorst 1981.
- ↑ a b Bremer Nachrichten of May 14, 1927.
- ↑ Nordwestzeitung. March 18, 2011.
Coordinates: 53 ° 2 ′ 52 " N , 8 ° 37 ′ 41.4" E