Eilenburg town hall
The town hall in Eilenburg in northern Saxony is a multi-storey Renaissance building . It partly goes back to the year 1545. The town hall has existed in its current appearance since 1949, when the reconstruction after the Second World War was completed. The building represents the southern boundary of the market square and, due to its local and architectural significance, is a registered cultural monument in the list of monuments of the State Office for Monument Preservation Saxony under the object number 08973430 .
history
In 1404, at the behest of Margrave Wilhelm the One-Eyed , Eilenburg was detached from the bailiwick of the Lords of Colditz and placed directly under sovereign care. This was accompanied by the ban mile law , according to which the market rights within the specified district were the sole responsibility of the city of Eilenburg. For the occasion, a first town hall was built in 1403 and 1404, which at that time was still called a department store by the citizens. It must have been a somewhat massive wooden house, which was destroyed in a city fire in 1413. The following buildings were also built in this way and fell victim to various city fires. In 1521 the foundation stone was laid for a new town hall, which was also destroyed in the great fire in 1535.
In the years 1544 and 1545 a new building was built on the foundations of the old town hall in the style of the early Renaissance . This building shaped the cityscape for four hundred years and was considered an important representative of the early German Renaissance throughout the country. The representative building, which consisted of a basement, ground floor, upper floor and extended attic, had richly structured gables, which were decorated with volutes and pilasters . The same applied to the two outer dwelling houses facing the market square. Another central dwelling had a clock. The town hall tower with a free-swinging bell, which was rebuilt in 1684 due to dilapidation , rose above it as a roof turret. The basement still had Gothic design elements , possibly going back to the previous building . The basement in the eastern part was designed as a massive barrel vault , while a groin and ribbed vault were used in the western part .
The Rats-Trinkstube opened in 1686 as a forerunner of the Ratskeller, which moved from the eastern to the western part of the building in 1852. The municipal savings bank founded in 1839 was also housed in the town hall until 1933. Conversions took place in 1896/97 and 1934/35, when the previously ground level entrance was relocated to the mezzanine floor with an external staircase .
On April 18, 1945, at the end of the Second World War , people gathered in front of the town hall; Those present called for the city to be surrendered without a fight to the Americans who were besieging from the west. The then mayor Gerhard Thiede (1907–1986), who is said to have campaigned for a surrender in the military leadership, could only announce the failure of the negotiation to the citizens. The police then ordered the angry crowd to leave the square. After the Americans' ultimatum expired, the shelling began that same day. In the devastating artillery battle that followed, the market square and town hall were hit on April 22, 1945. After that, only the outer walls of the town hall remained.
As a sign of a new beginning, the reconstruction of the town hall should begin quickly. The city's building authority presented a draft for this, which provided for a doubling of the structure with a symmetrical market square facade by expanding it towards Rinckartstrasse. Since a tender among the architects in the area was unsuccessful, on September 24, 1946, the Eilenburg magistrate made the decision to rebuild the town hall in its old form. Since the town hall was no longer sufficient for the increased space requirement even before the destruction, the magistrate agreed in December 1946 to add a second floor to the building, but preserving the Renaissance character. The construction started in 1946 could not be completed until 1949 due to problems with the procurement of materials. The topping-out ceremony for the two-story roof structure was in May 1948. The remains of the outer walls were left with the exception of the dilapidated east gable. The rest of the masonry was built from knocking bricks. The necessary roof tiles, rafter nails , screws and anchors were made by hand. From 1992 to 1994 the Eilenburg town hall was completely renovated.
The town hall is now home to the city administration with the mayor's office , the registry office , the citizens' office and the council cellar .
Building description
The arched entrance portal with its rusticated walls is located in the western half of the facade facing the market square . There is a terrace in front of it, which can be reached via a wide side staircase. The stair landing covered with Rochlitz porphyry has a cornice that ends at the top . The entrance to the Ratskeller is to the west below the terrace. The basement is rusticated in gray, which is interrupted by the external staircase and partly by the bay window . A base cornice separates the ground floor and the first floor. The windows on these floors have a repeating, profiled wall. On the first floor there is an oriel supported by two consoles on the outer western facade . The bay window framed by ashlar is crowned by the Eilenburg city coat of arms , which in turn is flanked by two volutes and bordered at the top by a triangular roof.
A belt cornice runs between the first and second floors, which, as a former eaves, marks the height of the roof edge of the previous building. This cornice cranks the cantilevered dwelling from the second floor with a round arched gable . In this cantilever there is a small balcony , above which is - again separated by a cornice - the town hall clock. The window frames of the second floor, which was extended in 1949, are based on the design of the lower floors, but are not further profiled. The end of the facade is formed by a mighty eaves, which is interrupted by the cantilevered dwelling. The high roof has four small dormers facing the market square .
The high gables were rebuilt after the war while retaining the Renaissance character. These have a horizontal structure with two cornices. Pilasters , which rise up in the tapering gable with a capital crowned by a ball , represent the vertical structure.
On the rear facade facing Nikolaiplatz there is a single-storey extension from the time of reconstruction. This is designed in such a way that a small courtyard is created behind the town hall, which can be reached from Nikolaiplatz via a gate.
City coat of arms of the bay window
Town hall clock
View from the southwest with rear facade and extension
literature
- Jürgen Scheller: The old Eilenburg market square in: Yearbook for Eilenburg and the surrounding area 2005 , Heide-Druck publishing house, Bad Düben 2005
- Rolf Vettermann, Andreas Flegel: History of the City of Eilenburg - Volume I, Chapters 1 to 3 , Eilenburg 1989
Web links
- History of the Eilenburg town hall on the website of the city of Eilenburg
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Jürgen Scheller: The old Eilenburg market square , in: Yearbook for Eilenburg and the surrounding area , Bad Düben 2005, p. 32 f.
- ↑ a b Rolf Vettermann: History of the City of Eilenburg - Volume I, Chapter 3 , Eilenburg 1989, p. 42 f.
- ^ Andreas Flegel: The old Eilenburg in color , Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 2006, ISBN 978-3-86595-159-5 , p. 37
- ^ Andreas Flegel: Eilenburg in old views , European Library, Zaltbommel / Netherlands 1998, ISBN 90-288-6534-9
- ↑ Andreas Fegel et al .: Eilenburg April 1945 , Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 2004, ISBN 3-89570-988-3 , ff p. 38
- ↑ Jürgen Scheller: The old Eilenburg market square , in: Yearbook for Eilenburg and the surrounding area , Bad Düben 2005, p. 37
- ^ Andreas Flegel: Eilenburg 1945–1961 , Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 2002, ISBN 3-89570-792-9 , p. 15
- ^ Andreas Flegel: Eilenburg 1945–1961 , Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 2002, ISBN 3-89570-792-9 , p. 20
Coordinates: 51 ° 27 ′ 35 ″ N , 12 ° 38 ′ 1 ″ E