Hamm Town Hall

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The town hall in Hamm at Theodor-Heuss-Platz 16, built between 1890 and 1894 as a new building between the old town of Hammer and the Ahse , was initially used as a court building for the Hamm Higher Regional Court between 1894 and 1957 . On January 1, 1958, the Hamm Higher Regional Court moved to a new building on Heßlerstrasse, where it is still located today. The city of Hamm then took over the representative courthouse and gave it a new purpose. On December 5, 1959, it was inaugurated as the town hall .

The building has been a listed building since March 11, 1986.

Old Higher Regional Court of Hamm (1894–1957), today Hamm town hall.
Town hall of the city of Hamm.
Town hall of Hamm on a stamp from the JonAS-Mail company.

history

Higher Regional Court of Hamm

The first accommodation of the Higher Regional Court in Hamm was the old house of the Märkischen War and Domain Chamber for the county of Mark , of which Hamm had acted as the capital since 1226. The building, the former town house of the Barons von Plettenberg zu Heeren (so-called Heeren'sches Haus ), was on the north side of the market square. However, it could only be obtained after a makeshift repair for 1344  thalers , 11  groschen and 6  pfennigs in 1820.

Soon the space in the Heeren'schen Haus was no longer sufficient, so that between 1890 and 1894 , under the President of the Higher Regional Court, Adalbert Falk, a new building in the neo-Renaissance style was built south of the old town of Hammer and the Ahse . The new building is one of the oldest state buildings that were erected in Hammer Südstadt. In the following forty years, the southern city developed into a closed administrative center for the city of Hamm and the region. The old Heeren'sche house was used by the postal administration after the Hamm Higher Regional Court moved out and later merged into the town house complex.

The Higher Regional Court used the new building between July 4, 1894 and December 31, 1957. Initially, the royal district court of Hamm was also located here , which later moved into its own building just a few hundred meters further west next to the Hamm correctional facility. There are still some old cells in the town hall cellar.

During the Second World War , the building was severely damaged and then restored. In the post-war period, due to the increasing importance and tasks of the Higher Regional Court, its premises soon became too narrow for the increasing number of senates. Initially there was only one criminal senate and five civil senates, but by 1958 their number rose to five criminal and eighteen civil senates, and the attorney general's office with fifteen senior officials under attorney general Richard Ahmann also had to be accommodated. This made a move of the Higher Regional Court inevitable.

On January 1, 1958, the Higher Regional Court moved to a new building on Heßlerstrasse. The representative old building was subsequently taken over by the city of Hamm, which still uses it today as its town hall.

Hamm Town Hall

Historic town hall and town house

Town house Hamm in 2008.
Town house Hamm in 2008.

The historic town hall of Hamm stood at Marktplatz 3 opposite the Pauluskirche , where the Stadtsparkasse is located today . It was built in the 15th century. In 1760 the historian Johann Dietrich von Steinen prepared a building description and reported in this context, among other things, of arcades and a stepped gable . The city fire of 1741 damaged the upper floor and gable and had to be rebuilt in the baroque style afterwards.

In the middle of the 19th century the old town hall became too small. The city therefore rented the upper floor of the club's building on Marktplatz 5. Finally, the city acquired the property at Südstrasse 2 and built a new town hall there, which the company moved into on September 12, 1885. The corner building on Martin-Luther-Straße was a classicist building.

The ensemble of old and new town hall also included the “Stadtkeller” in Martin-Luther-Straße 2 next to the old town hall, which was originally a restaurant, but after the acquisition in 1885 was also used for the city's main treasury.

During this time, the building department was housed in the former military hospital on the corner of Sternstrasse and Südwall. After the construction of the new post office at the train station , the houses Marktplatz 10 and 11 on the north side of the market place became vacant (including the Heeren'sche house once used by the Higher Regional Court). The city bought both in 1922, expanded the former post office building to four storeys and added connecting tracts on Kirchstrasse and Schulstrasse in further construction phases. This is how the “town house” was created. In May 1927, the first offices were moved there; the renovation was completed on April 1, 1928.

The old town hall, the new town hall and the town hall were destroyed in the bombing of December 5, 1944. In the case of the town house, it was mainly the market front that was affected and was rebuilt after the war through private initiative. It still serves administrative purposes today and houses the town house gallery and educational center.

Today's building

After 1945 the city administration was established in the former infantry and later Paracelsus barracks. Rent had to be paid to the Federal Property Administration for the rooms.

Finally, the city of Hamm acquired the former court building of the Hamm Higher Regional Court for a purchase price of DM 750,000  and invested around another DM 1 million in the renovation. This began in February 1959. Construction authority employee Erwin Noack took over the construction management and had doors knocked out, walls moved, electrical installation, heating and sanitary systems replaced and an elevator installed. Weather vanes with the hammer coat of arms were placed on the towers of the house. A total of 58 companies were involved in the work and at times more than 230 craftsmen were working in the company at the same time. The walls, which were up to 1.45 meters thick, presented the construction experts with a difficult task, but they managed to create the 110 rooms on three floors in a functional manner. Differences of opinion first arose over the Ratskeller, which some would have liked to see as a restaurant. In the end, however, they agreed on a canteen.

Karl-Heinz Forstmann and the later city administrative director Werner Meierkord organized the move from the Stadthof to Theodor-Heuss-Platz. Instead of the estimated eight days, they completed the operation in three days. In this way the city has saved 3500 DM in rent since December 1st. Even when moving in, the building turned out to be too small. The financial administration initially remained in the city courtyard. A place on Berger Weg was considered for the vehicle fleet. Plans for an extension to the town hall had already started.

December 5, 1959 was declared a “major public holiday” by the Westfälischer Anzeiger . On this day the former Higher Regional Court was inaugurated as the Hammer Town Hall. The Lord Mayor Werner Figgen received a golden chain of office . The former Lord Mayor Ferdinand Poggel and retired city ​​director. D. Peter Röttgen were made honorary citizens of the city of Hamm. Council members Franz Funnekötter , Heinrich Holsträter , Otto Rother and Else Wagner were awarded the coat of arms plate of the city of Hamm because they had been on the council for more than ten years. The bookseller Paul Westhoff also received the coat of arms of the city of Hamm.

The inauguration of the town hall took place exactly on the day on which fifteen years earlier the town hall on the market had been largely destroyed in a hail of bombs. The ceremony was initiated by a string quartet from the Hamm Municipal Music School . Lord Mayor Werner Figgen promised the numerous guests in the celebratory speech that the city would endeavor to uphold the spirit of honesty that was a feature of this house in the OLG times. Chief City Director Hans Tigges reiterated his joy that the council and administration had finally found a home; It is to be thanked the master builders of the former Higher Regional Court that the new town hall could not become a functional machine, a file factory or a sauna for officials. The city administration now has the task of filling the building with the democratic community spirit. Following the celebratory speeches, the mayor was given the golden chain of office made on the occasion of the opening of the town hall as a symbol of representation by the senior president Gerhard Krampe MdL. Krampe affirmed his wish that the wearer should never be blinded by the sheen of the gold. The chain was donated by the public utility company and manufactured by a jeweler in Essen. They were picked up by the later municipal administrative director Karl Heinz Forsmann and vocational school director Josef Tippkötter . The latter had also designed the award certificate. There it said, among other things: The links of the chain are symbols for the people of the city who live as units in their multiple ties . Thirty years later, the chain was stolen when Lord Mayor Sabine Zech visited Hamm's twin town Kalisz in Poland . During the handover of the town hall, the Hammer presented non-profit construction company with an oversized colliery oil painting that later adorned the main committee room. At the subsequent reception in the Kurhaus , the President of the Higher Regional Court, Joseph Wiefels, recalled that the Hamm Higher Regional Court had once developed from a small to the largest German higher regional court. He wished the city of Hamm similar growth.

At the first council meeting on December 16, the submission system came into force, as well as the provision that requests to speak were only allowed from the lectern. The course of the meeting was broadcast over loudspeakers in the hallway. A control panel with levers and buttons for the screen, curtains and other equipment had been installed for the secretary Werner Meierkord . The conference room was decorated with a large mural by the artist Gustav Deppe , which, according to museum director Herbert Zink, shows typical and significant buildings of Hamm, represented in a tangible reality that has been combined into a new artistic unit. It was not about creating a faithful image of the city, but its symbol.

In 1961/1962 a four-storey town hall extension was built on Caldenhofer Weg to solve the administration's space problems. On July 16, 1962, after a year of construction, the extension was ready to move into. "With the move to this new wing, the entire Hammer city administration is back under one roof," said the Westphalian Anzeiger on July 18, 1962. Until then, a number of departments and offices were still in the buildings of the Paracelsus barracks at the Marker Avenue housed. The city treasury, tax office and auditing office were able to relocate from the city courtyard to the 58 new rooms in which the registration office, adrema, education office, legal office and staff council also have their place. Consultation rooms for the parliamentary groups were set up in the town hall itself.

From 2010 the extension was renovated, starting with the renewal of the elevator. To reduce the use of energy, the outer facade should be insulated and the windows should be replaced at the same time. Work is scheduled to begin in June 2011. In analogy to the red sandstone of the historic town hall facade, red-colored precast concrete elements are used. This is intended to keep the structure and time of construction of the building visible. According to the building description, the ground floor of the administration building is to be "designed as a plinth which, in its function as a citizens' office on Caldenhofer Weg, pushes out of the building". To the south, individually renewable, light-directing slats are installed as sun protection.

In the 1990s, the first town hall of Hamm was set up in the town hall on Theodor-Heuss-Platz. Citizens' offices in the seven Hammer city districts followed. Since then, the Bürgerämter have been the central point of contact for all urban affairs for the citizens of Hammer. They have an annual total of around 220,000 visitors. The town hall is also the seat of the registry office. There is also a wedding room in which marriages are carried out. This was redesigned at the turn of the year 2006/2007.

Despite the extension, there is not enough space in the town hall to cover the space requirements of politics and administration. Therefore, numerous parts of the authorities were housed outside the town hall and were only brought together in the new technical town hall in 2004 . The meetings of the city ​​council usually do not take place in the town hall, but in the theater of the Kurhaus .

Individual evidence

  1. List of monuments of the city of Hamm from 2007 (status 2005). ( Memento of December 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ History of the Hamm Higher Regional Court on its homepage. ( Memento of the original from February 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.olg-hamm.nrw.de
  3. Quoted from: Westfalenspiegel, February 1976, p. 26 f.
  4. See also Westfälischer Anzeiger of December 5, 2009.
  5. a b Anneliese Beeck, On the way to the city of Hamm. 1956-1975 , Westfälischer Anzeiger Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co KG, Hamm 2001, ISBN 3-924966-30-3 .
  6. Westfälischer Anzeiger of November 20, 2010.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.hammwiki.de  
  7. ^ Website of the city of Hamm. ( Memento of the original from July 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hamm.de
  8. ^ Website of the city of Hamm. ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hamm.de

literature

  • Anneliese Beeck, on the way to the city of Hamm. 1956-1975 , Westfälischer Anzeiger Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co KG, Hamm 2001, ISBN 3-924966-30-3 .

Web links

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


Coordinates: 51 ° 40 ′ 37 ″  N , 7 ° 49 ′ 18 ″  E