Rostock town hall
The town hall in Rostock is a group building consisting of three houses, the construction of which dates back to the 13th century. This makes it the oldest preserved secular building in the city. The Rostock town hall is considered to be one of the most important secular brick Gothic buildings in the Baltic Sea region, on a par with the town halls in Lübeck and Stralsund . Today, however, the medieval building is largely covered due to baroque fronts and conversions.
Origin and location
See also: History of Rostock
In 1218 the German merchant settlement around the Petrikirche was confirmed the town charter, at the latest by this time the old town will have a town hall on the old market . Even if the middle town around the Marienkirche and the western Neustadt around the Jakobikirche did not have the formal town charter, their own councils can be developed. Excavations in 1999 uncovered the remains of a building in the middle of the Neuer Markt , which is interpreted as a medium-sized town hall. The New Town Hall was free-standing on the hop market and was converted into the University's Auditorium Magnum in 1419 .
After the merger of the three sub-towns in 1265, the New Market was set as the location of a new, larger town hall for the entire town. Not the small, already existing building was expanded, but a much larger town hall was built on the east side of the square. In contrast to Lübeck or Stralsund, it does not form an ensemble with the main parish church, but stands at some distance from the Marienkirche on the main road connecting the three germ settlements. The Kröpeliner Straße , which was called "Blutstraße" in the section between Neuem Markt and Fauler Grube from the Middle Ages to the immediate post-war period, runs directly towards the front of the shop .
The Gothic building
The Gothic building was one of the most splendid brick-Gothic town halls in the Baltic Sea region and was comparable to those in Lübeck and Stralsund, but had no inner courtyard.
Two town houses with cellars from the first half of the 13th century formed the original building ensemble, which is still the core of the rectangular structure today. To this day, the two houses can be recognized from the outside by two gable roofs running in an east-west direction and from the inside as two ships . The wall in the central axis was broken through on each floor by ogival arcades .
Since the unification of the sub-towns, the council has met in the north of the two houses and court has been held there. Like other town halls in the Baltic Sea region, the building also served as a department store and warehouse. In the rooms on the ground floor and in the vaulted cellar, sales areas were set up, which were mainly leased to cloth dealers. When the cloth trade lost its importance in the late Middle Ages, the cellar was converted into a beer and wine cellar. The medieval state of the town hall has been best preserved to this day in the vaulted cellar, which is still used as a Ratsschänke. The massive, ogival central arcades dominate the spacious ground floor. Both narrow sides of the town hall originally had two portals each, which led out of the two ships and of which those to the Neuer Markt were preserved. On the basis of the north longitudinal wall, the medieval masonry of which has been completely preserved, a regular row of large pointed arch windows can be reconstructed on the ground floor, while the window openings on the lower first floor were smaller. It is possible that there was a large hall with a wooden barrel vault on the upper floor of the south aisle . Such a meeting room, like the one in Lübeck or Stralsund, is documented in sources as the consistorium superioris .
The buildings were raised by a second floor in the second half of the 13th century and grouped together on the market side by a monumental Gothic display wall made of glazed colored bricks. A two-storey arbor was placed in front of the market side. The gable and arbor were elaborately designed with architectural decorative shapes. In the late 15th century, a third building, the "New House", was added on the south side.
The baroque conversions
The arbor porch was damaged by storms in 1718, which in 1726 led to the construction of a porch after French and Italian influences by the Saxon Zacharias Voigt. Since then, this baroque porch has been covering the late Gothic brick wall. Under the colonnades there are remains of a medieval wall painting showing Christ as the judge of the world. In 1735 the interior of the house was rebuilt: the ballroom with its baroque design was created. Since the 19th century, due to the growth of the city, there has been a constant need for space for the increasing number of administrative employees and corresponding renovations.
In 1907 the town hall was extended to the east by the town hall with a bridge network. In 1935 the houses at Neuer Markt 33 and 34 were included in the town hall complex. The town hall itself survived the British bombing raid in April 1942 unscathed, but the adjoining council chamber to the north was destroyed. In the 1950s, the town hall extension was built in its place in the functionalist style, which was popularly nicknamed the rabbit stable . In 1978 a fire caused great damage. After 1990 a thorough renovation of many parts of the town hall took place, especially the northern extension takes modern administration into account.
Snake sculpture
A life-size snake sculpture by the artist Erhard John has been located on the fourth northern pillar of the arcades since 1998. Various snake representations had already been attached to the facade of the town hall, but they were repeatedly stolen. The current plastic is therefore firmly connected to the building fabric. The snake is supposed to represent wisdom and invite the visitor to Rostock to explore the city. Other interpretations say the duplicity of a snake should indicate the customs in the town hall.
literature
- The Rostock town hall . Published by the Monument Preservation Office of the Hanseatic City of Rostock. Redieck & Schade, Rostock 2002, ISBN 6-06-000812-7 .
- The architectural and art monuments in the Mecklenburg coastal region . Edited by Heinrich Trost, edited by Gerd Baier et al. Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-362-00523-3 , pp. 342–345.
- Georg Dehio: Handbook of the German art monuments. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Revised by Hans-Christian Feldmann. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-422-03081-6 , p. 487f.
Web links
- City hall website
- Peter Writschan: Historic Rostock Buildings: The Rostock City Hall .
- Rostock town hall extension : The competition winners have been determined , design by the architectural office BKSP from Hanover, rostock.de, November 3, 2017
- Rostock town hall in the 1980s (Deutsche Fotothek)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Jan Schröder: The medieval original building. In: The Rostock town hall. 2002, p. 4.
- ↑ Jan Schröder: The medieval original building. In: The Rostock town hall. 2002, p. 6.
- ↑ Jan Schröder: The medieval original building. In: The Rostock town hall. 2002, p. 7f.
- ^ A b Jan Schröder: The medieval original building. In: The Rostock town hall. 2002, p. 8.
Coordinates: 54 ° 5 ′ 19 ″ N , 12 ° 8 ′ 28 ″ E