Saarlouis town hall

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Saarlouis, town hall, corner of Deutsche Straße / Großer Markt
Saarlouis, town hall with the Saarlouiser Marienbrunnen
View of the town hall from the Deutsches Tor through Deutsche Strasse

The Town Hall Saarlouis is a Grade II listed building in Saarlouis city center. It is the seat of the administration of the Saarland district town.

history

Saarlouis Town Hall on the Great Market to the left of the baroque parish church of St. Ludwig, before the addition by Carl Friedrich Müller (Saarlouis City Archives)
Saarlouis Town Hall on the Great Market after the addition by Carl Friedrich Müller, around 1900 (Saarlouis City Archives)

The first Saarlouis town hall was located on the Großer Markt (today the Großer Markt 2 property, Bock & Seip bookstore). It was a two-storey, seven-axis sandstone building from the end of the 17th century. In 1879 the town hall was raised by one floor under the direction of the district architect Carl Friedrich Müller and provided with a slate-covered, hipped gable roof on which an octagonal turret with a tower clock and a Prussian eagle rose at the top. The access to the communal building was formed by a round-arched pilaster portal decorated with decorative vases. The mosaic with the Saarlouis city coat of arms, which was placed in the central axis of the building between the first and second floors, now hangs over the side entrance of the post-war town hall on Adlerstrasse. The interior of the old town hall had a valuable baroque interior with stucco ceilings, wood paneling, chimneys, doors and tapestries from the Manufacture Royale d' Aubusson , a gift from Louis XIV to the Siège Présidial (upper court). The baroque fortress town of Saarlouis was badly damaged in the winter of 1944/1945 of the Second World War, especially by artillery fire from the US Army. The ruins of the baroque town hall were torn down and replaced by the construction of a commercial building (today the Bock & Seip bookstore), the originally dark blue curtain wall of which was completely changed in 2015. The new building takes up the cubature of the previous building.

Shortly after the end of the war, Klaus Hoffmann developed a reconstruction concept for the city. The former structures of the fortress should remain recognizable and the large and small markets remain the center of the city. A new town hall was built on the north-west side of the Great Market between 1951 and 1954 according to plans by Saarlouis senior building councilor Peter Focht. The baroque building at Pavillonstrasse 17, which burned out during the war, was included in the new building. The two-storey building with corner pilasters and a mansard roof was built in 1688. The historic, pilaster-framed portal with oval skylight and segmental arch roofing, in which the notary's coat of arms of the Collin de Parur is affixed with Bourbon lilies, now forms a side entrance of the modern town hall. The baroque building Pavillonstraße 17 was raised by one floor during the reconstruction. The portal and internal stairs have been preserved.

architecture

The four-storey building with a mezzanine was erected as a two-wing structure with a high tower as the end on one side. The simple neoclassical concrete skeleton building was clad with sandstone slabs. The ground floor was set back far and the projecting structure of the upper floors was supported by narrow round columns. This created a surrounding colonnade . Above the top floor is a mezzanine with a ribbon-like window front made of many small square windows. A rectangular bay window is located above the entrance area and takes on the design of the facade. A defining element of the townscape is a mighty, protruding clock tower with a flat pyramid roof, the façades of which dissolve into a concrete skeleton on the two uppermost floors that tower above the core building. There is also a carillon there.

Sep Ruf: To the holy twelve apostles, Munich-Laim (draft 1951)

The cage-like bell cage with its eccentrically arranged tower clock shows design parallels to the bell tower of the Church of the Holy Twelve Apostles built by Sep Ruf between 1952 and 1953 in Munich- Laim (design 1951). In Saarlouis, the motif was dramatized by partially pulling down the “bell cage” on the side facing Deutsche Strasse.

The narrow side in Deutsche Straße with the 27 meter high bell and clock tower is defined on the first and second floors by large, two-story windows that illuminate the council chamber.

architectural art

  • Saarlouis town hall, historical relief on the facade

  • Saarlouis town hall, historical relief on the facade

  • Saarlouis town hall, historical relief on the facade

  • Saarlouis town hall, Europe relief on the facade

  • Saarlouis town hall, cornerstone

  • Saarlouis town hall, mosaic

The outer walls of the ground floor at the main entrance are covered with a stone carving relief by the sculptor Nikolaus Simon, which was created between 1953 and 1955. The limestone slabs come from the quarries near Chauvigny . The eventful history of the city is presented in 14 sections and two rows. The right wall section measures 3.20 by 4.30 meters, the relief section attached to the left of the town hall portal is 3.20 by 12.25 meters. The larger left part illustrates stations in the city's history in two rows, one above the other:

Above:

  • The French King Louis XIV commissioned the fortress builder Vauban to build the Saarlouis fortress.
  • French soldiers build the new fortress.
  • A rider blowing a trumpet with a Jacobin cap heralds the beginning of the French Revolution.
  • The broken weapons and standards of the defeated Napoleonic army symbolize the defeat of France and the victory of the Allies in the wars of liberation.
  • A victorious Prussian general takes over the fortress.
  • The previous French mayor Reneauld becomes the first mayor of the now Prussian fortress Saarlouis.
  • Soldiers of the Prussian Infantry Regiment 30 march into the new Prussian border town.
  • A soldier with a steel helmet from the First World War falls from a struck horse. The end of the war caused the fall of the German Empire.

Below:

  • The Saar area is separated from Germany by the provisions of the Versailles Treaty.
  • A female figure with an olive branch and a treaty represents the League of Nations as the protective power of the Saar area. A ballot box symbolizes the referendum of January 13, 1935 and the return of the Saar area to the German Reich.
  • Nazi Germany triggers World War II.
  • The evacuation of the population of the 'red zone' between the Siegfried Line and the Maginot Line leads the border population out of the Saar home.
  • World War II brought destruction and death to the city and its people. The grim reaper holds a rich harvest in the ruins.
  • The Phoenix bird, a symbol of active reconstruction, rises from the ashes with the coat of arms of the city of Saarlouis and strives towards the sun. Including the motto of the city of Saarlouis: "Dissipat atque fovet" (The sun divides the clouds and warms them up.)

The last scene is to the right of the town hall portal:

  • Europe has brought the wild bull to its knees and tamed it. As the beginning of a happy and peaceful future for the continent, she pours her cornucopia with the blessings of prosperity on the animal's back.

A large coat of arms above a window on the first floor was also made by Nikolaus Simon. The relief was created between 1951 and 1954 and is around 3.50 × 1.80 meters in size. The work of art shows the city coat of arms awarded by the French King Louis XIV with the motto “Dissipat atque fovet”, the dates “1680” and “1952”, the name “City of Saarlouis” and a branch. Another relief with the city's coat of arms is on the tower facade below the French window. This work should also come from the sculptor Nikolaus Simon.

In the foyer of the town hall, Peter Gitzinger probably created a colored mosaic in 1954. It shows several figures around a wide heating niche in addition to the stylized Saarlouis fortress. On the left there are two male figures who can be interpreted as architects and builders through their clothing. The group of figures on the right can be recognized as farmers. In addition to the fortress structure, the foundation stone of the town hall made of a fortress stone is also embedded above the heating.

Carillon

The carillon with 25 bells in the town hall tower was made in 1953 by the Saarlouis bell foundry Otto and plays folk songs every day at different times. It is one of the very few carillons that is known to have been cast by Otto.

literature

  • Oranna Elisabeth Dimmig: Saarlouis Stadt und Stern / Sarrelouis - Ville et Étoile, translation into French: Anne-Marie Werner, ed. v. Roland Henz and Jo Enzweiler Saarbrücken 2011, pp. 154–156, 162–171.
  • Marlen Dittmann: The building culture in Saarland 1945-2010 , (Saarland-Hefte, Volume 4), ed. v. Institute for Regional Studies in Saarland, Saarbrücken 2011, pp. 69/70.
  • Bastian Müller: Architecture of the post-war period in Saarland , ed. v. Landesdenkmalamt Saar, Saarbrücken 2011, p. 201.

Web links

Commons : Saarlouis Town Hall  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of monuments in the district town of Saarlouis ( memento of the original dated August 9, 2014 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. , State Monument List of Saarland, State Monument Authority Saar, 2013, p. 13 (PDF) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.saarland.de
  2. ↑ Hartwig Beseler, Niels Gutschow: War fates of German architecture: losses - damage - reconstruction, a documentation for the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, Volume II, south, Neumünster 2000, pp. 1079-1080.
  3. ↑ Oranna Elisabeth Dimmig: Saarlouis Stadt und Stern / Sarrelouis - Ville et Étoile, translation into French: Anne-Marie Werner, ed. v. Roland Henz and Jo Enzweiler Saarbrücken 2011, p. 120.
  4. ↑ Hartwig Beseler, Niels Gutschow: War fates of German architecture: losses - damage - reconstruction, a documentation for the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, Volume II, south, Neumünster 2000, p. 1081.
  5. ↑ Oranna Elisabeth Dimmig: Saarlouis Stadt und Stern / Sarrelouis - Ville et Étoile, translation into French: Anne-Marie Werner, ed. v. Roland Henz and Jo Enzweiler Saarbrücken 2011, pp. 78–79.
  6. ↑ Winfried Nerdinger and Irene Meissner (eds.): Sep Ruf 1908–1982, Modernism with Tradition, Munich a. a. 2008, p. 169.
  7. ^ Karl Balzer: The design of wall surfaces, a modern means of expression in architecture, The history of the city of Saarlouis - cut in stone, in: Heimatkundliches Jahrbuch des Kreis Saarlouis, 1960, pp. 169–175.
  8. ↑ Oranna Dimmig: Art in Public Space, Saarland, ed. by Jo Enzweiler, Volume 3, Saarlouis district, 1945–2006, Saarbrücken 2009, p. 314.
  9. ↑ Oranna Dimmig: Saarlouis Stadt und Stern / Sarrelouis - Ville et Étoile, translation into French: Anne-Marie Werner, ed. from. Roland Henz u. Jo Enzweiler, Saarbrücken 2011.
  10. ^ Saarlouis, Simon, Wandgestaltung , Kunstlexikon Saar, Institute for Current Art, accessed on November 26, 2015
  11. ↑ Saarlouis, Gitzinger, Wandgestaltung , Institute for Current Art, accessed on November 26, 2015
  12. ↑ Hans Peter Buchleitner: Cultural Reconstruction in Saarland, A Text and Image, Volume II, Additions to the Church Structure in Saarbrücken and in the parishes of both Christian denominations of the Saarlouis and Merzig-Wadern districts, Saarbrücken 1959, p. 46.
  13. ^ Gerhard Reinhold: Otto bells. Family and company history of the bell founder Otto . Self-published, Esen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , pp. 588, here in particular pp. 190 to 200 .

Coordinates: 49 ° 18 ′ 58.5 ″  N , 6 ° 45 ′ 0.9 ″  E