Town hall Torgau
The town hall of Torgau was built from 1563 to 1578 in the Renaissance style. It is the most important civil secular building in the city and an important building of the Saxon Renaissance .
Building history
Under Elector August , many new town halls were built in Saxony in the second half of the 16th century, due to the economic boom. So in the period from 1525 to 1550 nine, but from 1550 to 1600 thirty-nine town halls were built or significantly rebuilt. The town halls that were built at the time were often of the broadside market type. The functional structure of the buildings corresponded to their time. There were often sales rooms and the Ratskeller on the ground floor. On the upper floor the large citizens' hall, the council meeting room with the council archives, usually another small hall for administrative purposes, the courtroom and in some town halls a special council drinking room. In town halls with an additional storey, such as in Wittenberg or Torgau, there were additional administrative rooms. Often, however, the rooms were on the upper floors as cloth floors or granaries used or stood as a warehouse.
Torgau had not been an electoral residence since 1547, but had gained a new self-confidence due to the population growth in the first half of the 16th century and the economic strength of the citizens. Thus, the old town hall, which was presumably located on the corner of the market and the meat market, was no longer considered sufficient. The new town hall was to stand on a floor space of 14 × 56 m on the cemetery area next to the now profaned Nikolaikirche and occupy the entire west side of the market.
In 1565 the town hall was built on three floors up to the main cornice , with a transept each at the northern and southern ends, a central gable and two roof turrets. The back of the building was built directly on the hall choir of the Nikolaikirche, which dates from the second part of the 13th century and was demolished in the 19th century. Therefore, the town hall does not have an architecturally developed rear facade. On the foundation stone, which was only rediscovered in 1971 during construction work on the northeast corner, stands:
IN 1563 IAR THE 20TH DAY OF APRILIS / THIS BAW STARTED / ANNO DOMINI MDLXIII XX. THE APRILIS INCEPTUM
The building was apparently designed by Andreas Bretschneider . Valten Wegern initially only erected the northern three quarters of the structure, roughly plastered them and stained them ocher . The first construction phase ended at the southern passage, where a Gothic portal was uncovered in 1972 , which now serves as the entrance to the Ratscafé. The southern transept was not added until 1577/78. A striking feature of this building is its corner bay . The model for this bay window was the exterior bay window built by Andreas Buschwitz around 1536 at Hartenfels Castle.
The bay window shows the homage to the sovereign in the parapet of the first floor through coats of arms and a plaque. The parapet on the second floor shows allegories of civic virtues . On the third floor, on the parapet, you can find the reliefs of Alexander of Macedonia , Charlemagne , Gottfried von Bouillon and Julius Caesar as ideals for statesmanship. The relief sculptures were certainly two-tone, as one could detect remains of gray paint .
In 1971 one could also find remnants of the original plaster from 1578, which was kept in a cool gray with illusionistically painted white joints . In sandstone carved jambs of windows were taken dark gray, the Renaissance portals of the passages and the main entrance were black. The knobs of the roof turrets and the little copper flags of the stone men on the gables were probably gilded.
the town hall around 1720 on a map by Hanns Sigismund Ulrici
the town hall before 1870
the town hall after the new facade was added in 1870
the town hall in 1952
the town hall, probably after the renovation around 1970
In 1874 the facade was rebuilt according to a design by the Berlin architect Bernhard Felisch . Felisch submitted a design in the Gothic style and a design in the Italian High Renaissance style. For reasons of cost, it was decided to use the latter option.
The new facade retained the sandstone frames on the upper floors, but now the new vertical structure of pilasters and three-quarter columns, which were separated by strong cornices, shaped the facade. This meant that almost all openings on the ground floor had to be changed and thus resulted in the demolition of six of the eight vaulted areas facing the market square. Pilasters and cornice sub-sections were bricked up on the facing facade , decorative elements were partly made of stucco, partly as a hollow board construction. By patch Attica creating problems with roof drainage, because the downspouts have now been completed within the Vorblendung and left after a few years the rafters and tie feet rotten and damp parts of the facade.
The east gable of the south transept was moved 2.25 m to the north in order to give the new facade the necessary symmetry. However, this resulted in a total disruption of the roof structure, which in turn made it necessary to install auxiliary support structures through all floors down to the basement. The renaissance portals in front of the passageways and the main entrance, which had been preserved until then, were also demolished. The access to the main staircase was given up and was now in the northern passage, in which a new staircase, which led exactly the opposite of the original main staircase to the first floor. The consequence of this was a less favorable route that functionally contradicted the existing halls.
At the end of the 1960s, the desolate state of construction of the house required another renovation. It was decided to largely restore the original condition, which largely succeeded in the following years with the help of the Architecture Section of the TU Dresden.
literature
- Gerhard Glaser : The reconstruction of the town hall in Torgau . In: Monuments in Saxony , Institute for Monument Preservation, Dresden Workplace, Hermann Böhlaus Successor, Weimar 1981, pp. 210–224
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 33 '30.3 " N , 13 ° 0' 13.4" E