Rathausbrücke (Berlin)

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 2 ″  N , 13 ° 24 ′ 15 ″  E

City Hall Bridge
View of the Humboldt Box , 2013
use	Road traffic
Convicted	Schloßplatz , Rathausstrasse
Crossing of	Spree
place	Berlin center
construction	Girder bridge
overall length	44.70 m
width	18.60 m
Clear width	26.50 m
Construction height	1.27 m
start of building	2009
completion	2012
location

The Rathausbrücke ( Long Bridge until 1896 , Kurfürstenbrücke until 1951 ) over the Spree in Berlin 's Mitte district connects Schloßplatz with Rathausstrasse . Originated in the early 14th century, it has been renewed several times throughout history. From 1703 to 1943 the equestrian statue of the Great Elector by Andreas Schlueter was on it . The current bridge was built between 2009–2012.

history

Long bridge

Long bridge with equestrian statue, behind the castle , engraving by Johann Georg Rosenberg , 1781

View of the equestrian statue from the northeast, behind it the stables , 1938

In 1307 there was a wooden river crossing from Berlin to Cölln and Friedrichswerder on the Spree island . This bridge stood on 14 yokes and was straight across the water. Because of its enormous length, it was soon called the Long Bridge . Ships could only dock there, but not cross under the bridge. In the 14th century, when the former cities of Berlin and Cölln grew together, the city fathers had their first town hall built on this bridge.

Frequent repairs led to the decision to build a new bridge in the 17th century. For the wooden construction from 1661, the two cities together paid 400  thalers , the Elector Friedrich III. provided the necessary timber. The result was a relatively unadorned structure with a squat railing and a wooden roadway strewn with sand. The town hall was not built on it again.

After around 30 years, the Long Bridge was no longer enough to meet the Regent's expectations; he commissioned the architect Johann Arnold Nering to build a new building that was made of stones and that, with its construction, was better suited to the existing Alter Marstall and the castle . The engineer Jean Louis Cayart directed the construction work, which began in the spring of 1692 with the laying of the foundation stone and was completed on November 5, 1694.

The new long bridge consisted of five vaults and was intended to accommodate an equestrian statue of the Great Elector of Brandenburg . The extensive bridge decorations were attached in 1695, while the equestrian statue of the Great Elector, created by Andreas Schlüter and cast by Johann Jacobi , was not unveiled until 1703. It was set up in such a way that the rider turned his head slightly to the left towards the palace opposite.

According to one story, the sculptor placed a child in the saddle in front of the ruler, which is a reminder of an act of rescue by the elector after the battle of Fehrbellin . During a later inspection of the statue by Schlüter and his students, one of the students is said to have discovered that the master had forgotten the horse's shoes.

Kurfürstenbrücke

View of the Kurfürstenbrücke from the southeast, with the cathedral behind it , 1936

The Long Bridge was used intensively for two hundred years and only a few repairs were carried out to preserve it. Although a major bridge repair was carried out under the direction of Karl Friedrich Schinkel from 1817 to 1819 and the bridge was also slightly widened, the decision was made due to the rapidly growing traffic in the 19th century (according to a traffic census at that time, 5360 cars used the bridge in 13 hours ) a completely new building. Their construction should for the first time enable the passage of barges, as the Spree arm had also been deepened.

The bridge was rebuilt in 1895 with three larger arches and renamed the Kurfürstenbrücke when the bridge memorial was rededicated on May 9, 1896 . It now enabled the unhindered continuation of the new wide main shopping street , the Königsstraße . This street began on the right-hand side directly behind the bridge with number 1 and marked the entrance to the old Berlin city ​​center . Structurally, the bridge design was based on the previous bridge, in that stone clinker vaults with sandstone in front were chosen and the space for the equestrian statue was retained. It now had a ten meter wide carriageway and pavements that were 3.90 meters wide on both sides.

• Photographs of the bridge by Hermann Rückwardt
• 

  Long bridge with equestrian statue from the southeast, 1874

• 

  Photograph of the northeast, 1889

• 

  Kurfürstenbrücke with equestrian statue from the southeast, 1896

City Hall Bridge

View from the cathedral to the Nikolaiviertel , top right the Rathausbrücke, 1986

During the Second World War , towards the end of the Battle of Berlin , the Kurfürstenbrücke suffered severe damage when troops of the Wehrmacht were blown up ; only the middle section was still standing. The equestrian statue had been relocated and sank in the Tegeler See when it was returned . After the end of the war, wooden temporary bridge parts were used to cross the Spree at this point. As early as 1946, plans for rebuilding the bridge were drawn up, outlined by the architect Richard Ermisch , among others . Between 1947 and 1949 steel girders replaced the temporary arrangements. Severe damage to the eastern part of the vault led to the bridge being closed to vehicle traffic in 1952, and finally the vault had to be completely removed. Because of the important traffic function of this bridge, the city ​​council had a steel girder construction with reinforced concrete roadway laid over the bridge foundations. This further provisional arrangement was only replaced in 1974-1976 in connection with the construction of the Palace of the Republic by a better steel structure 29 meters long. Since then, the Rathausbrücke , as it has been officially called since 1951, was again only reserved for pedestrians and cyclists. The equestrian statue of the Great Elector was permanently erected in front of Charlottenburg Palace after the war .

New building from 2012

Emergence

In 2012 the center pillar of the Kurfürstenbrücke, which carried the equestrian statue, was torn down

In 1999 the Berlin Senate announced a design competition for a new bridge that was supposed to form a long bridge span without a central pillar. The plans of the architect Walter A. Noebel , who envisaged a modern reinforced concrete construction without river piers and a monumental pedestal at the side, were given preference.

Construction started in spring 2009. The first construction delays occurred in autumn 2009 because a company involved had filed for bankruptcy. In the summer of 2010, the client had to look for a new steel supplier because the first contractual partner went bankrupt. Finally, the long and cold winter of 2010/2011 and difficulties in removing the central pillar of the old bridge that remained in the Spree led to further delays. The planned construction costs, originally stated at around six million euros, rose to twelve million by the time construction was completed. On August 14 and 15, 2011, the shell, which had previously been pre-assembled on the bank of the Spree on the island side, was pushed over the Spree on two auxiliary rails and placed on its previously poured concrete foundations. During this time the Spree was closed to all shipping traffic. The metal supporting structure of the bridge is 41 meters long, 18 meters wide and weighs around 500 tons. The new carriageways and sidewalks should be installed by autumn 2011, and road traffic was planned for spring 2012.

In the course of the work it turned out that the planned deadlines could not be kept. On the one hand, the natural stones intended for the bridge cladding were made from the wrong material, on the other hand, delivery dates were not met. The railing was added in the spring and a walkway was opened for pedestrians on March 30, 2012. The multiple delays had a negative impact on business sales in the neighboring Nikolaiviertel and the flow of traffic over the Liebknechtbrücke . In addition, according to the demands of the hydraulic engineering administration, the abutments had to be raised more than originally planned in order not to influence shipping traffic too much.

The official traffic release in the presence of the Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit and the Senator for Urban Development Michael Müller took place on September 27, 2012 in a ceremonial act. It was announced that the construction costs have doubled from originally six to twelve million euros. The remaining central pillar was demolished by November 2012.

The new bridge spans the Spree without a central pillar and thus facilitates shipping traffic with a clear passage width of 26.50 meters and a clear height of 4.50 meters. At the abutments , the riverside paths were led under the bridge on both sides. The superstructure is a steel composite girder structure with a total span of 40.80 meters. Four pylons with attached lights delimit the bridge optically.

criticism

Railing of the new building from 2012 in wood look

The association Forum Stadtbild Berlin e. V. and other civic associations such as the Gesellschaft Historisches Berlin (GHB) had criticized the abandonment of the historical model and Noebel's design as a "banal concrete band" as well as the remaining of the equestrian statue of the Great Elector in front of Charlottenburg Palace before construction began .

In 2013, it turned out that the bridge lights, which are a kind of retro look from the Amsterdam School of the 1920s, were not doing their job well enough. They are "dim and their light falls somewhere, but not on the sidewalk".

Contrary to the plans of the architect, who had envisaged an angular, strict appearance that was adapted to the overall picture, the Senate announced a separate design competition. The Swiss Erik Steinbrecher won this with the idea of ​​making the railing struts in the form of branches and roots from cast metal. African Iroko wood was used for the handrails . The changed railings take up the motif of the forest, they are Germanic in this sense and bring out a certain Germanness. This is in complete contradiction to Noebel's designs, which envisaged a "completely urban stone bridge".

literature

• Hans-Jürgen Mende , Kurt Wernicke, Kathrin Chod, Herbert Schwenk, Hainer Weisspflug: Berlin Mitte: the lexicon . Stapp Verlag Berlin, 2001, 808 pages, ISBN 3-87776-111-9
• Eckhard Thiemann, Dieter Deszyk, Horstpeter Metzing: Berlin and its bridges . Jaron Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89773-073-1 , pp. 51-56.
• R. Borrmann: The Long Bridge (Kurfürstenbrücke) in Berlin . In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , Volume 44 (1894), Col. 327–344, Plate 41–42. Digitized in the holdings of the Central and State Library Berlin .

Web links

Commons : Rathausbrücke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Town hall bridge data and images - Structurae
• Criticism of the Rathausbrücke - Gesellschaft Historisches Berlin eV

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Berlin and its bridges , ... page 51
2. ↑ The Great Elector on the Long Bridge . In: The Stralauer Fischzug. Legends, stories and customs from old Berlin. Verlag Neues Leben Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-355-00326-3 ; P. 67f
3. ↑ Berlin and its bridges , ... page 54
4. ^ Kurfürstenbrücke to be rebuilt , project sheet in the Architekturmuseum der TU Berlin ; Retrieved April 30, 2015.
5. ↑ Information from the district office in Mitte about the new construction of the Rathausbrücke
6. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Neumann: Rathausbrücke is finally finished . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 24, 2012
7. ↑ City Hall Bridge without the Great Elector . In: Berliner Zeitung , November 15, 2007
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Nikolaus Bernau: Beat across the water . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 13, 2013; Page 22
9. ↑ The new town hall bridge is being installed . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 12, 2011
10. ↑ Wowereit inaugurates the new Berlin City Hall Bridge . In: Berliner Morgenpost , September 27, 2012
11. ↑ ^{a b} Printed matter 17/11020. (PDF; 28 kB) Berlin House of Representatives, October 26, 2012, accessed on November 10, 2012 . 
12. ↑ Rathausbrücke again connects the Nikolaiviertel with the Schlossplatz (with layout). Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment, September 27, 2012, accessed on September 28, 2012 .