Regional Council Frankfurt (Oder)

View from the Oderturm to the main building of the European University Viadrina (red roof) 2012

View from the northwest 1906

View from the southwest in 1901. Construction work can be seen on the left. On the right is the barracks of the 8th Leib Grenadier Regiment.

The regional council is a building in the city center of Frankfurt (Oder) . It was built from 1898 to 1903 as the administrative seat of the administrative district of Frankfurt (Oder) , has been the seat of the council and conference of the district of Frankfurt (Oder) since 1952 and has been the main building of the European University Viadrina since 1991 .

Location and surroundings

Site plan 1891

Site plan 1906

The site of the old government building on the government road was chosen as the building site. It was expanded through the purchase of the Humboldtplatz to the south, which extends to Logenstrasse.

To the north of the building, the government street widens like a square up to the Marienkirche. To the south, the regional council opens onto Logenstrasse with a courtyard of honor. To the west, the property is bordered by Grosse Scharrnstrasse. The building follows the street lines with a slight swivel south of the central building to the west. This improved the visibility from the Große Scharrnstraße. In the east, the property is closed off by Priestergasse. The west-east central axis follows the former course of Gubener Mauerstraße.

The Marienkirche is to the north of the government building . To the east, behind Priestergasse, is the Universitätsplatz with the Auditorium Maximum and the high-rise student housing of the European University Viadrina on the former site of the barracks of Leib Grenadier Regiment 8. In the south, an office building and the former district court face the regional council on Logenstrasse. To the west, Große Scharrnstraße separates the building from the Oderturm shopping center .

architecture

Outer shape

The outer facade of the regional council is based on several Frankfurt buildings still existing at the time of construction in a simple, neo-baroque style. The horizontally strong square ground floor is closed off by a slightly protruding cornice . The upper two floors are combined and have only 0.5 cm protruding wall strips in the plaster. There are corner buildings and the main central building are vertically structured by sandstone pilasters or three-quarter columns. The windows on the 1st floor are provided with sturdy roofing. In the corner buildings, these window canopies show richer, double-curved lines rolled up in the middle into double volutes with strong plastic ornamentation. The noticeable main structure clearly shows the main meeting room. The top is a steep gable with coat of arms and trophy decorations.

The following are no longer available:

two attic volutes; they showed two symbolic sculptures; legislation on the left and commerce on the right.
the mansard tent roof of the central building, raised high above the other roofs; it was crowned by a copper lantern-like structure. An eagle embossed in copper rose above its ball pommel and held a snake in its claws.
light ridge bars that adorned the small platforms on the corner buildings.

The light and air conditions are very good thanks to the free-standing building with inner courtyard, light courtyard and main courtyard.

The basement is faced with yellowish Herrenleither sandstone . Cornice, window reveals and the architectural parts of the ground floor windows are made of the same material. The ground floor was provided with Terranova plaster in the same color as the basement. The windows of the first floor, the pilasters and pilasters of the risalites , the attic and the roof structures are made of whitish old Warthauer sandstone . The little protruding window frames on the second floor and the main cornice were made of the cheaper Cotta sandstone . Wünschelburger and Friedersdorfer sandstone was used for the design elements on the main central building in Große Scharrnstraße . The smooth surfaces of the upper floors were plastered with Förderstedter cement lime, which was given a slightly yellow-red color by adding 1/80 umber . The atrium was faced with summer fields facing stones and red and green glazed stones.

The atrium in the middle is enclosed by two parallel wings that connect the east and west wings.

Original internal division

Filing room with the workstations for registrars 1906

The north of the two wings was called the filing wing and was used to house files and registrars . A file elevator that could hold up to 100 kg led from the basement to the top floor.

In the 3.20 m high basement there were six service apartments for stokers , messengers, coachmen and porters as well as a transfer printing facility . There was also a horse stable with a crockery room and carriage shed for the district president, as well as boiler rooms.

On the 4.50 m high ground floor were the business premises that were most open to the public. These were the main government treasury with the bookkeeping, all of which were housed in a room in the southern connecting wing. Furthermore, the rooms for the tax and cadastral administration as well as the tax assessment committee were arranged.

On the 5 m high main floor were the presidential department, the district committee, the party rooms, the official residence of the district president, the office of the district president and the main meeting room, which was also used for larger celebrations. The main boardroom reached through both upper floors. The second floor contained the rooms for the II. And III. Department, as well as the official apartment of the presidential secretary in the eastern end of the building on Logenstrasse.

The archive was set up in the attic and was closed off from the attic space by rabitz walls and ceilings.

The official apartment of the district president extended through all four floors: the ground floor contained the kitchen, ancillary rooms and a castellan's apartment , the second floor bedrooms and the basement utility rooms.

Original inner form

Main meeting room 1906

The main meeting room had an elongated, gallery-like floor plan and was covered with a Monier barrel vault. In addition to the main windows, there were elliptical skylights cut into the vault. The walls were clad with a 1.50 m high dark brown wooden panel. The walls were painted light yellow and had real gold plating. Walls and ceilings were provided with plaster stucco. On the north wall hung a portrait of him, given by Kaiser Wilhelm II and painted by Ludwig Noster . Above it was an opening with a richly gilded grille to a cupboard, which was used as a musician's box at parties.

Main staircase in 1906

The main staircase was not worked according to the original design, but more freely and with more decorations. The curved staircase wound around the elliptical opening in a middle and two side runs. All the vaults of the flights of stairs were built by hand. The riser was clad with Sardinian granite. The entrance was covered with 4.3 mm thick granite linoleum in a strong blue shade. The front edge of the linoleum was protected by a 45 mm high Durana rail from Mannstaedt, Troisdorf . Stair stringers and the skirting boards on the wall side of the steps were clad with Nassau marble .

The ground floor and second floor of the filing wing were divided into two mezzanines of 2.45 m and 2.50 m by inserting a simple false ceiling made of timber and flooring. This avoided the use of ladders to search for files. The wooden filing cabinets were placed on appropriately strong girders in the Koenens cove ceiling and at the same time formed the support for the timber on the upper mezzanines. Two staircases were arranged on the front sides of the filing rooms. The iron central supports for the ceilings were then sheathed with wood on the file framework. The card cabinets were a novelty. Instead of storing the cards in heavy folders on 2.50 m high shelves, dust-tight drawers with a maximum height of 66 cm were constructed. Around 400 cards could be stored in a card cabinet with a height of 1.70 m with up to 22 compartments. The 20 cabinets were supplied by the Hyan company from Berlin at a price of 280 marks each.

The ceilings of the offices were all designed as Koenensche cove ceilings. A layer of sand of 20 mm, 30 mm plaster screed and a linoleum covering lay on top. The ceilings of the better equipped rooms (for example the presidential apartment) received Förster's solid ceilings, under which Rabitz ceilings were stretched. The corridors were provided with barrel vaults with stitch caps.

The doors were clad only on the room side, the soffits were plastered with cement and had soffits drawn in cement on the corridor side.

Artificial sandstone with linoleum covering and brass push rails were used for the side stairs. The stairs on the government road were made of synthetic sandstone with a linoleum covering. The granite staircase in the presidential apartment was also covered with linoleum to make it look more homely.

The driveway in the large courtyard was covered with two layers of 2 cm mastic asphalt each.

Paneled heating radiators in the main meeting room in 2015

The radiators were bare radiators . In the better rooms, the radiators were clad with wood. The radiators in the main meeting room were clad with embossed bronze grids.

The main meeting room, the filing wing and the archive were illuminated electrically. All corridors and the offices used for drawing work received gas lighting.

History of the building

History of origin

After the University of Berlin was founded in 1809, the Brandenburg University of Frankfurt was relocated to Breslau in 1811. In order to compensate the city for the loss, at the request of the Frankfurt Magistrate, the Royal Cabinet Order of December 28, 1814 ordered the relocation of the Neumärk Higher Regional Court from Soldin and the Neumärk government from its seat in Königsberg in the Neumark to Frankfurt (Oder). With the reform of the Prussian government in 1815 were regional councils as a means authorities of the newly formed provinces introduced. With the formation of the Frankfurt administrative district in 1815, more office space became necessary. The city provided the new authority with the city school, which was built in 1739 according to plans by senior building director Stolze for 10,400 thalers, the adjacent calender house and the city or council courtyard behind it. The school and calender house were located on Grapen- or Graupengießergasse, which was named Government Street after the regional council had settled in 1815. The tax and forest administrations had their offices in the Junkerhaus, which at that time belonged to the tax authorities . Because of the widely spaced buildings and the lack of space in the offices in the official residence of the district president, a new building was considered from 1868 onwards. The location of the old government building in Government Street and an adjacent plot of land were determined as the construction site. This required a complicated exchange and settlement of land between the city, the government, the military treasury and a private owner. Scharrnstrasse was also to be continued as far as Logenstrasse. From 1887–1889, the Frankfurt government negotiated with the Prussian Ministry for Public Works about a new building in Government Street. The state exchanged the school house and the town or council courtyard behind it for the large college building , the former monastery building near the lower church and compensation of 10,000 thalers. In 1892 the property of the then Humboldtplatz, which reached to Logenstrasse, was acquired, on which the old parade house (riding hall) still stood. In 1893 the land purchases were completed, construction planning and the approval of the necessary building budget dragged on until 1897. The Große Scharrnstraße was extended to Logenstraße at the expense of the government. The former Humboldtplatz was converted into a garden for the official residence of the district president.

The secret building officer Georg Heinrich Klutmann (* 1847; † 1905) prepared the preliminary design on behalf of the government building authority in 1896. This has been revised in the Ministry of Public Works . Klutmann's successor in office, agricultural inspector Traugott von Saltzwedel, had the design and cost estimate . He managed the construction work until April 30, 1902, in order to then take over the construction of the Potsdam government building . The rest of the construction management lay with Landbauinspektor Hoschke until the end of the accounting work.

The new building was carried out in two sections, as the previous buildings were still in use during the new building. In 1897 work began on Humboldtplatz. The first groundbreaking took place in February 1898. The first component was available in October 1900. In December 1900 the second construction phase began with the demolition of the old government building. In April 1901, the foundation for the second component began, which was completed in October 1903. On December 6, 1903, the work was finished with a celebration. The interior work continued until March 1907.

All masonry work was carried out by Karl Pinx, Berlin. The hot water heating was supplied by David Grove, Berlin. The stone carvings come from Carl Schilling , Berlin and Carl Friedrich Förster, Riesa. The models for the gable fields, the figurative groups and the main architectural parts came from Stephan Walter , Berlin. The model for the eagle came from Otto Richter, Berlin. The main stucco work including the models was carried out by Boswau & Knauer , Berlin and Stracke, Menter & Wollstädter, Berlin. The paintings in the meeting room including the three ceiling paintings were by Hans Seliger , Berlin. The main joiner's work was done by Joseph Kiefer, Spremberg. The landscape gardener Wilhelm Vogler designed the presidential garden on Logenstrasse.

The execution costs were 1,457,723.23 marks plus 50,524.62 marks for the foundation, 56,223.45 marks for the ancillary facilities, 94,284.66 marks for the interior and 131,500 marks for the hot water heating.

Usage history

From the completion of the first component in 1900 and the second component in 1903, the building was the administrative center of the Frankfurt (Oder) administrative district . Between 1935 and 1945 the Secret State Police also had offices on the second floor of the building.

The administrative district was dissolved after the end of the Second World War and with the formation of the states in the GDR . The building was one of the few in Frankfurt city center that suffered only minor damage after the end of the Second World War. In July 1952 the states were dissolved and replaced by districts of the GDR . District assembly and council of the district of the newly formed district Frankfurt (Oder) moved into the government building.

Starting in August 1990, the district days and councils of the districts were dissolved in preparation for German reunification or integrated into the new state authorities. When it was founded on July 1, 1990, the Frankfurt (Oder) tax office was initially housed in the government building in the city center. Later the decision was made to make this building available to the European University Viadrina. The Eichhorn barracks, built in 1934/1935 on Müllroser Chaussee, was set as the new location for the tax office. The barracks were used by the group of the Soviet armed forces in Germany until their withdrawal in 1994 . After its reconstruction, the Frankfurt (Oder) tax office moved into these buildings in 1994.

After a complex reconstruction of the government building, the keys to the main building and library of the European University Viadrina took place on January 26, 1998 .

literature

Kinel: Draft for a government building for Frankfurt ad Oder. Appraisal of the Royal Academy of Civil Engineering . In: Ministry of Public Works (Hrsg.): Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung . XVIII. Year, no. 2 . Wilhelm Ernst & Son, Berlin 1898, p. 14–15 ( zlb.de [PDF; 1.1 MB ]).
The new government building in Frankfurt ad O. In: Ministry of Public Works (Hrsg.): Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung . No. 89 . Wilhelm Ernst & Son, Berlin 1906, p. 567-571 ( zlb.de [PDF; 1.7 MB ]).
The new government building in Frankfurt ad O. In: Ministry of Public Works (Hrsg.): Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung . No. 90 . Wilhelm Ernst & Son, Berlin 1906, p. 575 ( zlb.de [PDF; 1,2 MB ]).
Traugot von Saltzwedel: Above painted wooden ceilings in the old government building in Frankfurt ad Oder . In: The preservation of monuments . IV. Year, no. 12 . Ernst Wilhelm & Sohn, Berlin 1902, p. 97 .