Roland Fountain (Berlin)
The Roland fountain was a monumental fountain on Kemperplatz in Berlin-Tiergarten . The gift of Kaiser Wilhelm II to his royal seat , inaugurated in 1902, formed the southern end of Siegesallee in the Great Zoo . Like the Victory Boulevard, the missing Kaiser Wilhelm National Monument and the original front of the Reichstag building erected Bismarck Memorial was that of Otto Lessing designed fountain part of the imperial memorial program, with this the capital of the German Reich plated. The remains of the well, which was badly damaged in World War II , were cleared around 1950.
prehistory
Kaiser Wilhelm II originally commissioned the sculptor Reinhold Begas for a representative art fountain as the southern end of Siegesallee, which was built between 1895 and 1901 under the joint direction of the sculptor and the architect Gustav Halmhuber . A design by Begas for the marble fountain in 1898 shows Borussia, enthroned on a rock, plucking laurel , an allegory of Prussia, accompanied by two mercenaries . However, when he also received the order from the emperor for the more prestigious Bismarck national monument, he resigned from the less appreciated order due to excessive workload.
In April 1900 Otto Lessing received the order for the fountain from the Kaiser. With the change of artist, there was a change in the program: the fountain figure should no longer represent Borussia, but Roland , an old symbol of urban jurisdiction. This change in the program, presumably a direct intervention by the emperor, was intended to forestall efforts in Berlin citizens to set up a copy of the Brandenburg Roland in Berlin. According to legend, a predecessor of Kaiser Wilhelm, Elector Friedrich II (Der Eiserne) , had the old Berlin Roland sunk in the Spree. The Roland fountain could be interpreted as a generous reparation by the emperor for an iniquity of his predecessor, but at the same time the theme of the Roland monument was already occupied. A copy of the Brandenburg Roland was finally placed in front of the Märkisches Museum in 1905 . In the completed Siegesallee, Elector Friedrich II (number 16 in the adjacent map) was located in the immediate vicinity of the Roland Fountain.
Otto Lessing submitted the draft of the fountain in May 1900 and, after the plans were approved, completed the execution model by December 1901. The execution took place in the first half of 1902. In order to set up the fountain on Kemperplatz, the late Classicist Wrangel fountain , which was previously set up there, had to give way. It was moved to its current location on Grimmstrasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg . On August 25, 1902, the ceremonial unveiling of the fountain took place.
Description of the well
In line with the medieval theme, Otto Lessing based the design on neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque forms. The variety of materials - various Granite, iron, gilded or email plated, bronze - delivered a strong color and corresponded to his early image of the colorful Middle Ages. The different colors certainly increased the somewhat fairytale character of the fountain system.
The octagonal main basin rose above a five-tier substructure into which four outside basins were embedded. The corners were designed as stylized turrets, which should arouse the association with a city wall. The walls of the main basin between the turrets were covered by a frieze of four coats of arms from old Berlin families. The side facing Siegesallee showed only two family coats of arms and in the middle a protruding, larger coat of arms of Berlin in the form used from the 15th to the beginning of the 18th century. It showed a bear that an eagle hits in the back with the claws. The coats of arms were made of enamelled iron plates by Lessing's brother-in-law, Carl Coven Schirm , who apparently had to struggle with the execution because the coat of arms was damaged by rust soon after it was installed.
In the center of the basin stood the 3.75-meter-high Roland statue made of Norwegian granite on the base of the fountain . Roland, with armor and shoulder cloak, the sword raised in his right hand and the olifant , a bugle, in his left, looked in the direction of Siegesallee at the Victory Column at the other end. The company Erik Gudes, another brother-in-law of Lessing, based in Kristiania (today: Oslo ) made the Roland figure. The total height of the well was 10.75 meters.
Half-shell basins resting on small columns were in front of the square well stock at the bottom on each side. In the upper area, four blind niches closed with a three-pass arch and crowned with crab-studded eyelashes took up the 1.5-meter-high iron relief. The four reliefs from which the wrought-iron water dispensers protruded showed, in pairs of two figures, medieval estates and the rivalry between Berlin and Cölln . The pair of knights and scholars represented the patricians , the pair of brewers and blacksmiths for trades without guilds, and the pair of dressmakers and butchers for the guilds . Two arguing women, accompanied by a dog and a cat, embodied the sister cities of Berlin and Kölln , who lived with little mutual understanding . Like the coat of arms on the main basin, the reliefs were created in the workshop of Carl Coven Schirm. On the slopes, which resulted from the tapering of the base above the half-shell basin, sat by the bronze foundry Gladenbeck AG. Gladenbeck & Sohn in Berlin made bronze frogs as additional gargoyles.
criticism
The official art critic praised the Rolandbrunnen as a successful illustration of Berlin's local history. The emperor, however, was not satisfied with the well executed, and Otto Lessing did not think the work of art was successful either. Contemporary critics were bothered by the depiction of Roland, which was perceived as incorrectly historically correct - because despite the medieval design elements, the reliefs and figures remained essentially neo-baroque , in Lessing's preferred style.
The Roland fountain met with violent rejection from the critics of the imperial artistic taste, which was manifested in biting caricatures . The Berlin population soon came to terms with the fountain, and in a contemporary revue the giant victoria from the Victory Column and little Roland sang a love duet.
Further story up to the destruction
At the beginning of the 1920s, the increasing traffic required a redesign of the Kemperplatz. The Roland fountain was degraded to decorate the traffic island, but continued to shape the square.
In the city novel Berlin Alexanderplatz , published in 1929, the writer Alfred Döblin had a “stupid coachman” drive his protagonist Franz Biberkopf endlessly around the Roland fountain in a nightmare .
During the National Socialist era , Kemperplatz was renamed “Skagerrakplatz” in 1933. Far more serious was the implementation of the Victory Column and the Siegesallee on the Großer Stern in 1938/1939, which robbed the fountain of its reference points.
In the Second World War , fighting damaged the well considerably. Post-war photos show a half-blown main basin with the base on which the feet of the destroyed Roland statue still stand. The remains were cleared away around 1950. The former location of the Rolandbrunnen now represents the entrance to the Tiergarten tunnel (route of the federal highway 96 ).
literature
- Jörg Kuhn: Otto Lessing (1846–1912): sculptor, craftsman, painter; Life and work of a sculptor of late historicism, with special consideration of his work as a building sculptor. Dissertation FU Berlin 1994, pp. 255-258.
- Curt Killins: The Roland of Berlin , commemorative publication for the inauguration of the Roland fountain on August 25, 1902. Publishing house by Fr. Zillessen.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Grieben's travel guide: Berlin and the surrounding area. Berlin 1909, p. 92.
- ^ Alfred Döblin: Berlin Alexanderplatz. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-423-00295-6 , p. 60.
- ↑ Quoted in the Internet archive , accessed on September 24, 2017.
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 41 ″ N , 13 ° 22 ′ 16 ″ E