Salamander area

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Salamander building Kornwestheim
Facade detail at the main entrance

The Salamander area in Kornwestheim in Baden-Württemberg is a former shoe factory and the original headquarters of J. Sigle & Cie., Which was founded by shoemaker Jakob Sigle in 1891 together with businessman Max Levi. It represents an important monument of industrial architecture and industrialization . After the abandonment of production it comprises in addition to a factory outlet center of Salamander AG , several other apparel shops and services, extensive office space as well as the central Baden-Wuerttemberg land registry archive . The area, which is located in the west of the city and comprises extensive areas between Stammheimer Straße and Bolzstraße, is a listed building and is currently (2013) still being extensively renovated, expanded and expanded for further services and residential uses.

The building complex, built in brickwork in 1885 and expanded in 1923, has a total floor space of around 77,000 square meters. It has a closed inner courtyard and another, open courtyard, which is enclosed on three sides by the building. In the latter there is an additional, free-standing building with conference rooms on the upper floor; the gastronomic operation on the ground floor is currently not in operation (as of 2013). Both courtyards are used as parking spaces. In the main entrance building, the building still has an operating paternoster elevator from 1925. The architecture of the building is inspired by brick Gothic and Expressionism and has details similar to the Hamburg Chilehaus . The facade of the main entrance, located directly opposite the Kornwestheim passenger station, is richly decorated and, like the entire area, survived the bombing of Kornwestheim in World War II relatively undamaged. Parts of the third and fourth floors were repaired or rebuilt after the end of the war.

During the 1960s , production in the Salamander area experienced its heyday and reached its peak in 1967 when the company employed 11,000 people at the Kornwestheim location and produced 13.5 million pairs of shoes. From 1971 the slow decline of production began, due to the increasing competition from foreign cheap manufacturers. After an eventful history, the headquarters of Salamander AG was relocated from Kornwestheim to Offenbach am Main on July 1st, 2008 .

gallery

  • Shoe manufacture at Salamander around 1954

  • View of the open courtyard and conference building (center)

  • Facade detail at the main entrance

  • Facade details on the main entrance building

literature

  • Franziska Schneider, Georg Schmelzer: Industrial architecture through the ages: Salamander shoe factory, Kornwestheim. - Kornwestheim: Salamander-AG, 1985. - 69 pp.
  • City of Kornwestheim (Hrsg.): City of Kornwestheim, city guide. City of Kornwestheim, Kornwestheim 2003, ISBN 3-00-012039-4 .

Coordinates: 48 ° 51 '39.5 "  N , 9 ° 10' 40.8"  E