Schloßbrücke (Berlin-Mitte)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '3 "  N , 13 ° 23' 55"  E

B2 B5 Castle Bridge
  Castle Bridge
View from the south
use Road traffic
Convicted Lustgarten , Unter den Linden
Crossing of Spree Canal
place Berlin center
construction Arch bridge
overall length 56.30 m
width 32.60 m
Longest span outer arches 11.20 m each, middle arch 11.70 m
start of building 1821
opening 1824
planner Karl Friedrich Schinkel
location
Schloßbrücke (Berlin-Mitte) (Berlin)
Schloßbrücke (Berlin-Mitte)

The castle bridge over the Spree Canal is a monument in the Berlin district of Mitte . It was built in the classicism style by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1821–1824 and let Unter den Linden appear for the first time as a continuous boulevard from the Berlin Palace to the Brandenburg Gate . The monumental figures on the three-arched bridge were created in 1842–1857 by students of the sculptors Johann Gottfried Schadow and Christian Daniel Rauch to commemorate the wars of liberation . They represent warriors and goddesses of victory and made reference to the statues of general and Victoria reliefs on the Neue Wache . After the Second World War , the damaged bridge was restored and the relocated figures were re-erected in 1983–1984.

history

Dog bridge

Dog bridge on an engraving by Matthäus Merian , 1652

Early city maps of old Berlin and Kölln show that there was a bridge at its current location as early as the 15th century. It was necessary to transport building material for the first Berlin city palace over the waterway, then called Cöllnischer Graben , next to which the street Am Kupfergraben runs. The narrow wooden, seven-arched Pfahljoch bridge with a hinged middle section was called the dog bridge because it had to be crossed by hunting parties with their packs of dogs on the way from the castle to the hunting area in the Großer Tiergarten . Despite several changes in connection with construction work on the castle and on the avenue Unter den Linden , the dog bridge remained until the 1730s. In 1738 the bridge was rebuilt by the court carpenter Johann Andreas Adam Büring according to plans by the chief building director Titus de Favre . Its novel construction was completed in the same year; By using counterweights, four flaps lying next to each other could be opened at the same time. In 1806 Napoleon Bonaparte entered Berlin over this bridge.

Castle Bridge

Schloßbrücke on a drawing by Karl Friedrich Schinkel from the collection of architectural designs

At the beginning of the 19th century, the king said: “The so-called dog bridge near the most beautiful buildings in the residence spoils this area so much.” He ordered a representative new building, for which an emergency bridge was immediately built and the dog bridge was demolished in 1821. The architect and senior civil engineer Karl Friedrich Schinkel was commissioned to build a new bridge ; In 1819 he presented the first plans. The bridge construction was part of a larger urban development project for which Schinkel had campaigned; it was about the redesign of the entire area between the palace and Opernplatz (today: Bebelplatz ). For the new structure, the water had to be dammed, twelve-meter-long support piles driven into the ground and sheet piling installed. On May 29, 1822 the foundation stone was laid for the bridge, which was given the name Schloßbrücke on this occasion . Construction officer August Ludwig Ferdinand Triest was in charge of construction . In two years the countless workers had completed the bridge, which is now around 33 meters wide and supported on three flat arches. It was now as wide as Unter den Linden, which made it appear for the first time as a continuous, impressive street between the castle and the Brandenburg Gate . The redesign of the pleasure garden and the construction of the Neue Wache completed the central city complex. The bridge itself was as arch bridge of sandstone designed with three equal-sized segments, which should manage without ship passage flaps. At that time, however, the technical prerequisites were still lacking, so Schinkel initially provided eight iron flaps for the central opening, which could be operated one after the other. Here, too, devices with counterweights were used, which were improved by a mechanic Hummel to such an extent that the railing could also be turned to the side when the flaps were opened. This mechanism was in operation until the bridge was rebuilt in 1900.

In his architectural drafts , Schinkel explained the situation:

“Circumstances prevented the Landwehr trench from being made navigable, and therefore the bridge could not be built entirely according to the view given on the present sheet. The middle arch was omitted in the execution, and instead a pair of massive templates were built next to the pillars [...]. The three main sections of the bridge, which are marked with sculptures on high pedestals, have retained the exact dimensions of the original design during the execution, so that in the future, when the river passage is changed, the arrangement of three equally large arches, as in the view given here appears, can still be executed by arching the middle sheet and removing the templates. "

On the occasion of the marriage of the Prussian Crown Prince , later King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. , On November 29, 1823, the bridge, which was not yet completely finished (the paving and the railing were still missing), was to be inaugurated the day before. The Berlin student body organized a torchlight procession to the pleasure garden in front of the palace for the bride and groom who were supposed to drive over the bridge in a carriage, 300 maid of honor were ordered and a pompous greenhouse was set up. The spectators stood on the streets and on the new bridge, which had only received a wooden emergency railing.

"When the crowd watching the spectacle flooded back, [...] arose on the next to her [d. h .: next to the castle bridge] during the time of construction, the wooden emergency bridge built such a crowd that many people fell into the water and 22 people were killed. "Death notices in the newspapers for the victims were forbidden by the king" out of consideration for the princely Bride [...]; their publication was only made possible by a strong complaint to the Ministry ”. Because of this terrible incident, the new bridge was in negative headlines for months. It was not until the summer of 1824 that the lock bridge received the flap mechanism, paving slabs and the iron railing. Now it could be opened to traffic. It had cost 305,000 thalers to build  . When it was completed, it was considered the largest bridge in Berlin and it was so wide that "seven cars can drive side by side."

Schinkel had planned eight monumental groups of figures to decorate the bridge, the motifs related to the successfully passed wars of liberation . Due to lack of money, the production was postponed in 1820, the final execution of the sculptures could not be completed until 1857. So the architect did not see the completion of "his bridge".

  • Schlossbrücke von den "Linden", behind it the cathedral , around 1900

  • Castle bridge from Lustgarten, behind it the Forum Fridericianum , around 1900

  • View before the renovation in 1912, in the background on the right the Altes Museum

  • View from the roof of the castle , in the foreground on the right the armory , 1939

  • Bridge without figures, behind it the damaged castle, 1946

  • Bridge with figures again, behind it the equestrian statue of Frederick II , 1986

development

In 1912 the watercourse was deepened, the flaps in the middle segment of the bridge could now be removed and a reinforced concrete vault was built in their place , the appearance of which corresponded to Schinkel's original plans. Repair work was carried out in 1927 and 1938, the stone vaults of the side segments were replaced by reinforced concrete vaults. During the Second World War , the groups of figures were outsourced and during the last fighting during the Battle of Berlin in April 1945, the Schloßbrücke itself suffered only slight damage.

After the end of the war, the bridge was in East Berlin , which later became the rule of the GDR , but the groups of figures were in West Berlin . The bridge was extensively repaired between 1950 and 1952. After the demolition of the castle and the construction of Marx-Engels-Platz , it was named Marx-Engels-Brücke on May 1, 1951 .

As part of the German-German exchange of cultural goods, the groups of figures came back to East Berlin in 1981. They were restored and placed in their original location in 1983/1984. Work on various details of the bridge was carried out until August 1989 - new candelabra were made, decorative elements on the pedestals were renewed, the railing completed and bridge piers repaired. On October 3, 1991, the first anniversary of German reunification , the building was given the name Schloßbrücke back. A general overhaul was carried out between 1995 and 1997.

traffic

The Schloßbrücke is located on the route of the two federal highways B 2 and B 5 , which lead past Lustgarten and Dom over Liebknechtbrücke / Karl-Liebknecht-Straße to Alexanderplatz . In the historic center of Berlin , the Schloßbrücke is part of one of the most important traffic arteries and is therefore correspondingly frequented.

Sculptural jewelry

Marble figures

Figure group on the castle bridge

Main elements of the bridge jewelry are the eight Schinkel projected larger than life sculptures groups on high marble - pedestals standing over the stone bridge piers. The pedestals rest on red granite plinths , they are provided with circular medallions , work by the sculptor Friedrich Wilhelm Wolff , the motif is an eagle with symbolic additions.

In the architectural drafts , Schinkel described his ideas about the bridge figures:

“Heroes and goddesses of victory are ideally conceived in the groups; Among the items chosen here are the following: a young hero is led into battle by a goddess of victory, a hero is crowned by her, a hero is supported by her in battle, a dying hero [lies] in her arms, etc. the like. "

Friedrich August Stüler , appointed architect of the king by Friedrich Wilhelm IV. In 1842, changed Schinkel's concept somewhat for formal reasons. In four groups, the two in the middle on each side of the bridge, the winged goddess of victory Nike was replaced by the wingless goddess Pallas Athene , because it was feared that eight pairs of wings would cause an overly restless overall picture. A further change was the material used: Schinkel in copper driven provided figures, now was white Carrara marble used. The execution of the sculptures did not begin until 1842 after a competition, eight Berlin sculptors from the schools of Gottfried Schadow and Christian Daniel Rauch were involved. The last group of figures was completed in 1857. For some contemporaries, “the nakedness of the characters was offensive. The fear that the good morals of the Berliners could be endangered by the sight of the statues, led [...] the Minister of Culture von Raumer to apply to the king to remove the groups again and lock them in the armory. "

The names of the individual sculptures are reproduced differently in different sources. This article uses the version from the monument database of the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development. In it, Nike, the goddess of victory, is not named for the last group, but Iris , also a figure of Greek mythology, as messenger of the gods. On the bridge the groups of figures are arranged as follows:

South side, from west to east

  • Nike teaches the boy saga

  • Athena teaches the boy how to use weapons

  • Athena arms the warrior

  • Nike crowns the winner

North side, from west to east

  • Nike lifts the wounded man up

  • Athena leads the youth into a new battle

  • The young hero is protected by Athena

  • Iris carries the fallen hero up to Olympus

Iron railing

Cast -iron connecting pieces are attached as railings between the bases of the figures , adorned with mythological - maritime motifs based on Schinkel's designs. The main fields show seahorses and tritons in an ornamental arrangement, the narrow intermediate pieces each a dolphin - a total of 44. The sculptor was named Kleemeyer, the manufacturer was the Royal Prussian Iron Foundry in Berlin. A replica of the railing has adorned the Anichkov Bridge in St. Petersburg since 1843 . It was Friedrich Wilhelm IV's gift in return to Tsar Nikolaus I. He had given him two horse-taming Clodt von Jürgensburgs for Portal IV of the Berlin Palace , the doubles of which he also had on the Anitschkow Bridge.

  • A main field of the railing

  • A dolphin from the railing, erected as a unique piece on the Spree island after the last renovation in the early 2000s

  • The Anichkov Bridge in St. Petersburg, similar to the Schloßbrücke

Trivia

Marx-Engels-Brücke on a GDR postage stamp

spelling, orthography

The official renaming back to Schloßbrücke happened in 1991, before the ß- spelling reform . After this reform it would have to be called Schlossbrücke , but so far there has been no change to the street or, in this case, bridge name. The same applies to other castle phrases such as castle fountain , castle freedom , castle square . These proper names are used here as they were used according to the current spelling of the time.

Stamp

In 1985 the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications of the GDR published a series of “Berlin Bridges”, the 70 pfennig value of which shows a side view of the Schloßbrücke (then the Marx-Engels Bridge).

literature

  • Bogdan Krieger: Berlin through the ages. A hike from the palace to Charlottenburg through 3 centuries, Hermann Klemm Publishing House, Berlin, 1923
  • Peter Springer: Schinkel's Schloßbrücke in Berlin. Propylaea Verlag 1981.
  • Eckhard Thiemann, Dieter Deszyk, Horstpeter Metzing: Berlin and his bridges , Jaron Verlag, Berlin 2003, pages 90-95; ISBN 3-89773-073-1
  • Jörg Friedrich: SCHLOSSBRÜCKE. In: Stone bridges in Germany. Verlag Bau + Technik, 1999, ISBN 3-7640-0389-8 , pp. 29-36.

Web links

Commons : Schloßbrücke  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Winfried Löschburg: Spree with dolphins and seahorses. About the creation of the Schinkel Castle Bridge 160 years ago. Walks through the history of Berlin. In: Berliner Zeitung , November 8, 1983
  2. ^ Uwe Kieling: Berlin building officials and state architects in the 19th century . Society for Local History and Monument Preservation in the Kulturbund der DDR, Berlin 1986, p. 92
  3. ↑ Krieger: Berlin through the ages ... , p. 102
  4. ^ Gabriele Stave, Hans-Joachim Boldt: Berlin bridges. Brockhaus miniatures , FA Brockhaus Verlag Leipzig, 1980; P. 12
  5. ^ Info from the Senate Department for Urban Development on the Schloßbrücke; accessed on March 20, 2009 ( memento of October 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Krieger: Berlin through the ages ..., p. 100
Buildings of the Berlin Schloßplatz


Existing

Dom  • Liebknecht Bridge  • Lustgarten  • stables  • Rathausbrücke  • Schleusenbrücke  • Schloßbrücke  • Staatsratsgebäude

Former

Eagle Column  • Humboldt Box  • Kaiser Wilhelm National Monument  • Neptune Fountain  • Prince of Orange  • Palace of the Republic  • Equestrian statue of the Great Elector  • Equestrian statue of Friedrich Wilhelm III.  • Horse tamer  • Lock  • Freedom of lock

Under construction

Humboldt Forum