Schnoor

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Looking east into the street Schnoor, 2004
Hartke House , formerly Schnoor Archive
Marterburg Street with buildings from the late 20th century

The Schnoor - also called the Schnoorviertel (from Low German Schnoor , Snoor = Schnur) - is a Gängeviertel in the old town of Bremen that dates back to the High Middle Ages and is also the name of the Schnoor street in this quarter. The oldest secular buildings date from the early 15th century, the church of St. Johann was built in the late 14th century. This could be done against demolition plans in World War IIlargely spared quarter in the 1950s, which is one of the most important tourist attractions today. Buildings to the north at least took up the structures of the development and developed them postmodern .

history

Surname

The quarter owes its name to the old ship craft. The corridors between the houses were often related to professions or objects: there was an area in which ropes and ropes were made ( Schnoor = cord), and an adjacent area in which wire and anchor chains were made (Low German wiere = wire ), where the street Lange Wieren got its name from.

development

Remains of the 13th century city wall in a shop on the eastern edge of the Schnoor

The first written mention of the Schnoor goes back to the 13th century. At that time a Franciscan monastery was built on the edge of what is now the Schnoorviertel , of which only the monastery church has survived. Today's Catholic Church of St. Johann was built in the 14th century in the brick Gothic style as a towerless hall church with a roof turret. The oldest structural remains include parts of the city wall from the 13th century, such as in the “Christmas shop” at Marterburg.

The Belge , a branch of the Weser , ran directly in front of the Schnoorviertel and connected the quarter to the waterway network. That is why river fishermen and boatmen lived in the poor people's quarter in the small Schnoor houses, but also craftsmen. For a long time the Belge was an important watercourse in the city, but it silted up. It was canalized in 1608 and filled in in 1838.

The oldest secular houses are Haus Schnoor 15 ( Brasilhaus ) from 1402 and Packhaus Schnoor 2 from 1401. The former was built in 1512 over the medieval vault, the facade was built around 1600. Haus Schnoor 9 dates from 1621, the Utlucht , the sundial and the decorative gates are from the 18th century. The house with a loading hatch on the gable and two-storey bay window at Schnoor 38 is possibly from the 16th century. There is a renaissance portal through which you pass a very narrow corridor, through which you get to the desert site. This bears its name because it remained undeveloped for a long time after a fire in 1659. Some houses are replicas based on historical models - such as the aforementioned half-timbered house with the tea room (Wüstestätte 1) - or only consist of facades that originally stood elsewhere - such as the official fisherman's house .

A sculpture is reminiscent of the medieval bathhouse

Numerous houses from the 17th and 18th centuries have largely been preserved in their original state of construction and give an impression of life in the Baroque era. Many street names are related to previous uses. The first public bathing room could be found on Stavendamm ( Stave is Low German for room ). It is reported that the Bishop of Bremen was able to secretly visit the bathing room through an underground passage from the cathedral to the Stavendamm. The legend tells that this underground passage ended in the boatman's house .

Due to the small properties and narrow streets, the Schnoor developed into a poor people's quarter at the beginning of the 20th century. While there was often only around sixty square meters of land available for a house, the individual residential properties in the outskirts of Bremen are still more than a thousand square meters in size. Most of the roads in the Schnoor were practically impassable for motorized traffic.

The Schnoor was largely spared from the destruction of Bremen in the Second World War , but the residents, many of whom were prostitutes, did not have the necessary funds to maintain it. In the course of the 1950s, new residents came to the quarter, including students and artists, who were attracted by the cheap rents and the atmosphere. Many of the houses were in poor condition, and the Schnoor residents often resisted their new neighbors. Of the 120 houses in Schnoor, all but seven were still standing when the city tried to demolish the historic quarter in search of building land for banks and insurance companies. Not only the monument conservator Rudolf Stein , successor to Gustav Ulrich , who was in office until 1952, turned against these plans , but also numerous residents of the Schnoor. Richard Boljahn, chairman of the GEWOBA supervisory board, and his architects also represented a Bauhaus- based construction method, especially of high-rise buildings, while the traditionalists and Rudolf Stein implemented an architecture that was adapted to the “Bremen style” and, above all, the preservation of most of the houses with inclusion numerous finds from the ruins of the old town. The prerequisite for resolving the conflict was that Boljahn, who had great influence in the city, agreed to its receipt. One of the driving forces was Olaf Dinné .

A local statute was passed on February 3, 1959 to protect the building fabric that is worth preserving . The preservation of monuments began under the direction of Karl Dillschneider to renovate the quarter, which comprises around a hundred houses. Some vacant lots due to the war were closed. The renovation process was supported by material aids from the preservation of historical monuments using salvaged historical components, especially from the old town, as well as financial subsidies. All renovations were supervised and controlled by the preservation department. In order to ensure a compatible coexistence of residential and commercial areas, a development plan was drawn up in 1981, for example, in order not to allow any more restaurants than the already existing ones. In total, gastronomic establishments are permitted under building law at 14 locations, most of which have been operated continuously for around three decades. This development was documented in the Schnoor Archive , set up by Wolfgang Loose (1918–2014), who played a key role in maintaining the quarter. It was located in the Jakobus Packhaus.

Behind the bellows in 2012, the last house has since been demolished and replaced by a faceless building.

On the eastern edge of the Schnoor, the Marterburg , were the flour silos of the millers, the "mats". Colorful, postmodern houses with structures typical of Schnoor were built there based on designs by Wolfram Goldapp and Thomas Klumpp .

The Schnoor is home to many handicrafts (including a glass blowing workshop ), galleries, cafes and restaurants, antique shops and small museums. Among other things, the Institute for Low German has had its seat here since 1973. For almost 30 years there was a Schnoor archive u. a. in the Hartke house (Am Landherrnamt 3) and a private museum in the Schifferhaus (Stavendamm 15). In 2005 an antiquities museum was opened in Schnoor , which existed until 2018. The travesty theater founded in 1992 by Madame Lothár in the residential building at Kolpingstrasse 9 became known beyond Bremen and was considered a “Bremen institution” until it was closed in early 2008; Since March 2009 the Teatro Magico has been operated there under new management in the form of an event theater. Theater performances take place in a modern extension of the former packing house . In May 2006, in the partially preserved old opened St. James Packhaus the establishment Bremer story house . Nevertheless, buildings are repeatedly rebuilt or demolished improperly and without regard to the ensemble, such as Hinter der Belge. Non-profit associations contribute to the preservation and cultural stimulation, such as the artist house AUSSPANN, founded in 2016 at the Ostend des Schnoor. As the last quarter of Bremen's old town with largely intact and cohesive buildings from the 15th to 19th centuries, the Schnoor has developed into a major attraction in Bremen.

population

The original population of the Schnoor consisted mainly of river fishermen and boatmen, who benefited from the fact that the Balge , a branch of the Weser , flowed directly through this quarter. In the Middle Ages, the main river of the city, the Belge silted up over the centuries, while the original tributary, the Weser, gained in importance. The last trickle of the bellows was filled in in the 19th century. Today only street names and boards embedded in the ground remind of the former body of water.

One of the most famous residents of the Schnoor was Jürgen Heinrich Keberle (1835-1909), who was only called Heini Holtenbeen because of his limp , although he had no wooden leg. His typical appearance and quick-witted, humorous manner made him a Bremen original. A memorial was erected to him and an association that takes care of the preservation of the Schnoor was named after him.

Monument protection

Most of the buildings were first erected in the period of classicism (around 1800 to 1850) and historicism (around 1850 to 1890), some were built in the baroque period (1700 to 1770). Only a few buildings date from the Renaissance (1550, 1630). Due to the decay from around 1900 and the development after 1945, numerous historical evidence has been lost. From 1955, many buildings were restored according to old models, refurbished on the inside and rebuilt as needed. However, due to the changes over the centuries, the original condition of the buildings could in most cases neither be preserved nor reconstructed true to the original.

For example , new buildings were erected in the area of ​​the Schnoor No. 27-35 at the site of the Hotel Alt Bremen , which was destroyed in 1945, and the historic facade of the fisherman's house was added here. The current state is an attempt to represent both the architectural diversity and the style epochs as well as the historical development and liveliness of the Schnoorviertel.

The ensemble of residential and commercial buildings, restaurants and warehouses in the Schnoor street from numbers 1 to 14, 16 to 20, 23 to 26, 29, 30, 36, 38, 40 to 43 is a listed building .

Furthermore, most of the individual buildings have been placed under monument protection, namely u. a.

→ See more about this in the list of cultural monuments in Bremen-Mitte

Monuments and fountains

literature

  • Dieter Brand-Kruth: The Schnoor - a fairytale district . Bremer Drucksachen Service Klaus Stute, 3rd edition 2003.
  • Karl Dillschneider , Wolfgang Loose: De Staven. The old bathing rooms on Stavendamm ; Hauschild Verlag , numerous drawings, Bremen 1981.
  • Karl Dillschneider, Wolfgang Loose: The Schnoor Old + New A comparison in pictures . Schnoor Association Heini Holtenbeen, Bremen 1981
  • Karl Dillschneider: The Schnoor. Vibrant life in Bremen's oldest district. Bremen 1992
  • Lutz Liffers / Ulrich Perry: The Schnoor in Bremen. A portrait. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2004. Edition in four languages ​​(English, German, French, Spanish)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Files of the building regulations office of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen.
  2. ↑ Erika Thies: Mayor of a small town. Wolfgang Loose died at the age of 96 - he found his life's work in the Schnoor , in: Weser-Kurier , October 29, 2014, p. 8.
  3. ^ Monument database of the LfD

Web links

Commons : Schnoor  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 22 "  N , 8 ° 48 ′ 35"  E