City fortification Rapperswil
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The fortification of Rapperswil enclosed until the 1830s, the old town of Rapperswil , a district of the Swiss municipality Rapperswil-Jona in the canton of St. Gallen .
Geographical demarcation
The old town of Rapperswil encompasses the historical core of the town of Rapperswil, which was independent until the end of 2006 and which was surrounded by a medieval city wall until the 1830s . Its center is today's main square at the town hall with essentially six streets running east and west. The eastern end of the city fortifications were the bastions around Engelplatz , the Müseggturm and the Haus zum Alten Sternen (formerly Halstor / -turm) with the only land access. The lake-side, southern fortifications are concentrated at today's Fischmarktplatz , the former inner harbor, with the second city access to the pier over the upper Lake Zurich at Heilig Hüsli . Thanks to its location on a peninsula, with Obersee in the east and Kempraten Bay in the southwest, the medieval town around Lindenhof in the northwest was surrounded on three sides by Lake Zurich.
The Herrenberg forms the northern end of the old town. As the former center of power in Rapperswil, with the castle on a rocky chain of hills reaching far into Lake Zurich, the Lindenhof or Castle Hill , this natural rampart formed the center of the city fortifications. The fortifications, visible from afar, with their high towers, together with the massive construction of the parish church and the Breny tower , still dominate the cityscape of the old town below.
The floor plan on a scale of 1: 5000 shows the old town still as a fortified settlement area surrounded by a city wall: A path leads to the fish market square along the south-eastern flank of Engelplatz, behind which numerous gardens can be seen in the filled city moat on today's Obere Bahnhofstrasse. The gardens have largely been preserved and supplemented by the fragrant rose garden for the visually impaired , which was laid out in 1984 . From the Halsturm to the Müsegg and Haldenturm the built-up city wall is accompanied by trenches on both sides. Starting from Engelplatz over the Müseggturm, the inner city wall can be seen, with the bulwark of the Breny tower on Herrenberg and the parish church directly east of the castle. The walls of the outer ring wall at Kempratner Bucht run along the northern front of the city, the traverse to the castle and the double walling north of the Lindenhof, where Bühler-Alle was built at the end of the 19th century, are clearly visible. The walling of the Endingerhorn (Kapuzinerzipfel) meets at the Einsiedlerhaus with the wall axis Schützenhaus- Endingertor . On the south side, the stone pier in front of the Haabtor ( Heilig Hüsli ) and the harbor basin at the fish market square, which is integrated into the city, are striking . The inner city is interspersed with gardens, the streets essentially have their current course, except for the breakthrough at the row of houses Schmiedgasse-Webergasse, and the Seestrasse south of the town hall is still a ditch, which is crossed by the butcher's bridge, which was also demolished around 1830. The two arterial roads are the Alte Jonastrasse, which branches off at Engelplatz / Stadthofplatz, parallel to the Stadtbach , and the Zürcherstrasse.
history
Count Rudolf III. von Rapperswil (* 1180/90, † 1251) is considered to be the actual founder and builder of the castle town and finished the fortifications begun by Rudolf II, which in the first phase probably extended to the main square or the town hall in the east . As early as the end of the 13th century, Rapperswil, with its castle, defensive and residential towers and the city wall, reached the extent of today's old town. The bastions around the Neck Square were probably started at the end of the 14th century as a city expansion to the east. The fortress section with the attached semicircular Endinger Tower formed the western end of the fortifications on the lake side until 1597, which ended with the construction of the Capuchin monastery and the bastion at Endingerhorn. With the construction of the Capuchin monastery from 1603 it was expanded to the western tip of the peninsula, and the hermit's house has been within the city walls ever since.
During the siege of Rapperswil (1656) , the fortress structures proved their worth, albeit with great human lives and immense material damage. After the city of Zurich put two more warships into service at the end of the hostilities, the enclosing walls at Endingerhorn were expanded like a fortress in 1659. At the fortifications most endangered by the sea, the outer walls were reinforced with palisades, protected with battlements , and the small fort was provided with loopholes. In 1662 the Rapperswil council decided to replace the final block tower with a square bulwark that could easily fire at ships. The council commissioned a knowledgeable Kapuziner link title with the construction of the bulwark . In 1669 the protective palisades were removed and the walls raised. The reinforced fortifications made it possible to protect the most exposed part of Rapperswil with a small crew and four guns. Today this is the historically most important remnant of the former city fortifications in the west of the city.
literature
- Peter Röllin: Rapperswil-Jona cultural building set: 36 museums without a roof . Rapperswil-Jona 2005, ISBN 3-033-00478-4 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Engelplatz website ( Memento of the original from November 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 31, 2013.
- ^ Website of the Rapperswil-Jona water supply: City map ( Memento from October 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).
Coordinates: 47 ° 13 '36.1 " N , 8 ° 48' 59" E ; CH1903: 704340 / 231555