Görlitz City Hall

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City Hall
South side of the town hall and main entrance to the Great Hall

South side of the town hall and main entrance to the Great Hall

Data
place Goerlitz
architect Bernhard Sehring
Client City of Goerlitz
Architectural style Neoclassicism / Art Nouveau
Construction year 1906-1910
Floor space 8,670.00 m²
Coordinates 51 ° 9 '2 "  N , 14 ° 59' 55.7"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 9 '2 "  N , 14 ° 59' 55.7"  E

The Stadthalle is a concert hall in Görlitz . From its opening in 1910 to its closure in 2005, the building has served a wide variety of cultural events, including concerts, sporting events and trade fairs. A planned renovation was canceled in 2012. The Förderverein Stadthalle Görlitz e. V. is committed to the preservation of the cultural monument .

location

The city hall is located on Am Stadtpark in downtown Görlitz, right next to the city ​​bridge , which is the border crossing into the Polish sister city of Zgorzelec . To the east of the town hall there is a large parking lot at the end of the Uferstraße directly on the Lausitzer Neisse . The city ​​park adjoins the south and west side of the city hall . At the edge of the park in the middle of the turning loop in front of the concert hall is the meridian stone, which reminds of the location of the city on the 15th meridian. The 15th meridian, however, runs on the Neisse meadows east of the building according to today's measurement methods.

history

Postcard of the 14th Silesian Music Festival 1900 in the old festival hall
The town hall still with tram connections and the Jakob Böhme monument in front of its gates (1959)

In July 1876, ten Silesian cities with twelve clubs, 481 singers and 106 musicians took part in the 1st Silesian Music Festival in Hirschberg in the Giant Mountains . The festival was founded and financed by Bolko von Hochberg, a Silesian count from the Fürstenstein and Pless family. He wrote Singspiele, an opera, but also devoted himself to song and choral compositions. The 3rd Silesian Music Festival took place in Görlitz for the first time in 1878. The fourth (1880), sixth (1883) and eighth (1886) followed in the Neisse city. Since the 10th Music Festival in 1889, all festivals took place in Görlitz, first every two years and then every three years.

Initially, the festivities and numerous other public events were held in a former exhibition hall of the horticultural association from 1863. The provisional wooden structure was moved from Wilhelmsplatz to the banks of the Neisse near the parade ground in 1872, roughly where the town hall is today, and expanded in 1878 to accommodate up to 2000 guests and artists.

However, this building did not seem to be appropriate for the Silesian Music Festival, so that a representative new building was planned around 1900, which also did justice to the increasing importance of the city. An earlier realization of a concert hall in the city was not possible due to the lack of financial means. The municipal budget and that of the combined committee for the music and hall of fame was already heavily burdened by the construction of the Upper Lusatian hall of fame at the turn of the century . In 1900, the city ​​council appointed a commission with members from the magistrate, city council and citizenship to support the concert hall project . In January of the following year, the commission determined the building site near the old festival hall and stipulated that the main entrance should be on the south side of the Reichenberger Bridge (today: Stadtbrücke ) at street level.

A lottery was able to collect 300,000  marks of the estimated 810,000 marks. The initiator of the festival, Count Bolko von Hochberg, had a very large share of the donations. Finally, the city council voted in favor of building a new concert hall. The renowned theater architect Bernhard Sehring was won over for the construction .

After the 16th music festival, the foundation stone for the town hall was laid on June 20, 1906 . The new building was built in a district that was prospering at the time. With direct eye contact, the Reichenberg School was built in the area in 1894, the Building Trade and Engineering School in 1898 and the Hall of Fame in 1902 . A little later, the Rothenburger Versicherung buildings followed in 1913/1914 and the electricity works in 1926.

Collapse of the town hall in 1908

The work on the shell was largely completed by the beginning of 1908, so that the interior work had already begun in order to meet the planned opening date - which, however, was largely due to the collapse of the hall ceiling on May 9, 1908, probably as a result of incorrect static calculations of the steel ceiling construction Distant moved. The collapsing roof structure tore away large parts of the hall walls. The accident killed five people and injured eleven. Some time after the accident, soldiers of the Glogau Pioneer Battalion blew up the disturbing remains on the building. The pressure wave caused considerable damage to windows and in some cases to the interior in the nearby streets.

After the successfully completed reconstruction, the building was officially inaugurated on October 27, 1910 by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of General Music Director Karl Muck . The total costs for the construction came to 1.14 million marks. The house was designed for at least 2,000 visitors and an ensemble of up to 1,000 on stage.

Extensive renovations took place in the building in 1936 and 1937, and numerous decorative elements in the halls were also removed. The town hall experienced the end of the Second World War largely unscathed, despite the nearby Reichenberger Bridge being blown up . Just twelve days after the end of the war, Lord Mayor Alfred Fehler and Soviet city commander Colonel Pawel Ilyich Nesterov invited the city's children to a children's party in the city hall garden. A memorial plaque reminds of this to this day. The Görlitz Music Week was established as a replacement event for the Silesian Music Festival after the war . However, the music week was stopped again in 1957.

On December 31, 2004, the city hall was shut down due to the economic situation and structural defects in the structure. Since 2004 a support association has been committed to the renovation and subsequent reopening of the town hall, which threatened to move into the distant future due to the poor budget situation in the city of Görlitz. For a long time the city tried unsuccessfully to find a private investor or operator for the property. In 2012, the city and the Free State of Saxony agreed on the financing of the city hall, so that renovation could be planned.

After this renovation, the town hall was to form the cultural center of the European city of Görlitz / Zgorzelec next to the theater . The opening was planned for 2014. After submitting the draft planning and examining the funding situation, Mayor Siegfried Deinege saw a multitude of risks, so that in 2012 he recommended to the city council that the "City Hall renovation project be discontinued". The Förderverein Stadthalle Görlitz e. Since then, V. continues to fight against the continuing decline of the town hall. On June 27, 2018, the budget committee of the Bundestag decided to provide 18 million euros in funding for the renovation of the cultural monument by 2024. The Free State of Saxony agreed to contribute the same amount.

Building

West view
Figure decorations

The town hall has a gross floor area of around 8,670 m² and a gross volume of around 49,460 m³. Two halls form the event space. Coming through one of the five doors of the main entrance one enters the entrance hall, which in turn leads to the Great Hall , which is located on the mezzanine floor and with an area of ​​approx. 950 m² offers space for around 1,700 spectators. As its name suggests, it is the larger of the two event halls. It has a deep stage and a floor above the parquet has a circumferential gallery, which forms the first tier at the rear of the hall. Another floor above the 1st tier is the 2nd tier. However, it does not protrude as far into the hall as the first tier. The 14 high, color-glazed hall windows as well as lanterns suspended between the windows at the height of the second tier provide sufficient light.

Behind the Great Hall is the Small Hall with an area of ​​245 m². It offers a little more than two hundred guests space for smaller events. The rectangular hall with a small stage is located across the large hall on the upper floor. Below the small hall there is a restaurant as well as the round room and the Silesian room with access to the city hall garden.

The external architectural decoration is typical of the Art Nouveau period. Numerous putti decorate the ledges , as well as obelisks , vases and goblets in the roof area. Lions greet visitors at the side entrances on the east and west sides. The gable above the main entrance is adorned by two winged lions, which flank a relief with three anciently dressed people. The jewelry is mostly made of artificial stone .

To the north of the building is the city hall garden. In it was a fountain with the figure of a reclining muse with a harp on a rectangular base. However, the sculpture by the sculptor Richard Engelmann disappeared after 1945.

Events

The Silesian Music Festival was a fixture in the town hall's program until 1945 and from 1996 onwards. However, numerous other events took place in the town hall. In addition to the musical performances, these included sports competitions, exhibitions, congresses and political lectures.

In September 1916, for example, the Mayor Georg Snay welcomed the 7,000 Greek soldiers and officers in the town hall . The soldiers were deported from the Macedonian front and interned in Görlitz . Furthermore, from September 18 to 24, 1921, the congress of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) took place in the town hall with 376 participants entitled to vote. On this, the party decided on the Görlitz program and debated the effects of the Versailles Peace Treaty on Germany's domestic and foreign policy. During the National Socialist rule and the Second World War, a large number of the events were subject to the ethnic ideology. On March 8, 1945 , Joseph Goebbels appealed in the town hall to the perseverance of the soldiers and citizens against the advancing Soviet troops. After the war, the trials of the last Nazi mayor Hans Meinshausen and NSDAP district leader Bruno Malitz took place in the Great Hall in 1948 .

The following SED dictatorship also used the town hall for their propaganda events . Probably the last event of the SED was the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the GDR in October 1989.

But sporting highlights also took place in the town hall. For example, the GDR boxing championships were broadcast live from the town hall on GDR television throughout the country.

View of the concert organ

Concert organ

On the back wall of the Great Hall above the stage steps is the concert organ , made in 1910 in Wilhelm Sauer's organ workshop in Schönbeck (Mecklenburg) as the latter's last work. An important sponsor was the Görlitz entrepreneur Otto Müller , who supported the construction of the organ with 15,000 marks. The concert organ has 72 sounding voices as well as four manuals and a pedal . The instrument has 70 registers and a transmission (in the pedal). The game action and stop action are pneumatic . The organ works in a swell box , so it can be swelled again as such. The remote work and the second manual work are also swellable. The broad front of the instrument with gold-plated decorations is eye-catching and lavishly designed . The gaming table is set up in the middle at the feet of the prospectus with the back facing the auditorium.

The organ is considered to be the only original concert organ with a late Romantic timbre and is therefore particularly suitable for the performance of romantic organ literature. After the maintenance of the organ had been neglected for a long time in the GDR, it had to be subjected to an extensive restoration , which cost around one million DM , in 1989/1990 . After the restoration by the organ manufacturer Vleugels from Hardheim , Baden-Württemberg , it was heard for the first time on October 2, 1991 during a gala concert.

I main work C – a 3 (–a 4 )
1. Principal 16 ′
2. Bourdon 16 ′
3. Double flute 8th'
4th Principal 8th'
5. Gemshorn 8th'
6th Gamba 8th'
7th Flute harm. 8th'
8th. Dumped 8th'
9. Octave 4 ′
10. Gemshorn 4 ′
11. Reed flute 4 ′
12. Octave 2 ′
13. Cornett III-IV 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
14th Intoxicating fifth II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
15th Mixture III 2 ′
16. Trumpet 16 ′
17th Trumpet 8th'
II. Manuals C – a 3
18th Violin principal 16 ′
19th Dumped 16 ′
20th Principal 8th'
21st shawm 8th'
22nd Salicional 8th'
23. Quintatön 8th'
24. Concert flute 8th'
25th Reed flute 8th'
26th Traverse flute 4 ′
27. Octave 4 ′
28. Piccolo 2 ′
29 Cornett III 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
30th Mixture IV 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
31. tuba 8th'
32. Cor Anglais 8th'
III Swell C – a 3
33. Darling Dumped 16 ′
34. Principal 8th'
35. Solo flute 8th'
36. Violini 8th'
37. Voix céléste 8th'
38. Aeoline 8th'
39. Dumped 8th'
40. Remote flute 4 ′
41. Fugara 4 ′
42. Flautino 2 ′
43. Harmonia aetherea III 2 ′
44. oboe 8th'
45. Trumpet harm. 8th'
IV Fernwerk C – a 3
46. Lovely Gedackt 16 ′
47. Principal 8th'
48. viola 8th'
49. Dulciana 8th'
50. Piffaro 8th'
51. Flute 8th'
52. Bourdon 8th'
53. Violini 4 ′
54. Flute dolce 4 ′
55. Flageolet 2 ′
56. Trumpet harm. 8th'
57. Vox humana 8th'
tremolo
Pedals C – f 1 (–f 2 )
58. Major bass 32 ′
59. Pedestal 32 ′
60. Principal 16 ′
61. Violon 16 ′
62. Gemshorn 16 ′
63. Sub bass 16 ′
Darling Thought (= No. 46) 16 ′
64. Quintbass 10 2 ⁄ 3  ′
65. Octave 8th'
66. cello 8th'
67. Bass flute 8th'
68. trombone 32 ′
69. trombone 16 ′
70. Trumpet 8th'
71. Clarine 4 ′

literature

Web links

Commons : Stadthalle Görlitz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Declaration by Lord Mayor Siegfried Deinege on the city hall renovation project. (No longer available online.) October 9, 2012, archived from the original on February 26, 2014 ; Retrieved February 19, 2014 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.goerlitz.de
  2. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Fiedler: The Görlitzer Stadthalle . Senfkornverlag, Görlitz 2010, p. 4th f .
  3. ^ Andreas Bednarek: Forays through Görlitz . 2nd Edition. Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt 2000, ISBN 3-89702-018-1 , p. 56 .
  4. ↑ a b Förderverein Stadthalle Görlitz e. V. - Info. Retrieved August 8, 2011 .
  5. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Fiedler: The Görlitzer Stadthalle . Senfkornverlag, Görlitz 2010, p. 4th f .
  6. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Fiedler: The Görlitzer Stadthalle . 1st edition. Senfkornverlag, Görlitz 2010, p. 7 .
  7. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Fiedler: The Görlitzer Stadthalle . Senfkornverlag, Görlitz 2010, p. 8 .
  8. ↑ a b c Ernst Heinz Lemper: Görlitz. A historical topography . 2nd Edition. Oettel-Verlag, Görlitz 2009, ISBN 3-932693-63-9 , p. 215 .
  9. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Fiedler: The Görlitzer Stadthalle . Senfkornverlag, Görlitz 2010, p. 9 ff .
  10. ↑ a b c Announcement City Hall 2007. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved August 8, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.smwa.sachsen.de  
  11. ↑ Ernst Kretzschmar, Sebastian Beutler: History of the Silesian Music Festival . ( PDF, 132 KB ).
  12. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Fiedler: The Görlitzer Stadthalle . Senfkornverlag, Görlitz 2010, p. 11, 13 .
  13. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Fiedler: The Görlitzer Stadthalle . Senfkornverlag, Görlitz 2010, p. 14 .
  14. ↑ Görlitz City Hall. Culture and conferences in an Art Nouveau atmosphere ( Memento from April 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ https://www.freipresse.de/nachrichten/sachsen/36-millionen-euro-fuer-sanierung-der-stadthalle-goerlitz-artikel10245663
  16. ^ Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Retrieved August 8, 2011 .
  17. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Fiedler: The Görlitzer Stadthalle . Senfkornverlag, Görlitz 2010, p. 15 .
  18. ↑ Information on the organ
  19. ↑ Information on disposition
  20. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Fiedler: The Görlitzer Stadthalle . Senfkornverlag, Görlitz 2010, p. 11 f .