Town house (Winterthur)
| Townhouse | |
|---|---|
 Winterthur town house |
|
| Data | |
| place | Winterthur |
| builder | Gottfried Semper |
| Architectural style | historicism |
| Construction year | 1869 |
| Coordinates | 697 396 / 261 955 |
The town house was the seat of government of the Winterthur city council until 2015 . The representative town house, completed in 1869, is one of the most important works by the architect Gottfried Semper and is considered one of the most outstanding works of historicism in Switzerland .
history
In 1863, the democratic ruled Winterthur decided to build a representative town house. The project by the architect Semper was built from 1865 to 1869. On October 30, 1870, the first citizens' meeting took place in today's concert hall. The forecourt with the classicist town house fountain was built in 1871 by the city architect Karl Wilhelm Bareiss .
In 1915, the weatherproof gable figures had to be removed for safety reasons; these were not replaced by the architect Leberecht Völki in 1932–1934 when the town house was extended by two more rows of windows to the rear. From 2003 to 2007 the facade of the building was renovated, in 2005 and 2007 the newly created gable figures were also put back on.
architecture
The monumental sandstone building has a classical open staircase leading to the first floor . The town house consisted of five rows of windows before it was expanded, and seven rows after it was expanded in the 1930s. The facade of the ground floor is kept in a rusticated style. The central building of the town house is reminiscent of a Corinthian temple with four columns.
The gable figures on the south side are the Greek goddess of justice, called Vitodura, and Winterthur's patron Nemesis, and on the north gable, the Greek deity of wisdom Athena , flanked by two griffins on each side.
When it was built, the town house also had to fit in with existing buildings on Stadthausstrasse, such as the old town school house and the Oskar Reinhart Museum (at that time a boys' high school).
Use today
The former community hall has been used as a concert hall since 1934, where regular concerts by the Musikkollegium Winterthur orchestra take place. The town archive and the town chancellery of Winterthur are also located in the town hall . Since the move to the superblock in 2015, the offices of the mayor and the city councilors for the departments “finance” and “safety and environment” are no longer housed in the building.
literature
- Peter Wegmann: The Winterthur town house . Society for Swiss Art History, Basel 1980, p. 19 .
- Peter Wegmann: The Winterthur town house. A building monograph . Winterthur 1982, p. 163 .
- Peter Wegmann: Gottfried Semper and the Winterthur town house. Semper's architecture in the mirror of his art theory . Winterthur City Library, Winterthur 1985, p. 290 .
- Stadthaus Winterthur interior renovations 1994/97: Reopening of the concert hall in October 1997 . City administration, Winterthur 1997, p. 36 .
- Urs Widmer: How did Gottfried Semper come to Zurich and to the Stadthaus Bau in Winterthur? Winterthur 2004, p. 15 .
- Exterior renovation 2002–2007 Winterthur town house . Urban Development Office, Winterthur 2008, p. 18 .
- Sonja Hildebrand: A symbol of "free humanity". In art + architecture in Switzerland. Society for Swiss Art History GSK, No. 4, Bern 2014, pp. 12–19.
- Johann Frei, Peter Wegmann: The town house in Winterthur. Swiss Art Guide Series 97, No. 969, published by the Society for Swiss Art History , Bern 2015.
Web links
- Stadthaus Winterthur in the Winterthur Glossary.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The headquarters of the administration have been located in the superblock in the Sulzer area in the city center since 2015. stadt.winterthur.ch, accessed on July 17, 2018 .