Theaterstrasse (Aachen)
| Theaterstrasse | |
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| Basic data | |
| place | Aachen |
| Created | 1826-1833 |
| Hist. Names | Komödienstraße, Neustraße, Theaterstraße (partim), connecting path, Hochstraße, Hindenburgstraße |
| Connecting roads | Theaterplatz, Zollernstrasse |
| Cross streets | Borngasse, Aureliusstraße, Schützenstraße, Wallstraße, Harscampstraße, Bahnhofstraße, Vereinsstraße |
| Buildings | Bankhaus Suermondt , former Reichsbank building, former publishing house of the Politisches Tageblatt / Aachener Nachrichten and the Aachener Zeitung , House Matthéy |
| use | |
| User groups | Pedestrian traffic , bicycle traffic , car traffic , public transport |
| Technical specifications | |
| Street length | 0.6 km |
The theater street in Aachen was from 1825 to 1826 as a connection between the center of Aachen and the then independent city Burtscheid to plans by Johann Peter Cremer created. It was the first street that broke through the medieval city plan of Aachen.
Naming
Before the completion of the theater , the street that was still under construction up to the outer city wall was provisionally designated as Komödienstraße or Neustraße until 1833. After the inauguration of the theater at the lower end of the street, it was renamed Theaterstrasse. The extension of Theaterstrasse in the direction of Burtscheid was initially referred to as a connecting route, from 1841 onwards as Hochstrasse. On August 1, 1915, both streets were renamed Hindenburgstrasse by resolution of the city council .
After the end of the fighting in Aachen during the Second World War, numerous streets were renamed by an administrative order on December 1, 1944, including Hindenburgstrasse, which has been referred to as Theaterstrasse in its entirety since then.
archeology
During the construction of the street and the subsequent development, remnants of the outer city wall and the Wirchsbongardstore were discovered in several places , most of which had been dismantled in the course of the alignment of Theaterstraße. In 1847, small remains of the gate at the confluence with Wirichsbongardstrasse were still preserved. During construction work in 1988, remnants of the old city wall with the associated counter wall and the eastern wall of the barbican of the Wirichbongardstores built around 1257 were found on the property at Theaterstrasse 37-39 .
During excavation work for a new building on the corner of Theaterstrasse and Wallstrasse, the remains of the counter wall of the old city fortifications were found. A small notice board at the house at Theaterstrasse No. 42 and a marker made of coarse cobblestones in the sidewalk of Theaterstrasse and Wallstrasse reminds of the course of the outer city wall. A 43-meter-long section of the city wall was found on the plot boundary between the houses at Theaterstrasse 31 and 33.
history
Johann Peter Cremer planned the new street as a visual axis that extended far beyond the city walls of the time . The basis of this alignment was the idea of connecting the Aachen and Burtscheid spa districts with a representative avenue. In Cremer's plan, the road was divided into three sections. The original plans to create large round squares at the beginning and end of the street as well as in the area of the breakthrough through the city wall were discarded and gave way to a simpler street layout without plazas. The first planning phase extended from the theater to the outer city wall (today's confluence with Wallstrasse and Schützenstrasse). The street was expanded to be generous, wide and representative. The official inauguration of the street took place on November 2, 1833 with a troop parade in honor of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm IV . In the years that followed, Theaterstrasse was often the scene of military parades , processions and carnival parades due to its straight course and great width .
Development
Government and forestry councilor Johann Wilhelm Steffens submitted the first building application on March 21, 1826 for the property at Komödienstraße 15. During the first construction, a spring was discovered on the south side of the street in 1829 that carried mineral water containing iron . The spring was later expanded, the water sold as "Leuchtenrathsches Heilwasser" and a spa hotel (Theaterstrasse B1347, today Theaterstrasse 19) was built. As the rate of replenishment of the spring was too low, the hotel had to close again after twenty years. After the piercing through the former city wall, the street narrowed, which can still be seen in today's appearance. From this point on, the road was initially named as a connecting route (to Burtscheid). For the development of the Bahnhofsviertel from 1837 to 1841, Theaterstrasse was an important link between the station and the city center. The architecture of the street received new impulses from the convenient location. The proportion of private residential buildings declined in favor of representative commercial and banking houses as early as the middle of the 19th century. Only a few houses remain from the original development.
The best known, today's House Matthey (Theater 67, among other things, the seat of the French German Cultural Institute ) built Adam Franz Friedrich Leydel 1834 for the Aachen cloth merchant CF Deusner in classical style with a 6000 meters 2 garden. In 1880 the later Vice President Robert von Görschen took over the house, which remained in the family's possession until about 1945 and then became the property of the cloth merchant Teo Mattéy (1901–1989), who later transferred it to the city of Aachen. Leydel also approved the designs for the houses at Theaterstrasse 48 and 52, the latter being canceled in 1977. Presumably both four-storey neo-classical houses were built after Leydel's death.
The neighboring house at Theaterstrasse 69 was built by the Aachen private master builder Andreas Hansen in 1842. After it had undergone major structural changes in 1910, the old building regulations could be restored in 1970 according to the old plans.
Numerous commercial buildings still preserved were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These include the Reichsbank banking house at Theaterstrasse 17, built by architect Max Hasak from 1888 to 1889. The building was given an ashlar facade based on the Italian Renaissance model and is one of Hasak's early buildings, who built over 30 branches for the Reichsbank.
Another commercial building that has been preserved is located at Theaterstrasse 9, which was designed by the architect Eduard Linse in 1900 for the banking company Robert Suermondt & Cie. The bank that was built is characterized by a plastered facade with neo-baroque decorative elements. Some striking commercial buildings from the 1920s have been preserved, for example the publishing house of the Politisches Tageblatt (until 1944) and the Aachener Nachrichten (1945–1977) at Theaterstrasse 24–26. The characteristic brick building with stone facings on the ground floor from 1928, like the Theaterstraße 22 building, is attributed to the Aachen architect Albert Dederichs .
The corner building at Bahnhofstrasse / Theaterstrasse 70-74 was the first major new building project after the Second World War . The Aachener Volkszeitung's publishing house was located in the building from March 8, 1951 until the move to the new publishing house on Dresdner Strasse in 1977 .
Numerous business or private houses are wholly or partially under monument protection.
Development of economic and business life
From the beginning, Theaterstrasse was the residence of numerous well-off Aachen citizens, banks and insurance companies, such as Aachen-Leipziger Versicherungs AG at Theaterstrasse 9 since 1935 .
From the middle of the 19th century, numerous well-known photographers' studios, such as Carl Billotte , Eugen Westendorp and August Kampf, settled there .
Numerous banking companies such as the Reichsbank (No. 17), the Landesbank der Rheinprovinz, formerly Rheinische Girozentrale and Provinzialbank or the Aachen Association for the Promotion of Labor , founded by David Hansemann (No. 2–4), the banking business Probst & Co (No. 9), Aachener Kreditbank (No. 12-14), Bankhaus Allermann & Co., Städtische Sparkasse (No. 22), Commerzbank and Aachener Bank für Handel und Gewerbe (No. 23) and Aachener Bausparkasse ( No. 92) had their headquarters in Theaterstrasse before the war. Especially during the Belgian occupation of the Rhineland after World War I , Belgian and French banks also had branches there in the 1920s, such as the bank of Société Générale (No. 61) or the Crédit Anversois (No. 1a). Numerous banks and building societies are still based there today.
In 1904 the Aachen Chamber of Commerce and Industry moved to Theaterstrasse 6–8.
Numerous large industrial companies chose their representative company headquarters there, such as the Eschweiler Bergwerks-Verein (No. 11), the Westdeutsche Telefonesellschaft mbH. (No. 20), Stolberger Zink AG (No. 37), Siemens-Schuckertwerke (No. 106) and Adam Opel AG , which had its vehicle showroom at Theaterstrasse 77 for almost two decades. The Technical Monitoring Association also had its Aachen branch at Theaterstrasse 90.
The largest hotel in Aachen at the beginning of the 20th century was Emil Nagel's Hotel Kaiserhof on the corner of Wallstrasse. It had 160 rooms, two large ballrooms for 1,600 people, a wine wholesaler and a beer restaurant.
Compared to other streets in Aachen, there were traditionally only a few retail shops and restaurants on Theaterstraße. Among the most famous was the delicatessen store Caspar Giani Theaterstraße 50 or the confectionery Fritz Forst, Theaterstraße 66. While both no longer exist, two traditional Aachen companies have had a long-standing company headquarters on this street: Juwelier Zaun (No. 69) and Nagel & Hoffbaur ( No. 63-65).
Theaterstrasse is currently the location of numerous banks and insurance companies, the Aachen Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IHK) and the retail trade association (No. 63-65), as well as medical practices, restaurants and retail outlets.
Monuments and fountains
In addition to the aforementioned monuments, there are two works of art in the public street space on Theaterstrasse. On the corner of Vereinsstraße there has been a fountain of peace made in structural steel by Manfred Bredohl and various artists of the World Blacksmiths Congress since 1991 .
A fountain in front of the former AachenMünchener headquarters between Aureliusstrasse and Borngasse was dismantled in 2010.
In 1979, Clemens Pasch erected a bronze sculpture of a seated girl near the point where the cross-section of the street between the former Theater Street and the Hochstraße changes .
Individual evidence
- ^ Aachener Zeitung, August 13, 1825
- ^ City of Aachener Zeitung, May 20, 1826
- ^ Gerhard Curdes: The development of the Aachen urban space . Dortmund sales for building and planning literature, Dortmund 1999, ISBN 3-929797-37-2 .
- ↑ Hans Königs, Michael Jaspers and Jutta Katsaitis-Schmitz: Nachgeschaut Aachen 1942 and 2007 . Ed .: Crous Collection. AKV publishing house, Aachen 2007, p. 78-89 .
- ↑ Christian Qix: Historical and topographical description of the city of Aachen and their environments . Dumont-Schauberg, Cologne and Aachen 1829, p. 174 .
- ^ Carl Rhoen : The fortifications of the free imperial city of Aachen . Anton Creutzer, Aachen 1894, p. 71 , urn : nbn: de: hbz: 061: 1-230540 ( ISL Aachen [PDF; accessed on May 7, 2016]).
- ↑ Bruno Lerho : City gates and towers of the second Aachen city wall . Mayer & Mayer, Aachen 1995, ISBN 3-89124-260-3 , p. 75 .
- ↑ Christoph Keller: Archaeological research in Aachen - catalog of the sites in the city center and in Burtscheid . Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2004, ISBN 3-8053-3407-9 , p. 175 .
- ↑ Christoph Keller: Archaeological research in Aachen - catalog of the sites in the city center and in Burtscheid . Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2004, ISBN 3-8053-3407-9 , p. 169 .
- ↑ State Conservator Rhineland, u. Employee v. Hans Königs: List of monuments 1.1 Aachen city center with Frankenberg quarter . Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1977, ISBN 3-7927-0332-7 , p. 19 .
- ^ City of Aachener Zeitung, July 17, 1829
- ↑ Leopold Zitterland: The newly discovered iron springs from Aachen and Burtscheid together with a message about the extraction of the thermal salts itself . JA Mayer, Aachen 1831.
- ↑ Joseph Ripphausen: How gefahndet a chief inspector in the old facade , Aachener Nachrichten, October 14, 1970, p 12
- ↑ Hans Königs, Michael Jaspers and Jutta Katsaitis-Schmitz: Nachgeschaut Aachen 1942 and 2007 . Ed .: Crous Collection. AKV publishing house, Aachen 2007, p. 83 .
- ↑ List of monuments of the city of Aachen, version of February 16, 2012 (PDF file; 126 kB), accessed February 22, 2012
- ^ Albert Huyskens: Germany's urban development : Aachen . German Architecture and Industry Publishing House (DARI), Berlin-Halensee 1925.
- ^ Ludwina Forst, Béatrice Austria, Dieter Detiège: business times. Shopping in Aachen and Burtscheid 1900–1939 . Thouet, Aachen 2011, ISBN 978-3-930594-37-5 , p. 75 .
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 15 ″ N , 6 ° 5 ′ 30 ″ E