Drinking alley gate

Rheinufer 1571 with Frankenturm (left) and Trankgassentor

The medieval Trankgassentor was one of the numerous gateways in one of the reinforced tower structures of the city ​​fortifications of Cologne on the Rhine side , built in the 13th century . The gate was first named in the sources for the year 1293 as “turis de Drancgassin”.

history

Origin of name and location

Scenery of the old town bank of the Rhine around 1826

The gate was at the end of "drank gaß", today's Trankgasse , the course of which marked the old northern moat. Which, as in the urban Schreinseintragungen occupied, in the district of St. Severin occurring "Drancgaß" served as there probably Viehtrift a potions or led alternatively to the waters of the Rhine itself. This was the name of the old cathedral ago at the gate and the banks leading lane 1136 “in vallo”, 1170 “in vallo que dicitur Gravagaza” and was first referred to in 1215 as “in Drancgazzen”, a name that was then transferred to the gate.

Medieval building

The exact time when the Trankgassentore was built cannot be clearly proven. It is possible that it was first confused with a tower listed in 1246, which could also have been the Frankenturm , which - apart from its height - was comparable in its construction. The Trankgassentor is documented as a tower structure for the year 1293 at the latest.

Anton Woensam's Cologne city view from 1531 and the bird's eye view of the Mercator plan from 1571 show a building a few meters next to the Frankenturm, which rises from the escape of the city ​​wall in the manner of a risalit . The tower of the three-storey Trankgasse gate had a round arch gate and ended with a tent roof . On the south side there was a narrow, originally crenellated outbuilding, which was flush with the city wall and towered over it with one storey. An annex was also added to the north side, the upper floor of which, however , lay on top of the fortification wall and served as a thrower .

Prussian successor building

The architect Bernhard Wilhelm Harperath was appointed city ​​architect of Cologne in 1844 . Under him, three new city gates were built in the area of ​​the old town bank of the Rhine. These included the new Trankgassentor built between 1851 and 1853 as a replacement for the old Trankgassentor, which was already in disrepair in 1583 and was laid down in 1825.

The gate now received a double archway and was decorated with two pillars on which bronze eagles were placed. Pillars and eagle sculptures came from a gate on Friedrich-Wilhelm-Strasse that was broken off at the time (1172 platea marcmani, 1571 markmans gaß). A few decades later, the new gate was demolished by city architect Josef Stübben in 1898 , probably in connection with the demolition of the landside city wall and the emerging Cologne New Town and the construction of a continuous Rhine bank road . There are no remains of the gate system.

literature

• Hermann Keussen : Topography of the city of Cologne in the Middle Ages. 2 volumes. Cologne 1910. Reprint: Droste, Düsseldorf 1986 ISBN 3-7700-7560-9 , ISBN 3-7700-7561-7 .
• Henriette Meynen: fortress city of Cologne. The bulwark in the west . Emons, Cologne 2010 ISBN 3897057808
• Hans Vogts , Fritz Witte: The art monuments of the city of Cologne , on behalf of the provincial association of the Rhine province and the city of Cologne. Published by Paul Clemen , Vol. 7, Section IV: The profane monuments of the city of Cologne , Düsseldorf 1930. Schwann, Düsseldorf. Reprint Pedagogischer Verlag Schwann, 1980. ISBN 3-590-32102-4
• Peter Glasner: The legibility of the city. Cultural history and lexicon of medieval street names in Cologne. 2 volumes. DuMont, Cologne 2002.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hermann Keussen, Topography of the City of Cologne in the Middle Ages , Bans II, p. 158, Col. a
2. ↑ Peter Glasner: The legibility of the city. Cultural history and lexicon of medieval street names in Cologne , p. 104
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Hans Vogts, Fritz Witte in: Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Köln , Vol. 7, Section IV, “Rhine-side gates and Wartbauten”, p. 139 ff
4. ↑ Henriette Meynen, section “The bank reinforcement on the left bank of the Rhine”. In the fortress city of Cologne. The bulwark in the west , p. 262ff.
5. ↑ Peter Glasner: The legibility of the city. Cultural history and lexicon of medieval street names in Cologne , p. 222

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 31.7 "  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 45.4"  E