Treuner's old town model
The Treunersche Old Town model is a model of Frankfurt's Old Town , the brothers Hermann (1876-1962) and Robert Treuner created (1877-1948) in the years 1926-1961.
The model was based on detailed measurements of each individual house. As a result, Treuner's old town model is a unique documentation of the largest medieval town center in Germany, which was lost in the firestorm during the air raids on Frankfurt am Main in March 1944 . The model is therefore one of the most famous exhibits in the Frankfurt Historical Museum . It also forms the most important basis for the virtual old town model developed by geographer Jörg Ott since 2003 .
The model was built on a 1: 200 scale and measures 5.60 by 2.50 meters. It remained unfinished because the surveying work had not yet been completed in 1944 and, after the destruction of the old town, a further inventory was out of the question because there was insufficient documentation of the destroyed buildings, for example in the form of plans or photographs.
history
The Treuner brothers were the sons of a porcelain painter from Wallendorf in Thuringia. In 1879 the family moved to Frankfurt and subsequently lived in different parts of the petty-bourgeois old town, which in the rest of the city enjoyed a rather low reputation. Robert learned the trade of his father, Hermann attended the Städel School in Frankfurt Art Museum Stadel and studied from 1893 to 1900 with Professors Heinrich Hasselhorst , Eugen Klimsch and Wilhelm Trübner painting .
The brothers created architectural models as commissioned work early on. In 1914, for the presentation of the city of Frankfurt at the world exhibition in Lyon, they built a model of the Langen Schirn on the Alter Markt in the heart of the old town, including the Red House , one of the most famous medieval old town houses. With the beginning of the First World War, the model stayed in France and never returned to Frankfurt.
In 1923 the Löhergasse , the former tanners' quarter on the Müllermain (a Main arm) on the Sachsenhausen Mainufer , was to be demolished in favor of a modern high quay. The Historical Museum commissioned the Treuner brothers to build a model of the traditional street that was important for the city's economic history.
While working on the Löhergasse model, which was completed in 1926, the director of the Historical Museum, Bernhard Müller, and the curator Rudolph Welcker suggested that the brothers make a model of the entire old town. Welcker referred to the models from Munich , Landshut , Straubing , Ingolstadt and Burghausen created around 1570 by the Straubing turner Johann Sandtner for Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria .
In 1925, the building department planned the demolition of the tramline leading to the old bridge in order to create a wide road opening. The Fahrgasse was one of the oldest and most important main streets in the city. That is why the Historical Museum commissioned the Treuner brothers again to build a model to document the road for posterity.
Although there was no express agreement between the museum and the brothers, the Treuners continued to build the model after the Fahrgasse was completed and began with the imperial cathedral and its surroundings, the oldest part of the city , to the west of the street . They planned to model the entire area of the old town within the 12th century Staufen wall and the old core of the Sachsenhausen district.
With the support of the Association of Active Old Town Friends , but without support from the Historisches Museum - Welcker retired in 1926, Müller died in 1927, his successor Adolf Feulner showed little interest in Treuner's project - more and more blocks were gradually created in Treuner's workshop in the Klingergasse. Payment for the parts delivered to the Historical Museum was slow, and for economic reasons the brothers were dependent on accepting external orders, which delayed work on the old town model.
When the war began in 1939, the Frankfurt museums were closed and their holdings were stored in safe places. In this way, the old town model survived the bombing war in a bunker in the Griesheim district . The Treuners continued their survey work until 1943, and their sketchbooks also survived the war.
After the Second World War and the destruction of the old town, the immeasurable documentary value of the model became apparent. The city's cultural office supported the construction. After Robert Treuner's death in 1948, Hermann Treuner carried on the work alone and completed it at the end of 1961.
Represented area
Since the model was created from the inside out, i.e. started with the oldest city center, the most important parts of the old town are shown despite the incomplete measurement. Above all, the districts north of Schnurgasse with the Liebfrauenkirche and the Katharinenkirche are missing . The roads delimiting the model are:
- In the south the banks of the Main: beautiful view , Mainkai , Untermainkai .
- In the west: Seckbächergasse, Großer Hirschgraben (here only the eastern side of the street is completed, the western side with the Goethe House is incomplete).
- In the north: the street Weißadlergasse - Große Sandgasse - Schnurgasse - Battonnstraße, thus roughly the course of today's Berliner Straße .
- To the east: The Dominican Monastery , Börneplatz, Wollgraben, Mainstrasse.
Debris model
Treuner's old town model can now be seen in the Historical Museum together with the rubble model created immediately after the end of the war , which shows the destroyed old town as it was in 1944 and, together with the Treuner model, creates an oppressive before-and-after contrast. However, the debris model is historically imprecise. Contemporary photographs show significantly more building remains than are shown in the model. The destruction of the old town is thus exaggerated on the model.
The rubble model was to serve as an argumentation aid for supporters of a radically modern rebuilding in the urban development competition for the rebuilding of the old town in 1946. The polemic representation of an almost completely destroyed old town was intended to show those in favor of a careful reconstruction that practically no remains of the old town were left. Although this was not the case, the modernists prevailed across the board and the remaining ruins were torn down. The rubble model was forgotten after the competition and was only rediscovered in the attic of the Hessian State Chancellery in Wiesbaden in the early 1980s . Since then it has been exhibited next to the Treuner model in the Historical Museum.
literature
- Fried Lübbecke : Treuner's Alt-Frankfurt . The old town model in the Historical Museum. Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt 1955.
- Jan Gerchow , Petra Spona (Ed.): The Frankfurt old town model by the Treuner brothers. Tricks of the Frankfurt Historical Museum, Volume 1 . Henrich Editions, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-921606-77-3
Individual evidence
- ↑ Claus-Jürgen Göpfert: "Pictures of the Old Town". What models tell ( Memento from November 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: Frankfurter Rundschau, November 5, 2008
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 35 " N , 8 ° 40 ′ 56.5" E