Wool house center

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Wollhauszentrum in Heilbronn

The Wollhauszentrum in Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg is a building complex that was completed in 1974 according to plans by Philipp Holzmann AG and is mainly used as a shopping center. The Wollhausplatz has an important traffic-related function in the city of Heilbronn. The inner-city bus station is located in front of the Wollhauszentrum and a multi-storey underground car park under the building complex. The shopping center is named after the city's historic wool house, which dates back to an important Württemberg wool market in the 19th century and which was roughly on the site of the current building.

Architecture and reception

The Wollhauszentrum with its striking ten-storey office tower and the flatter, asymmetrical department store wing was built in the brutalist style. The building, located in the middle of Heilbronn's inner city, which was shaped by the reconstruction of the 1950s, had already sparked controversy before its construction, but nevertheless set urban planning accents. In the first few years of its existence, the building was considered to be an “urban planning throw”. Over time, the building's reception changed. The monument conservator Joachim J. Hennze wrote in 2008: […] a “Wollhalla” of consumption […] is not only one of the examples of the thoroughly insensitive architecture of the 1970s but one of the most unattractive buildings in Heilbronn, anywhere in the country.

The regional representatives of the Baden-Württemberg Chamber of Architects believe that the building has "no architectural quality". The chairman of the Chamber of Architects Wilhelm Speitelsbach and the deputy chairman Dirk Vogel therefore declare that the building cannot be compared “with successful examples from the era of so-called concrete brutalism”.

The Administrative Court of Baden-Württemberg (VGH) also recognized the “urban development deficiency” of the wool house in its judgment (November 16, 2016).

history

The old wool house at Fleinertor in Heilbronn around 1880

In 1818 five cities in Württemberg, including Heilbronn, were given permission to hold wool markets. In addition to the market in Kirchheim / Teck, the market in Heilbronn also developed very favorably. Sheep wool in particular was traded in Heilbronn and the market there had a commercial character, as the producers did not sell primarily to consumers, but mainly to merchants. 1852/53 an urban wool hall, the first Heilbronner was Wollhaus , just north of present-day Wollhaus center built in which the wool that has not been sold in the wool markets was stored and arrived in the post auction sale. Due to the structural change in the late 19th century, the Heilbronn wool market lost its importance and was closed in 1905.

In 1906, the Heilbronn horse market , which had developed from the cattle markets previously held at the shooting house , replaced the wool markets at the wool house .

In 1891, the Heilbronner Stadtbad was built on the site of today's Wollhauszentrum , which was destroyed in the air raid on Heilbronn in 1944. In the post-war period, on March 14, 1947, an ideas competition for a shopping center was advertised on Wollhausplatz, with which the supply of the population should be ensured. However, since a group of Heilbronn architects advocated that a general construction plan should first be drawn up before individual buildings were planned, the idea of ​​a commercial building on the square was rejected again. Instead, the city pool was first rebuilt in the local style and used for over 20 years. A bus station was set up as an inner-city transport hub in front of the Stadtbad .

Department store of today's Wollhauszentrum
Facade design with graffiti by Don

The competition from large shopping centers in the surrounding area, such as the Breuningerland in Ludwigsburg , gave the impetus to build an inner-city shopping center in Heilbronn in the early 1970s. The Stadtbad as well as the corner building VW-Autohaus Hagelauer (formerly Reichsbank building) acquired by the city were demolished in 1972 in favor of a new commercial building. The groundbreaking ceremony for the current building took place on December 3, 1973. In the late 1974 the underground car park with 660 single spaces was put into operation. In 1975 the wool house center was completed. The building, estimated at over DM 70 million, offers around 13,000 m² of retail space - 10,000 m² of which is in the wholesale department store, the rest was initially spread over 30 retail stores - as well as 3,600 m² of usable office space.

Some parts of the facade were artistically painted by the Heilbronn graffiti artist Don . Other private and municipal commissioned works in the urban area also originate from the same artist.

The building initially met expectations. Department stores and retailers achieved sales of around DM 100 million in the first business year without any loss of sales in the rest of the inner-city retail sector. Rather, the shopping center contributed to the expansion of the Heilbronn retail catchment area. As recently as 1995, the then Mayor of Heilbronn, Manfred Weinmann, was very satisfied with the situation in the department store.

After decades of use, there was a need for renovation, which Heilbronn's building mayor Wilfried Hajek described in 2012 as follows: "Not only that more than 50 percent of the natural stone panels in the upper facade area are damaged, the concrete wall behind is also in need of renovation" . Before that, concrete parts of the facade weighing 20 kg had repeatedly loosened and fell. In November 2012, an investigation was carried out into the necessary scope of the remedial measures to be carried out, which began in spring 2013. According to the building mayor Wilfried Hajek, the "ugly" Wollhaus concrete bridge at the intersection of Allee and Wilhelmstrasse is closed for an indefinite period of time due to its dilapidation.

The wool house center, which has been scaffolding for a long time, in April 2015

The main tenant of the building, Galeria Kaufhof , announced in June 2013 that it would close the branch in the building in the foreseeable future. Not only because of the nearby Kaufhof branch in Heilbronn, but also because of the renovation costs (Wollhaus Tower, Wollhaus Bridge and Wollhaus underground car park), continuing the Kaufhof at the Wollhaus location is no longer economical. Shortly after the Kaufhof closure plans became known, the Mayor of Heilbronn, Helmut Himmelsbach, announced that the construction company Strabag Real Estate was planning to demolish and build a new trade and service center. The bus station is also to be built over. The city and Strabag signed a development agreement in October 2012. However, in autumn 2013 the owners of the shopping arcade and retail space spoke out against demolition and preferred to convert the building. In 2017, Strabag took advantage of a notarial purchase option agreed under Mayor Helmut Himmelsbach, which began in 2013 and would have expired at the end of 2017, and acquired the municipal real estate shares in the tower and in the shopping mall. On July 7, 2020, the shopping arcade of the Wollhaus-Zentrum (without the Wollhaus tower and without the former sales areas of the Galeria Kaufhof) was foreclosed on the order of Commerzbank AG . The new owner was "Neufeld Wohnbau GmbH & Co. KG" from Oedheim for a purchase price of 3.025 million euros.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernhard Lattner with texts by Joachim J. Hennze: Stille Zeitzeugen. 500 years of Heilbronn architecture . Edition Lattner, Heilbronn 2005, ISBN 3-9807729-6-9 . P. 88
  2. ^ Julius Fekete, Simon Haag, Adelheid Hanke, Daniela Naumann: Monument topography Baden-Württemberg. Volume I.5: Heilbronn district . Theiss, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1988-3 , page 60
  3. ↑ http://www.stimme.de/heilbronn/nachrichten/stadt/sonstige-Vom-Umsatzbringer-zum-Sorgenkind;art1925,2826308
  4. ^ Bernhard Lattner with texts by Joachim J. Hennze: Stille Zeitzeugen. 500 years of Heilbronn architecture . Edition Lattner, Heilbronn 2005, ISBN 3-9807729-6-9 . P. 73
  5. ^ Architects' criticism of the wool house . In: Heilbronn voice . August 2, 2016 ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 2, 2016]).
  6. ^ Architects' criticism of the wool house . In: Heilbronn voice . August 2, 2016 ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 2, 2016]).
  7. ↑ like / mfd / kis: Wollhaus: The city's redevelopment statute is invalid . In: Heilbronn voice . November 16, 2016 ( from Stimme.de [accessed November 16, 2016]).
  8. ^ Helmut Schmolz , Hubert Weckbach: Heilbronn. History and life of a city. 2nd Edition. Konrad, Weißenhorn 1973, ISBN 3-87437-062-3 , No. 468 Wollhaus bei Fleinertor, around 1880, page 143
  9. ↑ Heilbronn - Planning of the reconstruction of the old town, Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, Heilbronn 1994, p. 42ff.
  10. ↑ http://www.stimme.de/heilbronn/nachrichten/stadt/sonstige-Vom-Umsatzbringer-zum-Sorgenkind;art1925,2826308
  11. ↑ Chronicle of the Hagelauer car dealership ( Memento of the original from June 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.autohaus-ah000020.m2ck.de
  12. ↑ Picture of the Wollhausplatz with the Altes Stadtbad and VW-Haus Hagelauer (former Reichsbank building) on ​​the left, KSK in the middle and the Altes Landratsamt on the right ( memento from June 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ^ City of Heilbronn, Urban Development Planning Group: Heilbronn after the regional reform , Heilbronn 1975
  14. ^ City of Heilbronn, Administrative Report 1979–1982, pp. 140–141.
  15. ↑ Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, Time History Collection, archive signature ZS-9,033th
  16. ↑ http://www.stimme.de/heilbronn/nachrichten/stadt/sonstige-Vom-Umsatzbringer-zum-Sorgenkind;art1925,2826308
  17. ↑ Joachim Friedl: Heilbronner Wollhaus Bridge falls . In: Heilbronn voice . February 6, 2012 ( from Stimme.de [accessed June 16, 2013]).
  18. Jump up ↑ jof (Joachim Friedl): The Wollhaus tower is in bad shape . In: Heilbronn voice . February 7, 2013 ( from Stimme.de [accessed June 16, 2013]).
  19. ↑ a b Joachim Friedl: Wollhaus facade crumbles . In: Heilbronn voice . November 5, 2012 ( from Stimme.de [accessed on June 16, 2013]).
  20. ^ Manfred Stockburger: Kaufhof am Wollhaus closes . In: Heilbronn voice . June 16, 2013 ( from Stimme.de [accessed on June 16, 2013]).
  21. ↑ like / mfd / kis: Das Wollhaus: Two suggestions, no solution (yet) . In: Heilbronn voice . May 6, 2016 ( from Stimme.de [accessed on May 6, 2016]).
  22. ↑ Bärbel Kistner: Heilbronner Wollhaus is to be demolished . Stimme.de , June 18, 2013
  23. ↑ http://www.stimme.de/heilbronn/free/Wollhaus-Kein-Abbruch-geplant;art132111,2900990
  24. ↑ Iris Baars-Werner: Wollhaus: Strabag buys real estate shares in the city. The Strabag company has bought its real estate shares in the tower and in the shopping mall of the Wollhaus from the city of Heilbronn. All other owners in the Wollhausturm would also be willing to sell their shares in Strabag. In: Heilbronn voice . March 3, 2017 ( from Stimme.de [accessed March 3, 2017]).
  25. ↑ Heilbronner Wollhaus auctioned - these are the plans of the new owner. July 10, 2020, accessed on July 14, 2020 .

literature

  • Ernst Schmid: The commercial development in the city of Heilbronn since the beginning of industrialization. Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, Heilbronn 1993, ISBN 3-928990-39-X ( Sources and research on the history of the city of Heilbronn. Volume 3)

Web links

Commons : Wollhauszentrum (Heilbronn)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 49 ° 8 ′ 21 ″  N , 9 ° 13 ′ 12 ″  E