Central garage

The Zentralgarage (also Centralgarage or Central-Garage ) of the company Adam Weber I. Zentralgarage GmbH on the property at Gaustraße 1–7 in Worms , was set up from 1928 to 1932 in a disused, four- story rye mill (1853) of the company Leopold Landsberg (Worms) . Today the multi-storey car park operates as Weber Garages . The two residential and commercial buildings on Gaustraße also belonged to the commercial enterprise, one of which (Gaustr. 3) is still used as a car dealership today.

View from Gaustraße

The parking spaces of the garage are located on three floors of the old building, on the ground floor and on two upper floors. From 1928 onwards, parts of the skeleton structure of the old building were upgraded with reinforced concrete for the automotive conversion . The two upper floors of the central garage are still accessible today via an external single-lane spiral ramp built in front of the former mill building. A bay-like extension in the form of a closed, long rectangular hall was added to the old building at the level of the first floor.

Building history

prehistory

As early as 1928, a first building application approved the establishment of a car hall with around 20 lockable car boxes (individual garages), a car wash room and a storage room for oil and lubricants on the ground floor of the former rye mill. The owner of this garage project was Adam Weber I (Worms), the civil engineer Carl Geyer (Worms) was commissioned as the architect. These car boxes were set up in two ground floor rooms of the old building, separated by a massive partition. A separate gate opening for the access road was broken into the outer wall for each of these rooms. Partitions and garage doors of the permanently rented automobile parking spaces were, as is often found in large garages of this type, made of wire mesh as mesh boxes. However, the building authorities did not allow the company to store petrol in the rooms.

Conversion and expansion of the multi-storey car park 1929–1932

This first phase of conversion was followed in spring 1929 by a second and third building project to expand the large garage. For this purpose, several draft plans were submitted to the Worms building authority for approval .

View of the garage building

The first design by architect Eugen Weil (Worms) envisaged a simple, single-lane spiral ramp that was to be placed in front of the facade of the former mill building as an independent structure. The first floor and the newly installed vehicle boxes were to be accessed via this ramp . Weil's subsequent draft, on the other hand, provided for a fully clad, four-story access building with narrow longitudinal windows. This entrance and exit ramp, also designed as a spiral ramp, should now lead to the fourth floor. Weil also planned to expand the first floor with an extension. On the first and second floors, the dividing wall, which formerly separated the mill area from the warehouse, was to be broken through in order to create a continuous garage floor. The approximately 20 car boxes per floor were now on the long side facades.

View of the spiral ramp

By 1931, the open, single-lane spiral ramp was finally implemented as a reinforced concrete construction, via which the first and second floors are still accessible today. By 1933, a total of 40 individual boxes and 25 collection boxes were set up on the three heated garage floors (ground floor, 1st – 2nd floor). The individual boxes could be rented for 2–2.5 RM per day, but there was a parking space in the collection box for 1.5 RM. The service offered by the garage company also included a petrol pump , which was located in the courtyard fence of the property between the gates of the separate entrance and exit, and a towing service for cars that were no longer drivable. All services were available day and night and seven days a week. In November 1932 an application was made to set up a repair shop for motor vehicles in two existing sheds on the property . Around 1935, 120 parking spaces and a car workshop can be proven for the central garage.

post war period

The multi-storey car park survived the Second World War without being destroyed. After 1945, the company continued to operate under the name Centralgarage as a large garage with around 100 parking spaces, a repair workshop, customer service and gas station, and as a wholesaler for Adam Opel AG. The garage, which was confiscated by the American occupation troops after the end of the war and again around 1951, continued to operate under the name Adam Weber I Zentralgarage GmbH from June 25, 1946 to January 19, 1968 . The entries in the commercial register then result in various changes to the operational orientation that supplement the garage operation. For example, one of the residential buildings on Gaustraße was converted into a car showroom and a public petrol station was set up. The towing service RA Weber was also located there as a subsidiary until the 1990s .

Central garage and garage facilities

Situation in all of Germany

Examples of the conversion of existing buildings for the purpose of parking automobiles can be found as early as the 1890s. These conversions, however, served without exception as private storage rooms for the respective automobile owners. The first commercial garages (Mietgaragen) could where automobile owners Einstellplätze hire permanently for their vehicles, were then either also conversions of existing buildings - for example former Mietställe, Tattersalls , warehouses, commercial and factory buildings - or newly constructed simple series garage equipment in wood and brick construction . Such companies, later referred to as large garages, can be verified for the first time in Berlin from 1899. Large garages were usually low-rise buildings, with two-story buildings that had a basement in addition to the ground floor, being an exception. Large garages with several upper floors, i.e. multi-storey car parks, have only been realized in Germany very few.

The actual number of multi-storey buildings converted into garages from 1899 until the interwar period is unknown. Only a handful of these buildings can be scientifically proven. The central garage in Worms is the only known example so far in which a spiral ramp system for overcoming heights has been structurally added. In the case of conversions of this type, automobiles were usually transported at a height by installing automobile lifts at a later date. Multi-storey examples of this practice of continued use include the Residenz garage (Hanover, before 1925), formerly a theater, or the Gressmann multi-storey car park (Hamburg, 1936), once the warehouse of a machine factory (1890). Both buildings have already been demolished.

The garage business in Worms

The central garage is the only multi-storey car park that was built in Worms up to the interwar period. From the turn of the century to the outbreak of the Second World War, however, more than a dozen large garages in the form of low-rise buildings were built in the urban area. Between 1909 and 1933 several large garages can be identified, each of which had a maximum of 20 parking spaces: for example Rudolf Becker's garage (Rheinstrasse 2; 21 parking spaces) owned by Georg Jäger GmbH (Hagenstrasse 52; 20 E.), the garage of Schreiber & Co. GmbH (Kämmererstr. 51; 15 E.) or the Georg Mayer garage and workshop (Sterngasse 13; 4 E.). The Central Garage was with her 65 pitches thus the largest Mietgarage the city. An official directory of garages with more than 10 parking spaces from February 1935 then shows a total of 13 rental garages in Worms. With around 120 parking spaces, the central garage was also the largest operation at that time. The second largest rental garage was the large garage of Georg Jäger GmbH, which has since been expanded, with 80 parking spaces.

Importance as a monument

The central garage is not only one of the few conversions of multi-storey old buildings that still exist today, it is also an exceptional example of the conversion of existing architecture for the needs of automobilism and the practice of building on existing buildings during the interwar period. It has not yet been placed under protection in terms of monument preservation.

swell

Worms, Worms Building Regulations Office, building file Gaustraße 1, Adam Weber .

Worms, Worms City Archives, Inv. 180/8 1239, Commercial Register Worms , Department B, No. 113 (1947–1968).

Worms, Worms City Archives, Inv. 180/8 1239, p. 1, letter dated October 11, 1951 to Industriekreditbank AG; Re: “ Adam Weber I., Central-Garage GmbH, Worms, Gaustr. 1–7 ".

Worms, Worms City Archives, Inv. 13/2094, construction of motor vehicle halls (files of the police administration for the construction of rental and private garages Gen. Spec.), Letter from the Hessian Police Directorate Worms dated February 11, 1935; Re: " Directory of garages in the city of Worms with more than 10 parking spaces ".

literature

René Hartmann: Architecture for automobiles - multi-storey car parks and multi-storey car parks in Germany. A car [mobile] vision in the 20th century (dissertation, Institute for Art History and Historical Urbanism), Technical University Berlin 2015

49.634934 8.363802Coordinates: 49 ° 38 ′ 5.8 " N , 8 ° 21 ′ 49.7" E