Mühlegasse 5

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View of the building front, end of February 2014
View from the Lindenhof over the Limmat with the Rudolf-Brun-Bridge and the Limmatquai , the red-brown building in the center is Mühlegasse 5, 2007

The Mühlegasse 5 is a residential and commercial building in the Lower Village of Zurich's old town . The eastern part of the building was built in the middle of the 14th century. The two at the time still structurally and legally separate parts of the house, "to Black lands" and "Brent ham house," are on the murerplan recognizable from 1576 already largely present in shape. From 1907 to 2008 the Radium cinema was located on the first floor of the eastern section .

building

location

Excerpt from the Murer plan from 1576, in the extension of the footbridge today's Mühlegasse, No. 1 with flat sheds, No. 3 a somewhat recessed one-piece house, No. 5 with two building parts of different heights, No. 7 the corner house
View over the Uraniabrücke (today Rudolf-Brun-Brücke) into the Mühlegasse. The gable wall of the house on the left side of the street with the barely recognizable "KINO RADIUM" lettering is Mühlegasse 5
Mühlegasse 3 and 5, around 1915

Mühlegasse 5 is located in the Niederdorf of Zurich's old town. The town hall and the Predigerkirche are nearby . The Mühlegasse 5 building is located in the extension of Uraniastrasse over the Limmat , about sixty meters behind the Rudolf-Brun-Brücke (formerly Uraniabrücke) and the Limmatquai on the left side of the street. The Haifisch nightclub is located in the neighboring historic building Mühlegasse 3 ( Rotes Mühlerädli ) , while the Mühlegasse 7 building on the right is a modern building with residential and business premises. An Indian restaurant and an IT service provider have rented an Indian restaurant and an IT service provider on the ground floor of Mühlegasse 5 ( Zur Schwarzen Stege ), while apartments are located on the first to third floors.

history

The Zurich Niederdorf has been documented since the 12th century (as an inferior villa ). At the site of today's Mühlegasse 5 property, the remains of three older buildings were found. Some of the upscale features found in the course of the archaeological investigation indicate that the residents were wealthy. It was probably already about Müller, only a few meters away, next to today's Rudolf-Brun-Bridge over the Limmat, the Obere Mühlesteg with several mills once protruded into the water.

The area of ​​the property at Mühlegasse 5 is located in an area that has been elevated at least since the Roman-Early Middle Ages compared to the banks of the Limmat and the Wolfbach, which is located to the south and has now disappeared. It is not clear whether it is a natural terrain structure or a heaped material in the manner of a dam. On this basis was at 900, the large-scale landfill a silty Lehmpakets as subgrade of development. The floor in the western part of today's building has been severely disrupted in the recent past, so that an archaeological investigation was no longer useful. However, the eastern part remained largely undisturbed. The first and second settlement phase with building on threshold beams could be documented by fire pits and other finds and dated from the beginning of the 10th century to the first half of the 11th century. With the third to sixth settlement phase for the period from the first half of the 11th century to around 1100, a simple stone building can be proven for the first time, which was removed due to a fire disaster and ended with the evacuation of the site in the first half of the 12th century. Around 1150 there was renewed construction, which also included commercial use, possibly in metal processing. These seventh to ninth settlement phases lasted into the 14th century, after which no more soil archaeological findings have been preserved.

The dendrochronological examination of the eastern roof structure showed the year of construction 1342. The oldest documentary evidence of the development dates from 1357. At that time there were at least two, probably three buildings on the property. The western part belonged to Johanns Erishopt as an independent building. The eastern part belonged to the Brentschink family, who ran a mill on the upper Mühlesteg. The house was named "Brentschinkenhaus" after her. The rear building was called "Esteler Hus", it was rebuilt in stone around 1400 and disappeared in the first half of the 16th century at the latest. Its area was then probably used as a backyard. During the 16th century, the western part of the building today was erected, it is 1576 by Jos Murer on the murerplan been mapped. In 1606 extensive renovations were carried out here, this could be proven by the dendrochronological dating of the ceiling beams on the upper floors. At that time and until the 18th century at the latest, there was a pottery in the eastern building . At least until the middle of the 17th century, when the western part was named "Zur Schwarzen Stege", possibly until around 1730, the two houses had different owners. Around 1730 they were combined and sold together with a mill on the Mühlesteg. The Wehrli family of millers acquired the house in 1772 and remained the owners until 1909. At the end of the 18th century, a carriage shed was set up in the east of the building , which only had to give way to a shop and the hall of the Radium cinema in 1907.

In the early 20th century, the Limmatmühlen horse stables were on the western ground floor . In mid-1907, the house owner converted the coach house on the eastern ground floor into a shop. In the same year, the Radium cinema was installed there, the design came from the Zurich architects Huldi & Pfister. For the cinema, the ceiling was removed in the cinema area so that the resulting projection room comprised the ground floor and the first floor. The windows on the first floor were initially only temporarily closed. At the bottom right was the main entrance, which led directly to the street.

Sometime between 1915 and 1928 almost all the windows on the first floor were bricked up. The resulting 15 meter wide and two meter high area was designed in 1928 by the facade painter Emil Morf (1867–1949) in the way that is still visible today. The Zurich Monument Protection Department described the painting in a report: “The facade painting is a valuable testimony to the color movement of the interwar period. Parallel examples can only be found in the area around the “ Colorful Magdeburg ” under Bruno Taut . Formally, it can also satisfy strict aesthetic requirements ».

During the 20th century, a number of Zurich artists lived in the house at Mühlegasse 5. They included the photographer Jakob Tuggener (with his photo lab), the actor and cabaret artist Zarli Carigiet , the actress Lotte Lieven-Stiefel , the graphic artist Ernst Keller (with his studio), the goldsmith and university professor Ernst Dennler , and the stage and costume designer Margrit Portmann (with her studio) and her husband, the film director Hans-Ulrich Schlumpf . One of the students living in the house because of the cheap rents was David Streiff , who later became director of the Locarno Festival and head of the Federal Office of Culture .

In 1982 the facade painting was extensively restored. By then it had survived 54 years. Regardless of the renovation that had taken place only a quarter of a century ago, the facade of the house had fallen back into a condition in need of renovation in 2008 due to severe erosion and massive plaster damage. After the Radium cinema ceased operations at the end of June 2008, a comprehensive renovation of the building was carried out with the support of Zurich City Architecture. The necessary work took place in 2009 and 2010. Because of the disturbances in the soil structure to be expected in connection with the laying of pipes, it was decided to carry out an archaeological investigation, although a basement for the building was not planned.

Today, in addition to the words “KINO RADIUM”, the wall painting shows some teardrop-shaped cartouches with dates that are related to the history of the building. Between the wall painting and the windows of the first floor there is a white band with inscriptions that also explain the history of the house: “1357 BRENTSCHINKENHAUS” and “SINCE 1637 ZUR SCHWARZEN STEGE”. The facade painting by Emil Morf, which characterizes the image of the building, is now a listed building. The house owner would have preferred if after the renovation of the building a cinema would have moved in again or a "related" form of use had been possible. However, no operator has been found for this.

movie theater

Advertising postcard for the opening of the Radium cinema , 1907

The Radium cinema was opened by Carl Simon-Sommer as the third fixed cinema in Zurich on October 12, 1907. It was a small shop cinema typical of the early days of cinema. The projection room was long and narrow, but because of the removed ceiling it was at least high enough to allow the screen to be raised. The furniture in the unadorned hall consisted of simple wooden chairs and a piano for the musical accompaniment of the silent films .

Cinema advertising has shaped the external appearance of the house since the Radium cinema opened. In the first few decades, every usable area of ​​the facade was used as advertising space, on the gable wall of the house facing the Limmat was written “KINO RADIUM” in large letters and wooden panels with film posters on the outer wall, showcases with photos and movable panels on the outside wall The walk in front of the cinema clearly indicated its use.

At the end of June 2008 the Radium cinema closed for good. While the “Royal” cinema in Baden was saved from demolition by citizen protests and continues to exist as the Royal Baden cultural center , nothing remains of the Radium cinema in Zurich apart from the facade painting.

From February to May 2011 there was an exhibition in the house of the renovation of found cinema posters and other exhibits on the history of the house at Mühlegasse 5 in Zurich's Haus zum Rech under the title “Find location cinema - archeology in the Radium cinema”.

literature

Web links

Commons : Kino Radium  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c City of Zurich, Building Department (ed.): Spectacular find in the Radium cinema , February 14, 2011, accessed on January 28, 2019.
  2. ↑ City of Zurich, Building Department (ed.): Mühlegasse 5, 2009 , around 2010, accessed on January 28, 2019.
  3. ↑ Christoph Rösch: The excavations at Mühlegasse 5 in Zurich , pp. 12–48.
  4. ↑ Christoph Rösch: The excavations at Mühlegasse 5 in Zurich , p. 10.
  5. ↑ Christoph Rösch: The excavations at Mühlegasse 5 in Zurich , pp. 48–58.
  6. ^ Adrian Gerber: Sensation im Schundkino , p. 8.
  7. ^ A b c d Adrian Gerber: Between Propaganda and Entertainment , pp. 115–117.
  8. ↑ a b c Mühlegasse 5, Zurich. Renovation 1982 and TransAtlantique 1983 , Film-Schlumpf website, accessed January 27, 2019.
  9. ↑ Mühlegasse 5, Zurich. Studios and artists , website Film-Schlumpf, accessed on January 27, 2019.
  10. ↑ Christoph Rösch: The excavations at Mühlegasse 5 in Zurich , p. 5.
  11. ^ Adrian Gerber: Sensation in the Schundkino , p. 4.
  12. ↑ a b The last credits in the oldest cinema in town , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , July 3, 2008, accessed on August 29. January 2019.
  13. ↑ a b Urs Bühler: Silent Witnesses from the Silent Film Era , Neue Zürcher Zeitung, February 15, 2011, accessed on January 28, 2019.
  14. ↑ Mariann Sträuli, Karin Beck, Halina Pichit, Nicola Behrens, Christian Casanova, Max Schultheiss: Kinofieber: 100 years of Zurich cinema history , website of the Presidential Department of the City of Zurich, approx. 2007, accessed on January 28, 2019.

Coordinates: 47 ° 22 '27.8 "  N , 8 ° 32' 36.6"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred and eighty-three thousand four hundred forty-three  /  247648