TIMERIDEBlog
Cologne's old town before demolition
Don’t worry, the headline has a good hundred years on the hump. Although – from “demolition” is hardly mentioned at the time. Rather of “old town health” and “old town redevelopment”. But if you want to heal or rehabilitate, you need first a sick patient. And the gibt it from the perspective of the urban planners at the time: The Martinsviertel. Mwith the narrow alleys and the small squares such as the butter market and the fish market is it although even back then the “kölsche Hätz”. Sad is but nevertheless nobody startedinntdemolition here on a grand scale.
from Jonas Mortsiefer on 28.02.2024
A Cologne harbor district
What St. Pauli is today in Hamburg, the Martinsviertel was a hundred years ago in Cologne. Pubs, dives and dodgy establishments line up here, attracting sailors from the nearby Rheinauhafen – at that time, by the way, still with cranes and without crane houses and a chocolate museum. The area soon became notorious not only as a pub district, but also as a red light district.
From the “social hotspot”…
But even apart from that, the neighborhood does not enjoy a good reputation. It’s cramped here, everything is built up to the last square meter. And the old houses offer little air, even less light and certainly no sanitary facilities. Despite its direct proximity to the Rhine and view of the cathedral, no estate agent would have called it a “good location”. If you have enough money, you move away. Only the destitute remain, gradually impoverishing the neighborhood.
…to the showcase of Rhine Romanticism
But the district has “development potential”, as one would say today. In the small houses with their pointed gables, you might think you’ve discovered the good old days of the Middle Ages. The National Socialists also saw it that way, and from 1935 they demolished, gutted and rebuilt large areas here. Eisenmarkt and Ostermann-Platz are being built and just five years later it is finished – without any dingy harbor and red light flair: the brand new old town made to look old!
Only to lie in ruins again another five years later. The war is over in 1945 and almost nothing is left of the old Cologne. Reconstruction is just around the corner. And because the plans are still in the drawer, the Martinsviertel is being rebuilt according to the ideas of the 1930s. The third Cologne Old Town – an open-air museum that shows how the good old Cologne was dreamed of and built.
Jonas Mortsiefer
has in the Master Public History studied, can memorize year numbers only to a limited extent and asks prefer according to what the Mpeople from back then Moves and driven has uand what that has to do with the present. BFor example at his field of interest from historical architecture and Urban development – because, if you like, is both nothing other than manifested history of ideas and built past.
