Cologne’s listed railway bridges are threatened with demolition | EUROtoday

Cologne was bombed to rubble and ashes throughout the Second World War. If elements of the historic buildings, which have change into uncommon, are threatened right now, the best consideration needs to be paid. The metropolis’s architectural heritage contains an ensemble of 4 metal railway bridges of various designs from the nineteenth century. They belong to the route on the left financial institution of the Rhine to Brühl and Bonn, which leads from the primary station over an embankment with the Cologne-West and Cologne-Süd practice stations and these similar bridges out of the cathedral metropolis. Built round 1880, the buildings, which had been registered as technical monuments in 2012, are witnesses to Rhenish industrial structure and railway historical past in addition to Cologne’s city improvement. They span ground-level underpasses that, just like medieval metropolis gates, join town middle and outer districts. These underpasses are utilized by numerous drivers, cyclists and pedestrians on daily basis and are maybe perceived as dingy, however actually fascinating. Now Deutsche Bahn needs to demolish it and change it with new buildings.

The way of life of the Rhenish metropolis, which isn’t solely sung about at Carnival – “Kölle, dat es e Jeföhl” – is immediately and sensitively affected by this challenge in essential areas. The curves and rhythms of the steel beams and arches studded with rivets, in addition to their play of sunshine and shadow, have all the time consciously or unconsciously had a optimistic impact on residents and passers-by. The underpasses have pure or ashlar stone within the base space and tiles from Villeroy & Boch from Mettlach of their higher zones.

The tiles, that are nonetheless weather-resistant, supplied brightness after they had been nonetheless white. But what soot, pigeon droppings and poor lighting do for the more serious are externalities that have to be managed. What is necessary is that the bridges are small pearls of structure and develop a particular spatial impact while you go them. Its aesthetics, primarily based on cautious design, permit you to orientate your self, determine along with your environment and paths and expertise a particular second in on a regular basis life whereas on the go.

The catastrophe that new Deutsche Bahn buildings promise, nonetheless, can already be marveled at within the north of Cologne’s previous city, similar to on the medieval church of St. Ursula and on Gereonswall: delicate constructions have been changed by slabs of concrete beams with none allure, as if there have been neither architects and designers nor style and sense of fashion on this nation. You do not wish to should stroll by right here or work or stay subsequent door.

The two bridges over Venloer Straße and Vogelsanger Straße are among the many 4 very elegant constructions, which at the moment are pitch-black as a consequence of their infamous neglect. Through them you will get from the Wilhelminian-era New Town Belgian Quarter and the Stadtgarten with the jazz hotspot to the Cologne-West practice station, the Grüngurtel Park and the Ehrenfeld district. It is famous on their arches after they had been final rusted and painted – the primary in 1963, the opposite in 1959. In the final six a long time, any notable upkeep work on the 2 bridges on Zülpicher Strasse and Luxemburger Strasse has additionally not been recorded within the metropolis’s chronicle. The obligation of care and preservation enshrined within the Monument Protection Act is just ignored till the final individual – drawing conclusions from the soiled situation concerning the substance – parrots the story of the dilapidated situation.

While Deutsche Bahn has decreed the “end of their technical service life” for the bridges, the metal arch constructions, for which there’s mainly no expiry date, are nonetheless totally practical from a monument preservation perspective. They would merely should be renovated after which checked commonly with a view to stay match for the subsequent a long time.

The Cologne architectural historian and industrial archaeologist Alexander Kierdorf considers the historic helps and abutments to nonetheless be resilient, for instance for a so-called “renewed superstructure”, and criticizes that the constructions had been evaluated “theoretically / mathematically, but not practically, for example through material tests”. Kierdorf, who can also be chairman of the Cologne regional affiliation of the Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Landscape Protection (RVDL), concludes that “essential parameters and actual load reserves” hardly play a job in Deutsche Bahn’s meager however all of the extra suggestive argument.

The firm additionally appears to disregard detailed studies from confirmed specialists, together with structural engineers, if they don’t serve the objective of demolition and new development. By the way in which, it has not but taken under consideration that renovation shall be costlier and take longer. Although many voters are not at all detached to how their environment current themselves, such issues are not often mentioned publicly – or solely the momentary features of it, particularly what highway customers will face by way of months-long closures, as unhealthy as they’re.

The conclusion printed a number of months in the past concerning the desolate state of affairs of German monuments was sobering, even insufferable. Relics from the previous can enrich the current and future. Particularly within the cathedral metropolis, which has all the time seen itself as an necessary location for artwork and tradition and can most likely proceed to promote this sooner or later, additional loss is unacceptable. The similar applies right here: “Ass huh, fight each other!” – get out of your consolation zone, open your mouth. The folks of Cologne needs to be grateful to the RVDL for now going forward and submitting an objection with the Federal Railway Authority.