Friday, September 6, 2019

The Andlau House

One of my very first blogs (number five) dealt with the country estate of the noble family derer zu Andlau at Hugstetten near Freiburg.


The Andlaus bought two standard plots
 of 50 times 1000 feet to build their noble house.
Noblesse oblige, so the Andlaus had a noble house downtown, too, a Palais on Herrenstraße.

The Andlauhaus in 1943
The ruins of the Andlauhaus in 1960
Like many other historical buildings in Freiburg, the Andlau Palais was destroyed in the bombing raid on November 27, 1944. The plot was flattened, tared, and used as parking in the sixties.

In 2015 a lady looked into the excavation.
She is standing in front of the former entrance, of which the remaining stones will be reused.
Frequently Freiburgers had asked why the ugly gap on Herrenstraße was not closed. In 2012 Freiburg's archdiocese wanted to fill the empty site when, in 2013, the disastrous Tabartz-van Elst affair made the headlines. As the Bishop of Limburg, he had used church money to build himself a palace residence. Immediately the Catholic Church scrutinized all building activities in 2015, and the Freiburg project was put on ice.

The Freiburg Office of Historical Monuments found few traces of the Andlau Palais.
Only in 2016, the Church took up the building activity again.


Red Baron had not visited the place for a long time. So suddenly, last week, he stood in front of the nearly finished building.

The new construction somehow recreates the former building. In particular, parts of the historical portal made from sandstone were salvaged during the excavation and were integrated into the facade of the new building.

The Church calls its new premises Münsterforum. The forum will house the so-called C-Punkt, a visitor and information center for Freiburg's minster church, and rooms "for various spiritual and musical events." A café-restaurant on the ground floor will be operated by the Archdiocese and Caritas. It will be run by people with and without disabilities.

Freiburg is looking forward.
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