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| Established | 1878 |
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| Location | Domsheide 15, Bremen |
The Bremen Main Post Office Building (German : Ehemaliges Hauptpostamt) or (German : Kaiserliche Oberpostdirektion) is a Neo-Renaissance building in Bremen, Germany, that used to be the Imperial Post Office for the Bremen area. The building stands on the city square named Domsheide.
The four-winged building in the old town of Bremen was designed by Carl Schwatlo, a Berlin architect now known for his post office work, and constructed under the supervision of Ernst Hake from Stargard. It was completed in 1878. [1] [2] The project followed the establishment of the Deutsche Reichspost as a national monopoly in 1871. An area of land on the Domsheide was made available by the Bremen senate on the site of the former Eschenhof, once the residence of Alexander Erskein, who was the Swedish "president", in modern terms governor, of the Duchy of Bremen (previous Archbishopric of Bremen). The building was built in the Neo-Renaissance style of the times, with all the sophistications of a Central Imperial Post Office (Kaiserliche Oberpostdirektion). The sections overlooking the Domsheide were three storeys high while those on the lower Dechanatstraße had four storeys. Until 1896, the building enclosed a large courtyard. [1] The interior was decorated with paintings by Arthur Fitger. [1]
The Neo-Renaissance building housed the telegraph department and the main post office while the second floor held the grand rooms required by the director of the post office, not just his residential quarters but also a large banqueting hall in the centre of the avant-corps. While fine apartments in such buildings were common, the banqueting hall was unusual and may have resulted from the city's desire to excel in its first really prestigious building. [1] Arthur Fitger depicted nymphs and centaurs in the arches and the director's apartment was in line with his high status within the German Empire. [1]
During the 1970s the building was extensively redesigned to meet the needs of the German Federal Post Office. [2]
Since 2006 the building has been used by the St John Catholic School [2] but the more prestigious Emperor's Hall with its murals by Fitger are sometimes open to the public. [3] The building's history is summarised with a plaque on the wall which includes a QRpedia code that links to this article. [4] Last not least, the post office in the ground flour has not been closed, it is still one of the busiest in Bremen. [5]
The Bremen City Hall is the seat of the President of the Senate and Mayor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. It is one of the most important examples of Brick Gothic and Weser Renaissance architecture in Europe. Since 1973, it has been a protected historical building. In July 2004, along with the Bremen Roland statue, the building was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites because of its outstanding architecture and its testimony to the development of civic autonomy in the Holy Roman Empire.
Arthur Heinrich Wilhelm Fitger was a German painter, art critic, playwright and poet.
Schloss Oldenburg is a schloss, or palace, in the city of Oldenburg in the present-day state of Lower Saxony, Germany. The first castle on the site was built around 1100 and became the ancestral home of the House of Oldenburg. The present building served as residence to the counts (1667–1785), dukes (1785–1815) and grand dukes (1815–1918) of Oldenburg.
Johann Georg Poppe, often called Johannes Poppe by English-speaking writers, was a prominent architect in Bremen during the German Gründerzeit and an influential interior designer of ocean liners for the Norddeutscher Lloyd. He worked in an eclectic mixture of historical revival styles sometimes called "Bremen Baroque".
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Domsheide is a major square in the city of Bremen, Germany. It is located east of the Marktplatz and south of Bremen Cathedral. Streets leading to it include Ostertorstraße, Dechanatstraße, Balgebrückstraße and Violenstraße. It contains a number of important buildings, including the main post office, the courthouse, the cathedral precinct with the bell, and the annex to the stock market building. It is one of three main hubs of the public transport network, with most tram routes and two important bus lines crossing the square. The design of the Domsheide is relatively uneven, characterized by materials such as sandstone, dark red brick, red and yellow clinkers, render, concrete and marble.
Die Glocke is a concert hall in the centre of Bremen, Germany. Standing on the site of a building from the Middle Ages, it was designed by Walter Görig (1885–1974) and completed in 1928. Its elegant Art Deco design and excellent acoustics have been praised by a number of artists including Herbert von Karajan.
The Kontorhaus am Markt in Bremen is a historical building in the city centre of Bremen. Today, it is used as a shopping mall. It is situated at the Bremer Marktplatz between three streets: Langenstrasse 2/8, Stintbruecke 1 and Bredenstrasse 13.
The Langenstraße is a historical street in the old town of Bremen in the north of Germany. First mentioned in 1234, it is one of Bremen's oldest streets and one of the most important for the city's merchants. It no doubt originated at the time when the first settlements grew up on the north bank of the Balge. It runs west from the Marktplatz parallel to the River Weser over Bürgermeister-Smidt-Straße to Geeren. Many of the street's historic buildings were seriously damaged during aerial bombings in the Second World War but were carefully reconstructed in the postwar period.
The Suding & Soeken building is a gabled house at No. 28 Langenstraße in Bremen, Germany. Referred to as a Kaufmannshaus or Kontorhaus, it is one of the city's few historic merchant houses to survive the war undamaged. It is noted for its projecting Renaissance bay window and its two-tiered Baroque stairway ascending from the hallway.
The Glockenspiel House is a building in Bremen in the north of Germany. With its 30 bells of Meissen porcelain, the carillon (Glockenspiel) chimes three times a day while wooden panels depicting pioneering seafarers and aviators appear on a rotating mechanism inside the tower.
The Ludwig Roselius Museum on Böttcherstraße in the old town of Bremen, Germany, houses the private collection of the successful coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius (1874–1943). Artefacts from the Middle Ages to the Baroque period are on display. The house itself which was completed in 1588 has a history going back to the 14th century.
The Deutsche Bank building on Domshof Square in the centre of Bremen, Germany, was completed in 1891 in a Historicist style by the architects Wilhelm Martens and Friedrich Wilhelm Rauschenberg.
The Bremen Cotton Exchange was built in 1902 on the market square in Bremen, Germany, to house the offices of the city's cotton exchange founded in 1872. Johann Poppe's Neo-Renaissance facades and carefully finished interiors can still be seen today.
Stephansplatz is a square in Neustadt quarter, Hamburg, Germany. It is located at the junction of the streets of Dammtordamm, Esplanade, Dammtorstraße, and Gorch-Fock-Wall, south of Dammtor area and Dammtor station. The square is named after German Empire post director Heinrich von Stephan, who is known for his role in the founding of the Universal Postal Union. The square and a small part of the streets of Dammtordamm and Dammtorstraße had been renamed in the course of the inauguration of the historical building of Alte Oberpostdirektion at the square.
