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CENTRE CHARLEMAGNE GB Neues Stadtmuseum Aachen CENTRE CHARLEMAGNE GB Neues Stadtmuseum Aachen ROUTECHARLEMAGNEAACHEN Contents Route Charlemagne 3 The building and its history 4 Where the pillory once stood Permanent exhibition 6 Celts, spa guests, Charlemagne Prize 6 Flintstone and hot springs 8 Charlemagne takes up residence in Aachen 10 What the Palace looked like 12 The city of coronations 14 The Great Town Fire 15 A spa taxi for the nobility 16 The French in Aachen 18 Cloth and needles 19 From frontline town to European city 20 Service 22 Information 23 Imprint 24 2 Centre Charlemagne – Neues Stadtmuseum Aachen Route Charlemagne Aachen’s Route Charlemagne connects significant locations around the city to create a path through history leading from the past into the future. At the centre of the Route Charlemagne is the former palace complex of Charlemagne, with the Town Hall, the Katschhof and the Cathedral – once the focal point of an empire of European proportions. Aachen is a historical town, a centre of science, and a European city whose story can be seen as a history of Europe. This and other major themes like religion, power and media are reflected and explored in places like the Cathedral and the Town Hall, the International News - paper Museum, the Grashaus, the Couven Museum, the SuperC of the RWTH Aachen University and the Elisenbrunnen. The central starting point of the Route Charlemagne is the “Centre Charlemagne – New City Museum Aachen”, located on the Katschhof between the Town Hall and the Cathedral. Here, visitors can get infor- mation on all the sights along the Route Charlemagne. A three-cornered museum Why does the triangle play such an important role in the Centre Char- lemagne? The answer is simple: the architects drew inspiration from an urban peculiarity of Aachen. Many of the public places in Aachen’s historic old town centre are triangular, the result of the original lay- out of the ancient Roman town being later overlaid in Christian times with a new street grid oriented to the East. ROUTECHARLEMAGNECENTRECHARLEMAGNE 3 Where the pillory once stood Glass, light, a building within a building. The Aachen architects Jochen König and Thomas Croon, who were commissioned in 2009 with the construction of the new Centre Charlemagne, have created a bold and original museum architecture – in one of the city’s most promi- nent locations. Here, on the west side of the Katschhof, is where the passageway once ran that connected the Carolingian King’s Hall and St Mary’s Church, today’s Cathedral. At the end of the Middle Ages, roughly on the site of today’s museum, stood the “Acht”, a court house. In front of it was a pillory called the “Kaak” or “Kaks”, from which the square derives its present-day name: the “Katschhof”. In 1748, the Aachen architect Johann Joseph Couven built a comic theatre, which the city architect Adam F. F. Leydel transformed into the “Große Karlsschule” in the 19 th century. In 1903, an opulent administrative building was erected on the site and the Ritter-Chorus-Straße was created, forming a thoroughfare through the previously enclosed west side of the square. After the Second World War, Gerhard Graubner, one of the most influential representatives of the so-called “Stuttgart School”, created a modern administrative buil- ding to replace the older one, which had been extensively damaged in the war. This building, constructed between 1957 and 1960, is considered to be a prominent example of postwar architecture and is therefore heritage-listed. The Katschhof in 1910, looking towards the neo-Gothic Town Hall – to the left the former administrative building as it looked before the Second World War. 4 The building and its history Jochen König and Thomas Croon have integrated the New City Mu- seum into Graubner’s architecture. This involved extensive renovation of the facades on the Katschhof and Ritter-Chorus-Straße sides. The former forecourt was redesigned into a completely glazed entrance area. When you enter the building through the foyer, your attention is caught by an “elevated triangle” – the external walls of the circa 215-square-metre temporary exhibition room. LED-backlit panels on the upper sides printed with dates, symbols and events from the his- tory of Aachen make this “building within a building” the focal ele- ment of the architectural design. Beneath the temporary exhibition room is the History Lab, a place of interactive learning for visitors of all ages. The museum’s permanent exhibition is arranged around the triangular “building within a building” as a chronological journey through Aachen’s city history. In addition to the museum, the building also continues to house a part of the city administration (entrance to the Citizens’ Service Office: Johannes-Paul-II.-Straße). ROUTECHARLEMAGNECENTRECHARLEMAGNE 5 Celts, spa guests, Charlemagne Prize On its circa 800 square metres, the permanent exhibition in the “Centre Charlemagne – New City Museum Aachen” offers a tour through the history of Aachen from the Neo- lithic to the present day. One of the main focuses is the history and the legend of Charlemagne. Without him, the city would never have attained its historical significance as the residence of the Carolingian ruler, as a medieval city of coronations, or, after 1945, as a place of European remembrance. Civic self-assurance: in 1620, the Aachen City Council had Charlemagne cast in bronze and erected the statue in front of the Town Hall. 6 Permanent exhibition / Celts and Romans Silver coin (denar) of Charles the Bald with the Karolus monogram from the Aachen Mint, 869/70 “Centre Charlemagne” – the name of the New City Museum – pays homage to Charlemagne as the ancestor of Europe and the founding father of two nations: France and Germany. The name expresses the openness of the house to all citizens of and visitors to the city. This is reflected in the broad range of topics and in the versatile and multilin- gual communication of content. The interactive character of the mu- seum is evident in more than 30 modern media stations. The whole house is barrier-free. There is an auditorium for talks and lectures, and for film shows. A separate area for projects with school classes, special kids’ zones and a history lab at the centre of the permanent exhibition room are all key elements of the museum’s educational programme. The foyer houses a Museum Shop, and “Karls” Café for those seeking refresh- ment and relaxation. The permanent exhibition showcases Aachen’s local history as a part of the history of Europe and the Meuse Region. It covers six topic areas: Early settlement of Aachen (5th century BC - 7th century AD) Charlemagne’s Palace and St Mary’s Church (8th - 9th century) The city of coronations (10th - 16th century) The Baroque spa resort (17th - 18th century) Dawn of the modern age (19th century) From frontline town to European city (20th - 21st century) ROUTECHARLEMAGNECENTRECHARLEMAGNE 7 Flintstone and hot springs Glass drinking-horn, 4th - 5th century AD The historical tour on the lower floor of the Centre Char- lemagne starts with Aachen’s myths of origin and the be- ginnings of historical settlement. The legends about the origins of the city feature the Romans and, of course, Charlemagne. A portal relief from the Hungarian Baths in Buchkremerstraße dating from 1879 portrays how Charle- magne – out hunting – comes across the Aachen thermal springs among the ruins of a Roman palace. And an oil Stone-age scraper for working leather 8 Permanent exhibition | Celts and Romans Charlemagne’s horse encounters the thermal springs – or so the legend told by the stone relief from 1879 would have it. painting by Albert Baur from 1898 depicts the legendary discovery of the thermal springs by the Romans, the very motif that the same artist used a few years later for his wall fresco in the staircase of Aachen’s Town Hall. Historically, there had been human settlements in the Aachen basin as long ago as in the 5th and 4th century BC. Flintstone from the Lousberg was worked into stone tools and traded far beyond regional bounda- ries. The Celtic settlement in the Iron Age (1st century BC) is currently only sketchily documented by archaeological finds. In accordance with the urbanisation policy of Caesar Augustus in the region between the Rhine and the Meuse, the Romans founded numerous small urban settlements in the 1st decade BC including, along with Maastricht, Tongeren, Heerlen and Jülich, Aachen itself, which probably bore the name Aquae Granni in those days. Roman Aachen reached its heyday in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD as a thermal spa with a very wide- spread reputation. The Centre Charlemagne has a number of relevant archaeological finds on show, including votive stones, a glass drink - ing-horn and the instruments of local spa doctors. A 3D animation based on the latest scientific findings shows what Roman Aachen looked like. ROUTECHARLEMAGNECENTRECHARLEMAGNE 9 Charlemagne takes up residence in Aachen Around 450, the Franks superseded Roman rule in Aachen. The latest archaeological finds indicate the con- tinuity of a Franconian settlement here from the Migra- tion Period through to the 7th century. The first mention of Aachen as a Franconian royal court (aquis villa) dates from 765. This royal court was the central point of a huge agricultural estate that was duty-bound to provide the itinerant king and his extensive royal household with food whenever he paid a visit. After his succession to power, This detail of the Triclinium Mosaic shows Peter the Apostle handing over the insignia of power to Pope Leo III (left) and Charlemagne. The Roman original was created in around 799/800. 10 Permanent exhibition | The Carolingian era A Carolingian royal child was once buried in this sarcophagus, which was discovered in Aachen Cathedral at the end of the 19 th century.
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