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CENTRE
CHARLEMAGNE
GB
Neues Stadtmuseum Aachen
ROUTECHARLEMAGNEAACHEN
Contents
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Route Charlemagne
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The building and its history
Where the pillory once stood
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Permanent exhibition
Celts, spa guests, Charlemagne Prize
Flintstone and hot springs
Charlemagne takes up residence in Aachen
What the Palace looked like
The city of coronations
The Great Town Fire
A spa taxi for the nobility
The French in Aachen
Cloth and needles
From frontline town to European city
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Service
Information
Imprint
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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 Newspaper 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 information on all the sights along the Route Charlemagne.
A three-cornered museum
Why does the triangle play such an important role in the Centre Charlemagne? 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 layout of the ancient Roman town being later overlaid in Christian times
with a new street grid oriented to the East.
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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 prominent 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
19th 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 building 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.
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The building and its history
Jochen König and Thomas Croon have integrated the New City Museum 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 history of Aachen make this “building within a building” the focal element 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).
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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 Neolithic 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.
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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 multilingual communication of content. The interactive character of the museum 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 refreshment 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)
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Flintstone
and hot springs
Glass drinking-horn, 4th - 5th century AD
The historical tour on the lower floor of the Centre Charlemagne starts with Aachen’s myths of origin and the beginnings 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 Charlemagne – out hunting – comes across the Aachen thermal
springs among the ruins of a Roman palace. And an oil
Stone-age scraper
for working
leather
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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 boundaries. 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 widespread reputation. The Centre Charlemagne has a number of relevant
archaeological finds on show, including votive stones, a glass drinking-horn and the instruments of local spa doctors. A 3D animation
based on the latest scientific findings shows what Roman Aachen
looked like.
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Charlemagne takes up
residence in Aachen
Around 450, the Franks superseded Roman rule in
Aachen. The latest archaeological finds indicate the continuity of a Franconian settlement here from the Migration 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.
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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
19th century.
Charlemagne spent the winter in the Aachen Palace (aquis palatium)
for the first time in 768/69. In addition to the royal estate and the palace, there must have been a small settlement where craftsmen, servants and high-ranking members of the court lived.
From around 794, Charlemagne commissioned the extension of
the palace and the construction of monumental buildings. For about
20 years, Aachen was his main seat of power, from which he ruled
over the mighty Franconian Empire. Through his many conquests,
he increased the size of his realm to include vast areas of western
and central Europe. In 800, he was crowned emperor in Rome. Charlemagne’s Church of St Mary in Aachen, today’s Cathedral, is an outstanding example of the Carolingian architecture built in those times
and has an entire section devoted to it in the Centre Charlemagne
featuring numerous archaeological finds, a large-scale model and a
3D animation. St Mary’s with its central structure, the Octagon, was
based on models from late antiquity in Ravenna, Constantinople and
Jerusalem. At the construction site in Aachen, the latest technology
of the times for the processing of stone, glass and metal was applied
to precious materials like marble, porphyry or gold to create a wide
range of colourful and gold-plated mosaics.
After his death on 28th January 814, Charlemagne was buried in an
unknown location in St Mary’s Church at the Aachen Palace.
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What the Palace
looked like
A
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King’s Hall (aula regia)
Granus Tower
North Annex
St Mary’s Church (Octagon)
South Annex
Atrium
Southwest building
Connecting passageway
Portico
The Aachen Palace is the focus of ongoing studies by archaeologists, building researchers, conservationists, architects and historians. In an interdisciplinary project that
has been running since 2009, these experts have exchanged and compiled masses of data, documents and
drawings and have succeeded in updating the model
established in 1965 by the former Cathedral Master Builder Leo Hugot, a model which had remained unchallen12
Permanent exhibition | Model of the Palace
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G
D
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ged for many decades. The new model is constructed on the basis
of the current state of research. It shows the Carolingian Church of
St Mary, the Granus Tower and the King’s Hall (aula regia). For the
first time, the foundations from which the reconstruction has been
developed are rendered visible. Thanks to coloured shading, the
archaeological finds from the individual construction phases can be
seen on the metal plates set into the ground. Sanded areas of walls on
the buildings indicate where the original masonry still exists today.
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The city of coronations
The third section of the Centre Charlemagne is devoted to
the medieval coronations and to Aachen as an imperial
city. Many medieval kings saw Charlemagne as the ideal
of a Christian ruler and strove to emulate him. Aachen’s
Church of St Mary with Charlemagne’s tomb and the
throne on the gallery ascribed to him became the prime
focus for commemoration and veneration of the great
emperor. From the coronation of Otto I in 936 through
to that of Ferdinand I in 1531, 30 East Franconian and
Roman-German kings as well as 12 queens were crowned
in Aachen. The artistic portrayals of the Aachen coronation ritual on the wall behind the first axis of the
exhibition, the wheel of coins with over 40 royal coins
and exhibits like the precious facsimile of the Aachen
Imperial Gospel all draw the museum’s visitors into the
fascinating world of the Middle Ages.
Parallel to the coronations, the Cult of Charlemagne
in Aachen grew constantly. In the year 1000, Emperor
Otto III had the tomb of Charlemagne opened. He endowed St Mary’s Chapter in Aachen with privileges and
relics. In 1002, he was laid to rest, like Charlemagne, in
St Mary’s Church. Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa had
Charlemagne declared a saint on 29th December, 1165.
In all probability, Emperor Charles IV donated prominent
relics to St Mary’s Chapter, including the Bust of Charlemagne and the Charlemagne Reliquary. In 1562, Aachen
lost its coronation privilege to Frankfurt am Main.
In the 14th century, Aachen grew into a wealthy production and trade centre for cloth and metal products
and became one of the most important destinations
for pilgrimages in Western Europe, as evident from the
splendour of new buildings like the Gothic Town Hall
and the enormous Choir Hall of St Mary’s. In the 16th and
17th centuries, the city entered a period of political and
economic decline, due in no small part to the loss of the
coronations and to an increase in sectarian conflicts.
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Permanent exhibition | Coronations | Turning point in the 17th century
The Great Town Fire
Aachen townsfolk take flight. Jean Baptiste Huysmans’ painting
portrays the Great Fire in 1656.
The Great Town Fire on 2nd May 1656 had a profound impact on
Aachen’s town history. The fire started in a bakery in Jakobstraße,
where, as a result of negligence, a granary had spontaneously ignited.
The fire quickly spread to the neighbouring houses and from there
throughout the town. The readily inflammable half-timbered houses
with their wooden roofs fuelled the inferno. The roof and towers of
St Mary’s Church were engulfed in flames, and in the Town Hall parts
of the City Archive, the Archive of the Court of Lay Assessors and the
Council Library were destroyed. The colossal disaster claimed 4,425
houses and about 20 churches, infirmaries and monasteries: nine
tenths of all the buildings in the town. Medieval Aachen had been obliterated. Although help was readily provided by the neighbouring
towns of Maastricht and Liège as well as by Cologne and other imperial cities, the reconstruction proved to be a lengthy process that completely changed the face of the city.
In the Centre Charlemagne, the most famous portrayal of the disaster
is on show, a painting by Jean Baptiste Huysmans (1654-1716) or by an
artist of his circle. The painting shows townsfolk fleeing with their belongings from Aachen in flames, and probably dates from several decades after the Town Fire.
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A spa taxi for the nobility
The gala sedan chair for spa guests is from the 2nd half
of the 18th century and was made in the Aachen region.
With the reconstruction following the Great Town Fire of
1656, Aachen was transformed into a modern health and
spa resort. Under the influence of the Liège-born spa
doctor François Blondel (1613-1703), Aachen’s spa culture
experienced a modern-day heyday. Internal and external
application of the thermal water was promoted as an effective treatment for rheumatism, skin, organ and respiratory ailments, inflammations, poisoning, venereal
diseases and mental distress. A luxury spa complex was
erected around Komphausbadstraße for distinguished
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Permanent exhibition | The Baroque spa resort
guests from all over Europe. The new spa buildings, bath houses,
parks, promenades, drinking fountains, hotels and ballrooms soon
dominated the Aachen townscape. In the 18th century, the architect
Johann Joseph Couven (1701-1763) refurbished the Town Hall into a
Baroque city palace and erected a multitude of other magnificent
buildings in Aachen and its surroundings. In 1748, Aachen was the
venue for the great Peace Congress that was intended to bring the
Austrian War of Succession to an end.
The Centre Charlemagne brings this era of Aachen’s history back to
life through luxury objects like the gala sedan chair that was used as
a “spa taxi”, illustrated spa magazines, graphics and coins. A media
station displaying digitalisations of Couven’s original architectural
drafts and pictures of the completed buildings give the museum’s
visitors a vivid picture of how the face of the city was changed in
those days.
Two wooden sculptures, paintings and graphics illustrate how, in the
era of the Catholic Counter-Reformation and the Ottoman Wars, Charlemagne as the patron saint of the city was transformed into a defender of the true Catholic faith and into a crusader. The clothing of the
images of the Madonna and the Infant Jesus, made from the shroud
of a French king, exemplifies the close relationship between Aachen
and France that had developed through the Cult of Charlemagne.
The Kaiserbad spa was so renowned that it was constantly
being depicted in travel guides. (Etching from 1682)
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The French in Aachen
In 1794, French revolutionary forces occupied Aachen.
The French fundamentally modernised Aachen’s administration, economy and culture. The demolition of the city
walls, the erection of new buildings and the establishment of parks substantially changed the townscape. In
1798, Aachen became the administrative capital of the
newly created Roer Department, and in 1802 an episcopal
see. In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) became
Emperor of France and conquered vast areas of Europe.
He saw himself as the successor of Charlemagne. On two
occasions he visited Aachen, which as a “bonne ville”
ranked among the favoured cities of his empire. Following
Napoleon’s defeat in the Wars of Liberation, French rule
in Aachen collapsed in early January 1814.
The Centre Charlemagne depicts the dawn of the modern
age through a variety of exhibits. A model of the Tranchot
Obelisk on the Lousberg, erected in 1807, and a corresponding media station focus on the important endeavour
of surveying and mapping the Rhinelands. An interesting
detail: in an attempt to get at the coins and medals embedded inside its plinth, the Tranchot
Obelisk was blown up by Mecklenburg soldiers and Aachen townsfolk on 1st/2nd April, 1814.
In 1804, Napoleon
presented a valuable
empire clock to the
Aachen factory owner
Laurenz Jecker
(1769-1834).
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Permanent exhibition | Dawn of the modern age
Cloth and needles
Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the territories west of the
Rhine fell to Prussia. Aachen became the administrative seat of a district president. The Prussians promoted the early industrial development of Aachen, and its health and spa resort operations. Aachen
grew into a modern city. The 19th century witnessed a rediscovery of
medieval town history and a revival of the Cult of Charlemagne. From
the 1840s onwards, the Town Hall and the Cathedral were restored in
neo-Gothic style. The Prussian kings supervised and influenced the design work. The artists Alfred Rethel and Joseph Kehren painted eight
huge frescoes in the Coronation Hall of the Town Hall featuring motifs
from the life of Charlemagne.
With a model of a machine from cloth production and sample cases
from the needle industry, the permanent exhibition in the Centre Charlemagne highlights two of Aachen’s key industries in the 19th century.
A crucial factor for industrialisation was the railway that linked Aachen to the network from 1841 onwards. Graphics show the massive
impact of factories, new residential quarters, stations and railway
lines on the townscape. A model of the Elisenbrunnen from 1827 and
a media station explore the continuing
importance of Aachen as a spa
resort in the 19th century.
The mock-up model
of a universal fulling
machine dates from
around 1900.
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From frontline town
to European city
American GI Ivan Babcock
posing with the Imperial Crown.
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Permanent exhibition | Aachen after the war
In 1914, and once again in 1939/40, Aachen and its region became a
deployment zone of the German Reich for military operations against
its western neighbours. National Socialism and the Second World War
led to unimaginable atrocities and destruction. A series of allied air
raids caused massive destruction to the city. On 21st October 1944,
Aachen became the first German city to be taken by the Americans.
The American military government began their initiative of implementing new democratic structures in Aachen. The American military
government and the German civilian administration worked together
to provision the population and rebuild the city. The “Aachener Nachrichten” rolled off the press as the first “free” newspaper in occupied
Germany.
The end of the Second World War saw the beginning of a process of
political and cultural unification in Europe that is still going on today.
The International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen, initiated in 1949,
established Aachen’s reputation as a European city. In times of a
Christian West and German-French reconciliation, Charlemagne became a historical model for European integration, and Aachen became
the point of origin of his grand legacy. Today, the soft borders in the
Euregio, immigration, tourism and the RWTH Aachen University have
transformed Aachen’s character into that of a multi-cultural metropolis and an international city of science.
The permanent exhibition traces the history of the city in the 20th and
early 21st century with the help of a media slider containing more than
250 photos, a media table with numerous films, audio clips, digitalised newspapers, postcards and photos, and key exhibits like the Charlemagne Prize diplomas for Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand from
1988 and the memorial stone inaugurated in 1964 on the Katschhof by
Willy Brandt: “Europa – Grundstein des Friedens” (Europe – Cornerstone of Peace). And last but not least, visitors can get to know some
of Aachen’s inhabitants as they
talk about their city in a film
clip.
The International
Charlemagne Prize of Aachen:
the Charlemagne Medal was
awarded for the first time in 1950.
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Welcome!
For parents and children, for senior citizens, school classes and other groups: the permanent exhibition has an
exciting programme of guided tours and workshops. Our
standard tour lasts 60 minutes, and on request we also
offer in-depth guided tours of the individual topic areas.
Our Museum Workshop offers school classes the
special opportunity to interpret what they have seen
in the exhibition using their own creativity. Our workshops are tailored to the different age-groups – for preschool, primary school and secondary school classes. For
special needs schools, we will gladly collaborate with the
teachers to develop appropriately designed programmes.
We will be delighted to act as your partner for your school
projects or topic weeks and to work with you in the planning of these events.
Museum Education Programme
Information and bookings
Sekretariat Museumspädagogik
Johannes Paul II.-Str. 1, 52062 Aachen
Tel. +49 241 432 4998, Fax +49 241 432 4989
[email protected]
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Education | Service
Information
Centre Charlemagne
Neues Stadtmuseum Aachen
Katschhof 1, 52062 Aachen
Tel. +49 241 432 4994, Fax +49 241 432 4989
[email protected]
www.centre-charlemagne.eu
Opening hours
Tue-Sun 10 am - 6 pm
Admission
Adults: 5,00 Euro, concessions: 3,00 Euro, Family Ticket: 10,00 Euro
Public guided tours
Meeting point: Museum Box Office
Permanent exhibition
Saturdays 2 pm and Sundays 12 pm, admission only
Temporary exhibition
Sundays 3 pm, admission only
Permanent exhibition for senior citizens (seating provided)
Every first Thursday of the month at 3 pm, admission only
Barrier-free
Barrier-free access / WC / lift
Getting there
Bus: from Aachen Main Railway Station
All bus lines in the direction of Bushof/Town Centre
to bus stop Elisenbrunnen –
continue on foot > Cathedral > Katschhof
Car parks: Town Hall/Mostardstraße, Cathedral/Jesuitenstraße
Museum Café “Karls”
Opening hours: Tue-Sun 10 am - 6 pm, Tel. +49 241 46 36 60 87
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Published by
Stadt Aachen, Der Oberbürgermeister
Fachbereich Presse und Marketing
Haus Löwenstein
Markt 39, 52062 Aachen
Tel. +49 (0)241 432-1309
[email protected]
www.aachen.de
Editor
Dr. Jutta Göricke
Text
Dr. Jutta Göricke, Dr. Werner Tschacher, Martina Witt
Translation
Peter Bereza
Photos
Peter Hinschläger, Holger Hermannsen (p. 22),
Gerhard Mertens / Stadtarchiv (p. 5), Pit Siebigs (p. 20)
Design
Maurer United Architects, 2009 | DDT2w, 2014
Price 1,00 Euro | Printed on 100% recycled paper