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Stadtmetzg
The building (Trade Guild House for the Butchers) was erected in 1609 by Elias Holl. Its innovative use of canal water was a novelty: The Vorderer Lech canal was guided through the basement of the Stadtmetzg to keep the meat cool and to dispose of the waste.
Building history and description
- Butcher's shop with representative Renaissance facade
- Augsburg, city center, Metzgplatz and Hinter der Metzg
- Erection 1606-1609
- collection of the Imperial City Academy of Art in the upper floors in 1712
- hiring of the butcher's shop in 1850
- fire and conversion to social welfare office in 1930
- fire and reconstruction in 1944
- Builder Elias Holl
- Bronze coat of arms: Sculptor Hans Reichle, founder Wolfgang Neidhardtumeister Elias Holl
- 126 sales areas on the ground floor, guild and office rooms on the upper floors
- strict horizontal layout of the main facade, topped by a stepped gable, attenuation by concave elements, volutes and triangular end
- different design of the projectiles or windows (1st floor: triangular gable, 2nd floor: Doric frieze and cornice, 3rd floor: segment gable)
- Two portals on the ground floor with flanking pilasters, with bull-head capitals, rusticated building corners, bronze coat of arms on the central axis in the 3rd floor
- new guild building of the butchers magnificent yet sober-simple, so orientation to the surrounding artisan houses
Use and purpose
- central butchery of the imperial city of Augsburg, slaughterhouse built in the immediate vicinity
- Predecessor building on Town Hall Square
- Moving allowed representative revaluation of this central urban square
- New construction of Elias Holl as part of its urban development program
- sober language of form and ornamentlessness as a symbiosis of the Italian Renaissance with the local conditions and building traditions
- complex construction due to the integration of a channel in the basement
- Cladding and straightening of this watercourse was used to cool the meat decomposed and stored there, as well as to dispose of the resulting waste
- innovative masterpiece of technology and architecture, thereby reputation as the most modern butcher shop in Europe of the 17th century
- Stadtgemetzg von Elias Holl with its early form of cooling as a technical innovation, adaptation of a Lechkanals in the old town, butcher guild and all citizens of Augsburg benefited and favored development of trade and commerce
- Architecturally and artistically high-quality representation of the water system and part of the city's extensive "urban program" of Augsburg around 1600 under Elias Holl
Authenticity and unique features
- historic interiors and building divisions not preserved
- Reconstruction after a fire in 1944
- Interior layout still suggests administrative building
- 2016 color adaptation of the facade according to the design intentions Elias Holls
- Connection of representative renaissance architecture Elias Holls with experimental, innovative, then most modern hydrotechnology