Belle Epoque - Germany: Donaueschingen

Germany

Donaueschingen (Baden-Wuerttemberg)

A destiny similar to Ålesund

Donaueschingen is a small town in the south of Baden-Württemberg on the edge of the Black Forest where the confluence of Brigach and Breg forms the beginning of the Danube. In the park of the princely castle, a built spring is supposed to be the Danube source. The town was for the first time mentioned in documents in 889 as "Esginga".
On the 5th August 1908, a hot summer day, four years after the Ålesund catastrophy, at two o'clock in the afternoon, a fire broke out in a barn while most of the residents were working in the fields.
Very quickly, the summer wind helped it to spread out throughout the whole town. Fourteen hours later, the fire was extinguished, but more than 300 buildings, nearly the complete area of today's inner city, have been victim of the flames, 273 families had lost their homes.
Now, the principal aim of the authorities was to rebuild the houses as quickly as possible. Nonetheless, despite the necessary hurry, it was decided that a new architecture should create new accents of urban development. Although the outlines more likely followed the historical style of the imperial era, the architects orientated themselves in decoration, ornementation as well as for the shapes on the contemporary and modern Art Nouveau style thus finding a rather conservative but nevertheless individual way.

All images © KuKS Hannover