Belle Epoque - Germany: Hanover

Germany

Hanover (Lower Saxony)

All images of Hanover are © KuKS from the site Jugendstilarchitektur in Hannover

Public Baths Goseriede (1905)
Goseriede 11

This unique Art Nouveau building in the centre of Hanover has a changeful history as public baths, swimming baths, meeting point of the youth as well as a media and culture centre.

The Goseriede baths, opened in 1905, with its women's pool, two men's pools (first and second class), fourty bathtubs, rooms for massage and vapor baths was one of the most modern and most expensive public baths of Germany. During the Second World War, it was heavily damaged but could reopen in the beginning of the Fifties. But the necessity of public baths became more and more unimportant so there was only the swimming pool used anymore. When the operation of the baths meant increasing charges for the public authorities, the town, in 1982, decided to close it in spite of all protests. Many years later during which the building remained empty, it was altered to a media and culture centre in the Nineties. In 1997, the kestnergesellschaft opened an exposition hall in the location of the former women's pool and the entrance area. In the area of the men's pool first class, there is now a local radio station. The former men's pool second class had already been taken down in the Eighties.