General renovation of the Freisinger Asam building is progressing - a tour

Created: 04/26/2022, 08:01

By: Andreas Beschorner

"Asam, open yourself": The concrete building will be a freight elevator complete with a stage - with a spectacular facade.

© Lehmann

The general renovation of the Freisinger Asam building is progressing.

It is already clear: a jewel is being polished to a high gloss.

First insights.

Freising

– April 2017: Work on the general renovation of the Asam building has started

Five years later, you get a good impression of how the room layout is, how the new foyer and the new staircase will welcome visitors, and what the city museum will look like.

During a site visit on Monday, one even had the opportunity to get very close to the historical ceiling in the Asam hall.

Mayor Tobias Eschenbacher spoke at the start of the tour through the more than 300-year-old walls of an "impressive and striking building".

What has happened on the construction site over the past few months is also impressive and striking – progress that is hardly noticeable from the outside.

"Asam, open yourself"

What you do notice, however, is sub-project P2 – the freight elevator on the south side of the building, which can also serve as a stage and is known to have the name “Asam, open yourself”.

Brigitte Schneider from the city's building department, who is responsible for this sub-project, explained the concept and presented the future facade, which will consist of anodised aluminum slats according to the design by the artist couple Lutzenberger and will depict the Freisinger Mohr from the ceiling painting of Freising Cathedral.

The area in front of it will be used for outdoor catering as well as an auditorium for open-air events.

Around 400 visitors will be able to find space here - "an extreme upgrade" of the place, which has received little attention so far, according to the mayor.

With Ulrich Setzwein, the city's project manager, we then went to the future foyer of the Asam complex - where cars and the city's "speed cameras" used to park, as Eschenbacher recalled.

The picture that emerges here and elsewhere in the building: It looks very tidy - even if the plaster and the final floor are still missing.

The future new staircase, which will lead to the first floor from the foyer, is still missing, but the space for it is already there.

(By the way: everything from the region is now also available in our regular Freising newsletter.)

Brand new museum

In order for the entourage to get to the first floor, the route had to be taken via the old historic staircase.

Ulrike Götz, director of the city museum, explained that the museum will experience a significant expansion as a result of the conversion.

There will be three to four times as much exhibition space as before, in order to then give tourists and Freisingers “an idea of ​​the city” and its history.

The first floor will be a museum tour, which is currently being intensively planned and during which one can also experience the structure of the building, with views of the inner courtyard again and again - the inner courtyard in which technology shafts and rainwater retention devices are currently located be built, which will later disappear under the pavement.

The new foyer: Where cars used to be parked behind wooden doors, the spacious foyer and the tourist information center will be located in future.

Mayor Tobias Eschenbacher (3rd from right) is looking forward to it.

© Lehmann

Jewel in new splendor

It then went even higher to the second floor, where the Asam Hall, the heart of the cultural center in the city center, is being remodeled and renovated: there was a view down into the orchestra pit and up to the ceiling of the Hans Georg Asam.

There are currently three restoration companies on site to let this baroque jewel shine in new splendor.

As a reminder: At the end of 2014, pieces of plaster had fallen down, the Asamsaal first had to be closed and then fitted with a support corset to protect the spectators until the start of the renovation in 2017.

It is not yet certain when spectators will be able to sit in the Asamsaal and enjoy culture again.

The target period is autumn/end of 2023, as the head of the building department, Robert Naujokat, confirmed when asked.

You can find more current news from the district of Freising at Merkur.de/Freising.