The Lerchenfelder Brücktor became a landmark in Freising 100 years ago.
But then the history of the building came to a sad end.
Freising
– A massive gateway once stood on the southern bridgehead of the Freising Isar Bridge.
Contrary to what the countless photo and postcard motifs of this gate would have you believe, it actually only existed for a few decades: 36 years to be exact, from 1912 to 1948. The gate can therefore probably be considered one of the most short-lived buildings of the Freisinger describe the history of the city.
When the Brücktor was built in 1912 on behalf of the Royal Bavarian Road and River Engineering Office in Munich, the intention was not actually to build a gate at this point.
The actual motif was different and much more modern: A high-voltage line that was routed from the Moosburg power station to Munich required a new and stable support mast in this area.
The gate was functional yet beautiful
The cable framework, which was erected at the bridge for this very purpose in 1907, had to be abandoned due to the extensive flood protection structures and the southern extension of the Isar Bridge by two flood arches (1910 to 1912).
With the bridge extension, they saw an opportunity to find a suitable solution for the necessary support mast - in the form of a historic archway.
It was very much in keeping with the times at the time to conceal the appearance of a purely functional building and to reshape it architecturally - especially if the building or its urban environment was of particular importance.
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The Brücktor was considered a "landmark" in a certain way.
However, no one wanted to bear the maintenance costs – and certainly not the Bavarian state.
© Repro: City Archives
This fact played a role in the expansion of the Freisinger Isarbrücke built in 1893/94.
Even if this was a state building project, the city politicians around Mayor Stephan Bierner (in office from 1899 to 1933) probably had an influence on it.
At that time it was certainly in the interest of the city to find a different solution for the area of the Isar Bridge with the panoramic view of the Domberg than to erect a high iron support mast there.
The Brücktor, with its historicizing design language, can be seen as a solution typical of the time for this aesthetic problem.
From 1912 onwards, anyone heading from Lerchenfeld across the Isar Bridge into the city center had to pass through this large gate.
The Freising city coat of arms attached to the southern side of the gate suggested that the city only began here and that Lerchenfeld did not really belong to it.
After the World War, the bridge gate came to a sad end
Over time, probably during the 1920s, the bridge gate lost its actual function as a support structure for the high-voltage line.
All insulators and cables attached to the top of the gate have been removed.
In the end it was just an architectural ornament of the Isar Bridge.
The bridge gate survived the critical final weeks of the war, the air raid on April 18 and the partial blast of the Isar Bridge on April 29, 1945.
However, the reconstruction and traffic improvement of the bridge in the years 1946 to 1948 finally brought the gate to an end.
Although the management committee of the Freising city council had indeed awarded the gate the quality of a "landmark" in its meeting of June 14, 1948, the widening of the roadway would have resulted in breakthroughs through the gate pillars for the sidewalks on both sides.
At the time, nobody wanted to bear the costs required for this – certainly not the Bavarian state, which in 1937 was able to shift the construction burden on the bridge to the city, but not for the Brücktor.
It was still in his possession.
(By the way: everything from the region is now also available in our regular Freising newsletter.)
On November 21, 1948, at 8:15 a.m., a dull bang could be heard in Freising: the bridge gate was blown up and collapsed.
Florian Notter, Head of the Freising City Archives