The Altkönig statue and a sledge in front of the Mountain Lodge in Camp King, Oberursel.
Snow in Camp King
Mountain Lodge conversion underway
Work has begun on converting the Mountain Lodge in Camp King (Building 1027) into a set of flats.
(Photos taken on Monday, 21st April, 2014)
Related articles
Mountain Lodge open to the public
The field in front of the Mountain Lodge
Dandelion clocks on the field in front of the Mountain Lodge in Camp King on Friday, 25th April, 2014
Mountain Lodge open to the public
Last Saturday, 16th March, 2013, visitors to the Camp King area had a rare chance to visit the Mountain Lodge, previously known as building 1027 and the officers’ mess, it was once intended to be the new town hall in Zeppelinheim after being exhibited in Frankfurt, but instead was dismantled and rebuilt at the end of the 1930s in Oberursel.
One of the investors, Stefan Kuhn, was on hand to answer questions about the building and I am grateful to him for permission take and publish photographs of the interior.
(Click on the photos to enlarge and start the slide show)
Camp King archive to be officially opened on Saturday
You may know the building as “Haus am Wald” or as “Außerhalb 7”, maybe as “Haus Florida” or “Haus 997”. However if you only moved to Oberursel in the last 15 years it is quite possible that you only know it as the “Kinderhaus”.
That building in Camp King, which was originally built in 1921 and has since been known by all of those names, it set to become the permanent home of the Camp King archive, where all of the information collected about the area can be made available in future to historians and school classes.
The official opening will take place on Saturday, 16th March, 2013 at 11pm, and after a speech by Mayor Hans-Georg Brum his predecessor Gerd Krämer will give a talk entitled “Erinnerung braucht Ort” (remembrance needs places). [Read more…]
Who says that we can’t afford a swimming pool?
The Bürgerversammlung about the new swimming pool last week appears to have a lasting effect on many in Oberursel, because in the space of just a few days the political landscape in the town has changed dramatically.
Let me try and explain the past few years in simple terms first:
1. The indoor pool in the town was closed because the roof was deemed unstable.
2. The coalition of CDU and FDP wanted to sell of a sports field (Altkönigsportplatz) and the swimming pool car park to finance a new building, and an architect came up with a design to include a sauna and modernise the outside pool at the same time.
3. At the town parliament elections last year, the SPD, Green party and OBG were all behind the swimming pool, but did not want to sell of the sports field, and although the CDU remained the largest party in the parliament, the SPD/Green/OBG coalition gained a majority.
4. SPD/Green/OBG drew up a coalition agreement that they would build a new swimming pool, but would borrow at most only 20% of the capital needed to do so and would not sell of the sports field.
5. It was then decided just to build a new indoor pool and leave space for a sauna, moving work on the outdoor pool to a later date.
6. Planning permission was given, changes to Bebauungspläne were approved, and companies started giving quotes on the cost of actually building it.
7. A few weeks ago they even held a press conference to announce that building work would be starting soon.
You could say that everything was going swimmingly, until the town’s treasurer explained why the town could not afford to build it. [Read more…]