“The most charming Renaissance building north of the Alps” – this is the description that people like to adorn Isenburg Castle. The facade is praised on the website of the Rhine-Main Regional Park as “the pride of the university”, which is also housed in the castle.
Offenbach – But the sight on site is sobering: Few places in Offenbach are so smeared with graffiti, littered with dirt as the area of the palace and the University of Design (HfG). The square around the Ludo Mayer fountain, whose water features have long been turned off, is littered with broken glass, stone slabs are damaged or missing.
Graffiti is everywhere on the castle, whether on the front or back, information boards about the history of the building are smeared or covered with stickers, even the wooden door on the eastern tower is completely smeared. The university building doesn’t look any better: Here, too, graffiti, stickers, stone sculptures and reliefs are blackened by exhaust fumes.
This serves the usual Offenbach clichés
One of the people who knows exactly what the external impact of this place is is the tour guide Monika Krämer: She regularly visits the castle and the HfG with visitors to introduce both. “The majority of the visitors are very shocked when they see the buildings: Graffiti everywhere, plus the broken glass on the floor, that’s really bad.” Especially with visitors from Frankfurt, this would serve the usual clichés about Offenbach. “The passage at the HfG is particularly bad, it has only been dirty for decades. I am ashamed every time I walk through it with people. “
There are clear words about the condition of the whole area: the graffiti is “unbearable”, the condition of “a castle is unworthy”. “The city would not tolerate such conditions at the schools or other municipal facilities and would have them removed within a very short time,” says city spokesman Fabian El Cheikh. The cultural control board at the castle is “the most disfigured in the city”.
The HfG area in Offenbach is state property
But there is no handle for the city: The entire area is state property. The state, in turn, refers to the HfG as a user: “The university is responsible for ongoing maintenance as well as on-site maintenance.” The HfG receives a budget from the state from which the maintenance of the listed area is to be financed.
Not a pretty sight: the square in front of the Ludo Mayer fountain is littered with broken glass.
© Summer
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The HfG does not provide any information on how high this budget is. But it is “already more than exhausted,” they say. The condition of the listed area is known, but the university, which has to pursue its main task of teaching and research, must set priorities here. The monument preservation tasks are already demanding, they say. The company commissioned with the removal of the graffiti expressed concerns that the cleaning would also damage the color of the lock.
HfG asked the city of Offenbach for support
Although the yard is swept daily, since it is a freely accessible area, littering occurs at night. The HfG had repeatedly asked the city for support through controls, but there was no response. For the non-operation of the Ludo Mayer fountain, the university cites the water shortage in summer, and it also happened time and again that people washed in the fountain.
On the part of the city it is said that they would like to encourage the state and university to become more committed to the monument. A disfigured and polluted castle area is neither a figurehead for the city nor for the university. (Von Frank Sommer)
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