History of the Parking Garage

  • 1874

    The farmland in the Feldmark Herrenhausen, which will be owned by Wilhelmine Möhle for 7,500 Thaler Courrant, is three quarters of acres in size. Across from the orchard in the Herrenhausen Gardens, a building with turrets, terraces and large halls is being built under the architect Ludolf and Heussner. A restaurant is located here and concerts are held. Due to its location, the building is listed as "Restaurant Parkhaus" in the Herrenhausen address book.

  • 1880

    The innkeeper Wilhelm Graeve buys the parking garage. Like Tivoli, Bella-Vista and Odeon, it is one of the coveted dance halls in Hanover: This is the time of coffee house concerts, stiff hats and ladies' parties. The parking garage is particularly popular with the soldiers stationed in the area; they take their girls here in the evenings.

  • 1891

    1891 The parking garage is expanded under the banker Moritz Simon. The banker includes it in the area between Nienburger Strasse, Herrenhäuser Kirchweg and Alleestrasse. Above all, the restaurant is being enlarged. The building contractor and architect Max Küster is carrying out this new building.

    A map of the city of Hanover from 1896 shows the parking garage at the sharp intersection of Appel- and Nienburger Strasse. A stone tablet at the entrance of the building states that the architect was Max Richter, but dates it to the years 1894/95.

  • 1905

    Who bought the house after Simon's death can no longer be fathomed from the documents in the city archives.

  • 1914

    The Linden brewery buys the building. It is still used as a dance hall and concert hall. Saxophones "whimpered" in the so-called Golden Twenties, as the Hannoversche Anzeiger wrote in 1926, the garden and terraces were always well attended.

  • 1943

    Bomb hits in July destroy the great hall and other parts of the building. The city administration confiscates the parking garage. Only the kitchen area remains and is used as an air raid shelter.

  • 1957

    1957 The Oppermanns are the new tenants. The next few years of the parking garage were shaped by bowlers from various Hanoverian clubs.

  • 1965

    With the end of the last lease, a new chapter in the history of the parking garage begins: the Hanover University of Technology takes over the building. Instead of a hall and restaurant, there are now lecture halls and small offices. Instead of music, dance and good cuisine, now teaching and research.

    The side wing of the building on Appelstrasse is rented by the university (at that time still a technical college) for the chairs and institutes of electrical systems and control technology, ship machines and measurement technology in mechanical engineering.

  • 1966 (January)

    The management is discontinued (from the article: Lower Saxony wants to buy the "multi-storey car park", Hannoversche Presse, June 14, 1966).

  • 1966 (October)

    The municipal lager brewery (Gilde Brewery) sells the parking garage to the state of Lower Saxony.

  • Today

    In addition to the institutes for energy supply and high-voltage technology, geobotany, landscape management and nature conservation, the institute for measurement and control technology has moved into the parking garage.