Essen

Essen, City of Industrial History and Artistic Present Essen, located on the Ruhr River, is one of Germany’s ten biggest cities. Governed by abbesses for more than 1000 years, Essen is a center for arts, history of coal and steel manufacturing, and even a major tourist attraction today. The history of Essen starts in the 800’s; in 852 Aflrid von Hildesheim created a convent. This convent was created for daughters of the Saxon high nobility. The majority of the settlers to come by this convent were farmers. The Essen Cathedral, the convent, was destroyed in a fire in 946; the reconstruction lasted for many years ending in 967. The foundation remained intact and is still Essen’s Cathedral’s foundation to this day. The Werden abbey church was affected by two fires and rebuilt twice around the year of 1275, the earliest signs of written literature come from this church. Also in this year the Collegiate Church is also consumed with fire, but rebuilt in gothic style as it is today. Fires were big in Essen and nearly 300 years later a massive fire consumes all signs of the middle ages. Continuation of the history of buildings in Essen starts again in the late 1800 when the Essen City Theatre is officially opened in 1892 as a gift from the industrialist Friedrich Grillo. A few years later in 1913 a synagogue is built by Edmund Körner, it is one of the biggest Jewish meeting houses in Germany. Two good future sightseeing opportunities come when in 1922 the Essen Kunstmusseum is created and is today’s Folkwang College for Music, Theatre and Dance. The other is GRUGA-park on Lake Baldeney; unemployed works in the early 30’s created a settling basin for suspended matter to keep the River Ruhr clean. Essen was not automatically a city it took from 852 to 1896 for it finally to become a complete city. During the time frame of 971 to 1011, Prioress Mathilde was one of the first three prioresses from the Saxon royal or imperial family, her efforts in improving the