image copyright: Marian Cerman
Unmistakably, that's the Heinzenwies Gymnasium.
An der Heinzenwies 5, 55743 Idar-Oberstein.
This is a rather long story.
It began some twenty years ago, when the school buildings were too small to house all classes. Thus, two pavillons were built on a plateau behind the main school building. The Oberstufe's classrooms, i.e. classes 11-13, were located there.
1994:
One day in Winter 93/94, one of the pavillons exploded.
It simply began burning in the dead of the night, and it was only when the gas bottles on the roof went up that the housekeeper woke up and called for help. (The gas bottles belonged to the workers who renewed the roof isolation.) Of course, it was too late and the whole building burned down.
In the following debates, it was decided to build a new attachment to the main part of the school, later only called the "Neubau". It was erected on the other side behind the school.
Now came a period of relative calm in this matter.
1996:
Not for long.
Just after summer vacation 1996, the main building (the one on the picture) was evacuated and closed for an indefinited time. Problems with the concrete and the steel core parts and all, you know... someone used too much sand and too few cement during the initial construction effort in the 70s. The whole structure was in danger of collapsing, and so no one was allowed to enter the upper floors anymore.
Naturally, this put a severe strain on the room issue, and the Oberstufe had to have classes in the afternoon and evening, while the Mittelstufe attended classes in the morning and the Unterstufe had to go to school in the building of the Realschule down in the valley.
Of course this couldn't be done for a long time, so provisional containers were provided for classes. Half of the school grounds was filled up with these beige metal blocks. Air conditioning facilities were inferior, so in summer it was quite hot in there and in winter the radiators had a tough time.
Meanwhile, many specialists came and went and did some experiments and measurements and extracted some core samples from the structures. Part of the stairs in front of the building (to be seen on the picture) was demolished and rebuilt, and windows were replaced on the front side of the building.
Thereafter, access was granted again.
(The interested reader may have noticed that no major restoration efforts were undertaken, nor have we been informed definitely about what has been found to be the cause/state of all this and what counterefforts have been made. Sad but true.)
One more thing: The Neubau sunk into the ground some ten centimeters over half its length after its erection, with cracks opening up in the walls. (In the meantime, this has been countered by painting over the walls.) The roofing wasn't so excellent, either; some of the white ceiling tiles in the classes started to let water through and to rot away.
1999:
As of now, the wooden ceilings have been replaced with new cork tiles (or something similar) for fire security reasons. Besides, the whole school (the "Plattenbau" look) was planked over with metal sheets. Nearly all windows have been replaced. Most important: A new meeting hall was built, causing a major redesign of the entrance hall and surrounding structures.
This is The Story of The Heinzenwies As We Know It.
(BTW: The above photo is merely a fake, used for the 1997 Abitur paper and T-shirts: "Nach uns der Einsturz.")
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