Jockel-Fuchs-Platz, Urban square at Mainz City Hall, Germany
Jockel-Fuchs-Platz is the terraced square in front of Mainz City Hall, built to designs by Arne Jacobsen and Otto Weitling. A public car park lies beneath the terrace, linked to the square by a glass lift and two staircases. The Rathausbrücke, a pedestrian bridge over Rheinstraße, leads from the square to the Brand-Zentrum shopping centre and the Brückenturm.
The square in front of Mainz City Hall was renamed Jockel-Fuchs-Platz on 6 March 2003, having previously been called Halleplatz. It honours Jakob "Jockel" Fuchs, the mayor after whom the city named the forecourt of the town hall it built during his tenure.
The square is named after Jakob "Jockel" Fuchs, Mainz mayor from 1965 to 1987; the renaming from Halleplatz took place on 6 March 2003. Two sculptures stand or stood here: Andreu Alfaro's Lebenskraft, spiral aluminium rods installed in September 1982, and Hans Arp's biomorphic Schlüssel des Stundenschlägers, an eightfold enlarged cast of a 1962 work given by Rhineland-Palatinate in 1974 for the new city hall's inauguration.
The square sits above a public parking garage; a glass elevator and two stairwells link the garage to the terrace level. The Rathausbrücke pedestrian bridge crosses Rheinstraße to the Brand-Zentrum, and the Brückenturm houses the city's tourist information office.
The Schlüssel des Stundenschlägers, an 800-kilogram, 4.16-metre biomorphic sculpture, is an eightfold enlarged recast of a 1962 work by Hans Arp. Rheinland-Pfalz gave it to Mainz in 1974 for the new City Hall's inauguration. From May 2011 to May 2021 it was on loan to the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck; it now stands temporarily in the Zollhafen redevelopment area.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 93,845 contributors worldwide.