Old Main Bridge Ochsenfurt
The Old Main Bridge Ochsenfurt is a multi-arched stone bridge that spans the Main at river kilometers 271.18 and connects the city of Ochsenfurt with the district of Kleinochsenfurt . It has a lane for passenger car traffic with a maximum total weight of 3.5 tonnes and cyclists in both directions as well as an upstream sidewalk. The structure, which originates from the Middle Ages, is one of the most important large bridges from this time in Germany and is a listed building in the Bavarian List of Monuments .
history
The first indications of the construction of a wooden bridge come from the year 1133, the first documentary mention was in 1254. The wooden structure at that time was on a trade and military route from Lübeck to Augsburg and replaced a ferry to cross the Main at the place of one old ford. In the middle of the 14th century, the wooden bridge already had stone pillars, the core of which is still there today. The pillars one to three, seven, eight and eleven have medieval wall structures with humpback blocks made of shell limestone and pincer holes. A bridge mill was built on the second pillar downstream. By 1421 at the latest, Ochsenfurt had acquired the rights of the Würzburg cathedral chapter to collect the bridge tariff, including the maintenance obligation.
From 1512 to 1520, the city of Ochsenfurt commissioned the Würzburg cathedral master builder Hans Bock and the stonemason Hans Sparr to build the massive arches. The exposed arches consist of wedge-shaped shell limestone blocks , the vaults themselves are made of rubble stones with mortar grouting. Years on the arches show the construction time. The structure had 12 free pillars. A fortress with two semicircular defense towers secured access to the city on the first pillar and a customs tower on the tenth pillar was used to collect bridge and water tolls. In December 1682, ice and floods destroy the northern abutment and Pillar twelve. An inscription from 1688 on the northern abutment documents the repairs by Hans Platz.
An extreme flood at the end of February 1784 led to the collapse of pillars four, nine and ten with two arches, the customs tower and the old town mill. As a result, pillar four were repaired and the two bridge arches were replaced by a wooden structure. In the course of the German War , the wooden bridge section was set on fire. The stone bridge was rebuilt in 1867 by the builder Michel from Marktbreit , and its shape remained unchanged until 1945.
On April 1, 1945, German units blew up arch six in the middle of the bridge. In the years that followed, a provisional wooden structure spanned the gap in the building. After the opening of the New Main Bridge in 1954, the reconstruction of the Old Main Bridge followed, which was completed in 1957. Due to the expansion of the Main into a major shipping route, the three middle arches five to seven were replaced by prestressed concrete beams around 58 meters long, which spanned the Main dammed up by the Goßmannsdorf barrage. Considerable structural damage with a risk of collapse led to the complete closure of the Old Main Bridge on September 8, 2006. In April 2007 the pre-stressed concrete girder was dismantled over the shipping channel.
First, the city of Ochsenfurt planned a new construction of the entire bridge, as renovation did not seem possible. After detailed discussions, however, it decided against the approved, complete demolition and reconstruction based on the historical model with a widening of the lane. The city commissioned the reconstruction with a general renovation in line with historic monuments and a prestressed concrete bridge in the middle section of the bridge at a cost of around eight million euros. This was funded by the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation and the Bavarian State Foundation with a grant of two million euros. Construction began in the spring of 2010, the topping-out ceremony was celebrated on September 9, 2011, the opening for pedestrians followed on January 5, 2012 and the official inauguration on June 30, 2012.
construction
The 270 meter long bridge originally had thirteen piers. Today there are four left on the city side and six at the northern end. Two pillars in the middle of the bridge were removed in 1957. The pillars, between 5.32 to 9.60 meters wide and 11.94 to 15.79 meters long, are built on wooden driven piles and beam gratings and have spur-like heads to protect against ice and floating debris. Pulpits are arranged on pillars two, three and twelve, on which two stone statues of the patron saint Johannes von Nepomuk and one of Thekla von Kitzingen stand. The clearances vary from 11.47 meters between pillars ten and eleven to 15.3 meters between pillars three and four. The width of the lane varies between 5.36 meters and 6.64 meters.
The modern, arcuately curved bridge superstructure consists of a total of 108 meters long, three-span prestressed concrete beam with a dual-shoulder -beam cross-section. The field length over the shipping channel is 60 meters. The two 24 meter long side panels are integrated into the historic arch bridge. The heights of the bridge girders vary between 2.4 meters above the inner piers and 1.6 meters in the middle of the bridge. The preparation took place in the foothills area with falsework and the Main in the cantilever .
literature
- Hans-Christof Haas: The Old Main Bridge in Ochsenfurt . In: Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (Ed.): Monument Preservation Topics - Bridges in Bavaria - History, Technology, Monument Preservation . Issue No. 2, 2011, pp. 60–61 (PDF; 20.8 MB)
Web links
- The Old Main Bridge in Ochsenfurt - a successful bridge between the present and historical heritage ( Memento from February 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration: Route Atlas Main II. (PDF 16.8 MB) (No longer available online.) 2012, p. 68 , archived from the original on January 10, 2015 ; accessed on January 10, 2015 .
- ↑ Hans-Christof Haas: The Old Main Bridge in Ochsenfurt . In: Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (Ed.): Monument Preservation Topics - Bridges in Bavaria - History, Technology, Monument Preservation . Issue No. 2, 2011, p. 60.
- ↑ Shell limestone and exposed concrete. Cantilever cantilever construction at the Main Bridge Ochsenfurt every week . In: Opus C , ISSN 1860-0298, Volume 9, No. 1, 2012, pp. 54–55.
Coordinates: 49 ° 40 ′ 1.62 ″ N , 10 ° 3 ′ 48.78 ″ E