Old Rhine Bridge Rheinfelden
Coordinates: 47 ° 33 '18 " N , 7 ° 47' 22" E ; CH1903: six hundred twenty-six thousand four hundred and six / 267212
| Old Rhine Bridge | ||
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| use | Road bridge | |
| Crossing of | Rhine | |
| place | Rheinfelden (Baden) , Rheinfelden | |
| construction | Reinforced concrete arch bridge | |
| overall length | 147 m | |
| opening | 1912 | |
| planner | Robert Maillart (engineer), Joss & Klauser (architects) | |
| location | ||
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The old Rhine bridge of Rheinfelden is a Rhine and at the same time border crossing between the city of Rheinfelden (Baden) on the right bank of the Rhine in Germany and Rheinfelden in Switzerland on the left bank of the Rhine . The arch bridge made of reinforced concrete was before the opening of the new Rheinfelden Bridge in 2006, the only border crossing between the two Rheinfelden, which was approved for motorized traffic. It was opened to traffic in 1912. Large-scale shipping on the Rhine ends at the bridge today.
situation
A special feature is a limestone rock overgrown with trees , popularly known as "Inseli", which divides the 147-meter-long bridge into two sections angled around 120 degrees from each other with two or three vaulted openings. The openings of the 10.5 meter wide bridge have clear widths of 22 to 40 meters. Because of its strategically favorable location, the Counts of Rheinfelden built Stein Castle on the island in the 10th century . It was destroyed by insurgents in 1446 when the Habsburgs were involved in the Old Zurich War. Since the 1920s, the Inseli has been accessed from the bridge via an outside staircase as a park and popular swimming area. The bridge and the Inseli are also regularly the scene of various events. Not far from the bridge, north of the island's former castle chapel, is one of the deepest points of the Rhine, the legendary St. Anna Hole .
The bridge has to be closed regularly during floods. Particularly during the storms of 1995 and 1999, there was a risk of it being washed away. Since then, blasting chambers have been installed in the bridge construction as a precaution for a possible emergency blast.
The state border between Switzerland and Germany runs in the middle of the bridge; On the parapet, a border stone from 1810, divided in half, shows the coats of arms of the state of Baden and the canton of Aargau . The Inseli belongs to the Swiss national territory. The bridge itself is fully owned by the Canton of Aargau and symbolically became the property of the City of Rheinfelden in 2012 .
Predecessor bridges
During the reign of the Romans, there was a ferry in the area of today's bridge , with a 500-meter-long towpath on the north bank to overcome the rapids. When the Zähringer developed the market town of Rheinfelden into a town, there was also a ferry connection across the Rhine, which ensured the connection to the road to the Zähringian possessions in Breisgau . The first bridge is likely to have been built in the second half of the 12th century, because in 1198 a Rheinfeld citizen is referred to as Heinricus de Ponte ("Heinrich von der Brücke") in a document . It was thus the oldest Rhine bridge between Constance and Strasbourg , before the Middle Bridge in Basel , which was built around 1225. In contrast to other locations, building bridges in Rheinfelden was significantly easier, as the river island could be used as a natural (intermediate) bridgehead.
The bridge was destroyed several times by the forces of nature so that it had to be rebuilt, for example in 1340 after a flood or in 1408 after ice drifts . In the summer of 1445, during the Old Zurich War , the people of Basel, Bern and Solothurn besieged the castle. The guns of the besiegers destroyed the bridge, after which it had to be repaired again. Another new building became necessary during the Thirty Years' War after Swedish troops besieged and captured the city in September 1634. This bridge did not last long either: during the Dutch War , it was set on fire by French troops in July 1678 .
The right bank of the last bridge from 1807, a covered wooden construction by Blasius Balteschwiler , burned down on June 12, 1897, whereupon the construction company Albert Buss & Cie. built an iron emergency bridge from Basel. In 1909 there was a competition in which 45 designs were submitted. First prize went to the Austrian engineer Joseph Melan and the engineers de Valliere & Simon from Lausanne with the architects Monod & Laverrtere from Lausanne. The 2nd prize went to the Zurich engineer Robert Maillart and the architects Joss & Klauser from Bern . The runners-up were awarded the contract. In 1911 the construction of today's concrete bridge (and partial use of natural stone) began. It opened on December 15, 1912. The head section of the wooden roofing of the previous bridge on the left bank of the Rhine, spared by the fire, is now erected on the Inseli. In the course of the new construction, the striking stone head structure of the bridge, which had previously stood on the last pillar in front of the Baden bank, was blown up.
use
With the opening of the Rheinfelder Brücke ( Federal Motorway 861 ), road traffic on the old Rhine Bridge was gradually restricted. From March 7, 2006, there was a general driving ban for trucks; Motorized private transport was prohibited from driving at night and on Sundays . A year later, the opening times for motorized private transport were further restricted. In March 2008, the existing border crossing and the bridge for motorized traffic were completely closed; only public buses , taxis, mopeds and agricultural vehicles are not covered by this ban. In Badisch-Rheinfelden in particular, there was resistance to this plan. The industry in particular feared significant losses due to a lack of customers from Switzerland. In Rheinfelden, Switzerland, the protest was limited.
literature
- Walter Hochreiter, Eva Gschwind, André Salvisberg , Dominik Sieber, Claudius Sieber-Lehmann : Inside, outside, with you. History of the city of Rheinfelden . Ed .: City of Rheinfelden, Switzerland. regional culture publisher, Ubstadt-Weiher 2014, ISBN 978-3-89735-800-3 .
- Karl Schib , community of Rheinfelden (ed.): History of the city of Rheinfelden , 1961.
- Rheinfelden and his bridge in words and pictures , Rheinfelden 1987. In: Rheinfelder Neujahrsblätter. 44
- Working group history in the association Haus Salmegg, Wolfgang Bocks (Hrsg.): The Rhine fields bridges: texts and pictures . Booklet accompanying the exhibition “Piers, Arches, Transitions, the Rheinfeld Bridges through the Ages” in Haus Salmegg, Rheinfelden (Baden), November 1990. Rheinfelder Geschichtsblätter, Vol. 1. Edition Isele, Eggingen, 1990
Web links
- Old Rhine Bridge Rheinfelden. In: Structurae
- Historical information about the bridge
- Directory of the Hochrheinbrücken
Individual evidence
- ^ A boundless celebration for the bridge anniversary in Rheinfelden. Aargauer Zeitung , May 23, 2012, accessed on March 11, 2015 .
- ^ Hochreiter et al .: Inside, outside, there. P. 18.
- ^ Hochreiter et al .: Inside, outside, there. P. 24.
- ^ Schib: History of the City of Rheinfelden. P. 249.
- ^ Schib: History of the City of Rheinfelden. Pp. 60-62.
- ^ Hochreiter et al .: Inside, outside, there. P. 89.
- ^ Schib: History of the City of Rheinfelden. Pp. 279-280.
- ^ Hochreiter et al .: Inside, outside, there. Pp. 264-266.
- ^ Bridge closure and opening in Rheinfelden. fricktal24.ch, March 10, 2008, accessed on March 11, 2015 .
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The next bridge up the river: footbridge at the new Rheinfelden hydroelectric power station |
Bridges over the Rhine |
The next bridge downstream: Rheinfelder Brücke |