Citizen water art
The Bürgerwasserkunst or Kaufleutewasserkunst was a Lübeck water supply system from the early modern period .
background
With the art of brewing water , Lübeck had had a water supply since the late 13th century , but it only covered the southeastern part of the city. This condition increasingly displeased the influential merchants , whose houses were mainly in the center of the city, and there were preferably on the back of the city hill in the vicinity of the town hall and St. Mary's Church .
Since the brewery water art was technically unable to supply these high-lying properties, 284 of the affected Lübeck citizens joined forces and entered into negotiations with the council in order to obtain permission to build another water art . In 1531 an agreement was reached with the council, which allowed the construction of a new system on the Hüxterdamm , right next to the existing brewing water art. Construction work began quickly, and the new Bürgerwasserkunst was able to start operating as early as 1533.
The construction
The core of the civil water art was an about 20-meter high water tower in brick construction , which at the same time the first Lübeck building in the style of Renaissance showed. Inside was the elevated tank at a height of 16 meters , which could hold 14.75 cubic meters of water and was high enough to supply the highest properties on the city hill with the resulting water pressure.
In the basement of the tower there were four pumps , which were driven by an undershot water wheel. The water from the Wakenitz reached the pumping station through a pipe that was laid far out into the river and was then transported through two risers into the elevated tank. From there it got into the main line that fed the supply network.
In the 18th century , civil water art was given a mansard roof , on the top of which was a figure of Neptune with a trident in his hand and a dolphin at his feet. Water gushed out of the trident and dolphin when there was overpressure in the pipes or when a separate little water art was put into operation.
Giovanni Botero mentioned the Lübeck system in his description of the world as early as 1596 and Adam Anderson reported that the waterworks of the city of London were laid out according to this Lübeck model.
The pipeline network
The main line of the network belonging to the Bürgerwasserkunst ran through Johannisstrasse and Mengstrasse ; Junctions led to Königstrasse and Breite Strasse , among others . The pipeline network covered the entire city center, reaching to the west down to the Trave and in the north to the Koberg . The water pipes were mostly drilled out tree trunks, but wooden gutters with nailed-on lids were also found in Hundestrasse .
The Bürgerwasserkunst served almost exclusively to feed house connections with columns and sods . Exceptions were a public well in the Breite Straße and, as a special feature of the Bürgerwasserkunst, a total of four pillars serving as hydrants in the Königstraße, the Breite Straße and the Mengstraße, to which leather extinguishing hoses could be connected in the event of a fire.
A uniform fee, the so-called art money , was levied from the buyers of the water . Only three commercial customers, two brewers and one baker , paid double the rate because of their high consumption.
At the time of its dissolution in 1867, a total of 359 houses were connected to the 5,940 meter long network of the Bürgerwasserkunst.
The end of civil water art
Like the neighboring brewing water art, the Bürgerwasserkunst continued its service well into the 19th century. However, the water supply gave rise to increasing complaints and grave concerns.
On the one hand, the amount of water delivered by the pumps was no longer sufficient to meet demand. The growing water shortage was also due to the wooden pipes, which had often become rotten and leaky. Because of the decreasing amount, the supply of water was rationed. The various areas of the network were only supplied with water at certain times. The poor condition of the lines also contributed to roads becoming muddy and basements flooding as the lines broke. There was also concern that the water pressure fell as the water volume fell, and that more than a quarter of the fire engines used were no longer provided for in the event of a fire .
On the other hand, the water quality became worrying. Above the Hüxterdamms rubbish and waste were dumped into the Wakenitz, from several roads led sluices waste into the river. The unfiltered water pumped into the pipes had an unpleasant rotten odor, which was also due to the sludge deposits on the bottom of the Wakenitz. In the first half of the 19th century Lübeck was hit by several cholera epidemics, which claimed a total of 2,500 lives. Investigations showed the connection between the spread of the disease and polluted drinking water, so that ways to improve Lübeck's water supply were sought.
Plans presented in 1861 provided for the construction of a new water art at the site of the water arts on Hüxterdamm. However, this project was not pursued any further. The Senate gave preference to plans for city water art powered by steam power , in which the water from the Wakenitz was no longer taken in the immediate vicinity of the city, but away from the pollution at a greater distance from the old town. This project was accepted by the Senate and the City Council in 1865 and implemented over the next two years.
With the commissioning of the new water art in 1867, the citizen water art as well as the brewer water art became superfluous. In 1874 both water towers were demolished and all systems were removed. There are no remains, apart from the wooden pipelines, which are still found during road works in Lübeck's old town and provide information about the exact course of the supply network.
literature
- Mieszyslaw Grabowski, Doris Mührenberg: "In Lübeck, water has been flowing in pipes ... for 700 years!" A study of cultural history . Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994 ( exhibitions on archeology in Lübeck 1, ZDB -ID 2167832-7 ), (exhibition catalog, Lübeck, Museum Burgkloster, December 16, 1994 - February 12, 1995).
- Rainer Andresen: The old townscape - history, churches, fortifications. 2 volumes. Verlag Neue Rundschau, Lübeck 1980–1984.
- ^ "Relazioni universali" , Cologne 1596, part 1, p. 114: "strange work of art"
- ↑ History of Commerce , German: 1773-79 Part 5, p. 236; Hugh Myddleton built the first aqueduct there in 1606