Beckerturm
The Beckerturm is the dominant building of the brewhouse of the former Becker brewery in St. Ingbert . The tower is a landmark of the city of St. Ingbert. The name "Beckerturm" continues to be used by a commercial and technical innovation park in St. Ingbert, the same name was also used in a former Saarland magazine. In the city signet of the city of Sankt Ingbert is the stylized Beckerturm next to the Engelberts - and the Josefskircheincluded as a third element symbolizing the importance of the brewery for the city. The signet was designed in the mid-1980s by the Saarbrücker-born designer Karl Basters (later name: Karl Lennartz, 1948–2008).
At the driveway to the brewery site is a life-size figure of the legendary brewer king and patron saint of the brewer Gambrinus .
History of the tower
The tower was built between 1925 and 1931 according to plans by the Stuttgart architect Hans Herkommer . Herkommer was one of the most famous builders of Catholic churches in Germany in the 1920s, but also designed secular buildings. The concrete tower is designed in the New Building style with expressionist elements and became the landmark of the medium-sized town of St. Ingbert in today's Saarpfalz district . The 42-meter-high building, which housed the machines, apparatus and containers for the production process on nine floors, along with a “brewing tub” on the top floor, is a listed building . The tower was extensively renovated in the 1990s, the facades were restored.
Newer usage
Commercial use
After the Becker brewery was sold to the Karlsberg Brewery , beer production was relocated to the Karlsberg Brewery in neighboring Homburg and the brewery was shut down in the mid-1990s. The area with its buildings was given a new use: A technical-commercial innovation park was created. The innovation park at the Beckerturm was founded in 1997.
At the location of the former Becker brewery, there are now more than 125 high-tech companies, craftsmen and service providers (status: 2011). With its buildings and the striking landmark of the city of St. Ingbert, the Beckerturm, the site has largely retained its original face. The innovation park now secures jobs for over 300 people in the region.
The area of the innovation park covers an area of approx. 71,000 m². Around 8,000 square meters of commercial space and 6,000 square meters of office space are available for direct use. The communicative focus of the Beckertum site is a restaurant that was set up in the former brewhouse and has an unusual ambience: the restaurant is located in the former machine house, all of the old technical equipment was incorporated into the furnishings of the guest rooms.
In March 2012, a new geothermal project was started that will supply the properties in the industrial park with heating energy from geothermal energy. The use of geothermal energy is realized by means of a 1500 meter deep coaxial probe in combination with 10 gas absorption heat pumps.
Cultural use
Regional artists have also set up studios and exhibition areas there. A group of ten artists has been animating the scenery around the Beckerturm since 2007. They come from the fields of “ fine arts ” ( painting , graphics , sculpture ), “ handicrafts ”, “ jewelry ”, “ photography ” and “ poetry and sound ”. Some of them have studios in the tower. Once a year, the artists present their work as part of an approximately two-week exhibition “Art in the Tower”.
The Saarland Carnival Museum was set up on one of the floors of the Beckerturm .
Illustrated Der Beckerturm
The magazine Der Beckerturm was founded in 1964 by the Saarland journalist and marketing expert Ernst H. Schneider. The paper originally had the title Rund um den Beckerturm and was designed as a customer magazine for the Becker brewery. Schneider took advantage of the employer's necessity to advertise on the one hand, and the company's need for customer loyalty on the other. He brought both necessities together with the publication of the new company magazine Der Beckerturm . For decades, the magazine took the top spot among comparable products from the Saarland.
The contents of the magazine were widely spread. Schneider reported about the country and its people, about history and about new developments. In doing so, he always kept an eye on the expectations and demands of a "normal consumer". His potential readers should not be overwhelmed with politics or social criticism, he left this field to the daily newspapers and the radio media. Schneider also quickly discovered the Beckerturm as the ideal advertising space for third-party advertising.
After the Becker brewery was sold to the Karlsberg brewery in 1989, the glossy magazine also moved to the new owners. The great success and market dominance of the paper motivated the new owners to continue the Beckerturm . Over the next few years, however, Karlsberg lost interest in the paper, and so it was sold in 1996 to the Saarland-based Wochenspiegel-Verlag. A few years later, the Wochenspiegel-Verlag sold its majority stake to the Saarbrücker Zeitung and with it the Beckerturm . The marketing strategists of the new owner renamed the paper Saarland-Magazin . The magazine was continued until 2001, after which it was permanently discontinued.
Dismantling the chimney
The 55-meter-high chimney ( high chimney ), which has rarely been incorrectly referred to as the "Beckerturm", was blown up on August 27, 2013 , despite its official status as an industrial monument worth preserving . The St. Ingbert city council initially spoke out against the demolition on May 21, 2013, but finally agreed. Due to falling stones, the chimney was considered a hazard; renovation would have been too expensive at an estimated cost of around € 500,000.
swell
Web links
- Entry "Beckerturm" in the Saarland Lexicon
- Art at the Beckerturm
literature
- Micha Schneider (Ed.): Have a beer with stars and starlets - the best of 35 years 'Around the BeckerTurm' . Saarbrücken: Geistkirch-Verlag, 2013. ISBN 978-3-938889-24-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Help for Beckerturm . In: Wochenspiegel Online from February 27, 2012
- ↑ The chimney strikes the last hour , article in the Saarbrücker Zeitung, local edition St. Ingbert from August 27, 2013
- ↑ The Becker chimney fell! , News from the St. Ingberter Anzeiger dated August 27 with pictures and video of the blasting, accessed on August 27, 2013
Coordinates: 49 ° 16 '53.3 " N , 7 ° 7' 17.1" E