Well tower

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The fountain tower from the south, on the right the hall and the upper fences
The fountain tower (center) and adjacent districts, detail on the Murer map from 1576.
The Napfbrunnen with Spiegelgasse in the background

The fountain tower is a late medieval residential tower in the town hall quarter ( district 1 ) of the Swiss city ​​of Zurich . The 13th century Adelsturm, also known as the Lamparterturm , has been repeatedly renovated and rebuilt and has been preserved to this day after various changes of ownership. The fountain tower is located on the "upper fences" at the upper end of the Napfplatz in front of the "Turm" restaurant.

history

The Adelsturm and the adjoining residential building ( Palas ) were built around 1250 in the middle of the old town . From 1357 to 1429 it was owned by Lombard traders and moneylenders, which is why it was also known as the Kawertschenturm . In 1429 the Lampartner Thoman Velleti sold the house to Götz Escher, ancestor of the Escher vom Luchs family, who owned the property until 1810. From 1429 to around 1550 the building was called the Escher Tower , then called the Brunnenturm after the fountain erected on the forecourt.

In 1810 the residential tower of Junker Georg Escher, former court lord of Berg am Irchel , passed to the teacher Kaspar David Hardmeier, who founded a private school in it. Subsequent users were in 1819 the institution for the blind of the Zurich Aid Society, in 1826 the institution for the blind and deaf and dumb, in 1838 the Aid Society's school for the poor and in 1836 the municipal community school. After another renovation, the property was used as a community and trade school from 1879, and later as a residential and commercial building. The most recent extensive renovation and building history investigations took place in 1942; Since then, the facility has been one of the numerous cultural monuments in Zurich's old town. Since 1971 a parenting education center with a day-care center of the school and sports department of the city of Zurich has been housed in the hall and tower.

investment

The residential tower covers an area of ​​around 10 by 10 meters and is 17 meters high, with humpback blocks at the corners and a tent roof . The four-story, approximately 19 meters long Palas on the east side was built in a similar design. On the side facing the palace, which was added a little later, the tower has a significantly thinner wall thickness, which is why an extension was already planned when the entire complex was planned. The facade of the palas - the portal and the late Gothic cross-frame windows - was redesigned by the stonemason Christen Gyger around 1545, as two stonemason's marks prove. A comprehensive renovation of the interior of the tower and the palace in the Baroque style was carried out in 1668, followed in 1877/78 by a renovation mainly of the interior, whereby the baroque design of the house was partially reversed.

The Napfplatz and its fountain

The 1567/68 built fountain stood over three hundred years in front of the fountain tower on which popularly Napfplatz called Old Town Square , where the Napfgasse , the Spiegelgasse and the Upper fences meet. In 1876 the fountain was moved to the lower third of the square, the damaged column and statue were removed and the old basin was replaced by a marble one. The current column and the fountain figure by Arnold Hünerwadel and Johann Riegendinger date from 1911 and 1937 respectively. The old fountain column has been on display in the Swiss National Museum since 1910 .

Picture gallery

  • Apartment tower and hall, view from the upper fences

  • Residential tower, detail view south side

  • View from the northwest

  • Tower roof

  • portal

  • Wall details, coat of arms and stonemason's mark

  • Coat of arms of the Escher vom Luchs and Meiss

  • Murer plan by Jos Murer : yellow the wall and towers of the second city fortifications, orange the aristocratic towers; the fountain tower is marked with a ' V' .

literature

  • Jürg E. Schneider: Windows and facades in old Zurich. In: Middle Ages, magazine of the Swiss Castle Association. Vol. 7, No. 2, 2002, ISSN  1420-6994 , pp. 36-54, ( online ).
  • Jürg E. Schneider, Jürg Hanser: The "fountain tower". Upper fences 26. In: Zurich Monument Preservation. Zurich city. Report. 1987/1988, ZDB -ID 1319066-0 , pp. 39-41.
  • Swiss Association of Engineers and Architects (ed.): The Swiss community center. Volume 9: The community center of the city of Zurich. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1921.
  • Christine Barraud Wiener, Peter Jezler : The art monuments of the canton of Zurich. Volume 1: The City of Zurich. 1: City in front of the wall, medieval fortifications and Limmatraum (= The Art Monuments of Switzerland. Vol. 94). New edition. GSK, Bern 1999, ISBN 3-909164-70-6 .
  • Dölf Wild (concept and content): city ​​walls. A new picture of the city fortifications of Zurich (= city ​​history and urban development in Zurich. Writings on archeology, preservation of monuments and urban planning. 5). Documentation for the exhibition in the Haus zum Haus zum Rech, Zurich, February 6 to April 30, 2004. Office for Urban Development - Building History Archive, Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-905384-05-1 .

Web links

Commons : Fountain Tower  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Italian (Lombard) or Jewish money changers, money lenders and in today's sense bankers were pejoratively referred to as Kawertschen or Cahursiner (Caurtschin). Lampart (n) derives from gibberish / rotwelsch for Lombardy .
  2. ↑ The data are taken from the notice board on the fountain tower (Obere Fences 26).
  3. ↑ City of Zurich: School and Sports Department  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.stadt-zuerich.ch  
  4. ↑ Viventa Technical School of the City of Zurich ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stadt-zuerich.ch
  5. ↑ Brunnenturm on dickemauern.de, accessed on October 31, 2008
  6. ↑ a b Gang dur Alt-Züri : Napfgasse in the big city connects Münstergasse with the upper fences. It was first mentioned in 1301 as Nadilgasse , from 1529 as Napfgasse, named after house number 6 mentioned from 1357 (from 1450 house "zum Napf"), an inheritance from the Fraumünster monastery .
  7. ↑ Spiegelgasse is named after house number 2 «zum Spiegel».
  8. ↑ Gang dur Alt-Züri : The upper fences come from an upper and lower pile enclosure between the “stone house” (Hirschengraben) of the Manesse family and the fountain tower. These former fences were part of the so-called first city fortifications from the 10th to the 12th century .
  9. ↑ Zurich Old Town: Napfbrunnen, Napfplatz ( Memento of the original from February 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.altstadt-zuerich.ch

Coordinates: 47 ° 22 '17.4 "  N , 8 ° 32' 39.5"  E ; CH1903:  683509  /  247329