Dam Bridge (Berlin)
Coordinates: 52 ° 26 ′ 54 ″ N , 13 ° 34 ′ 29 ″ E
| Dam bridge | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
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| use | Road traffic | |
| Convicted | Lindenstrasse | |
| Crossing of | Spree | |
| place | Berlin-Koepenick | |
| construction | Prestressed concrete, an asymmetrical river pillar | |
| overall length | 71.4 m | |
| width | 18.8 m | |
| Longest span | 46.7 m | |
| Clear height | 4.5 | |
| vehicles per day | 45,000 | |
| start of building | January 24, 1984 | |
| completion | 1986 | |
| opening | April 10, 1986 | |
| location | ||
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The dam bridge is a successor to the first Spree crossing in the Berlin district of Köpenick , whose existence is documented from the beginning of the 15th century. The current bridge was built in 1984 and 1985 as a prestressed concrete bridge to the west of the earlier bridge structure.
history
People settled in the area of today's district of Köpenick at the confluence of the Dahme and Spree east of Berlin at an early stage . This was also associated with the creation of the first simple bridges, as evidenced by a certificate from 1424 for the granting of market rights to the city of Köpenick. Elector Friedrich I let it be known:
"In view of the poverty and the 'instability' at bridges, ditches, etc., in which his loyal citizens of Köpenick are, he wants to take care that the little town does not get into greater poverty and dilapidation."
A later source of income for Köpenick was the collection of bridge fees on land and water. A first pictorial representation of the Langen Brücke (crosses the Dahme) and the Dammbrücke (crosses the Spree), which still exist today, is based on a copper engraving from 1652, made by Caspar Merian . The dam bridge can be seen there as a wooden yoke bridge without a railing with a hinged middle section for the passage of the ships. There were gatehouses on both sides.
With the growth of the city of Köpenick in the 19th century, both land transport and excursion traffic by water increased significantly, the existing bridges increasingly formed obstacles. From 1890 the city administration provided money and construction capacity to rebuild the two bridges as stone structures without flaps. The Potsdam hydraulic engineering inspector and building officer Gustav Tolkmitt (1847–1900) was commissioned with the design and planning, he wrote:
“The required flow width was the same for both bridges, namely 54 m, and since the water levels also coincided exactly, both structures could have the same size and shape of the passage openings. Three openings of the same size and height were chosen, which are therefore all usable for shipping. As a result, he was greatly relieved that the previous waiting and pushing in front of the bridge had ceased, and even the sailors are quite satisfied with the new situation. "
The first stone bridge over the Spree in Köpenick was opened to traffic on May 3, 1893. The brick arched bridge had three identical vaults, each 20 meters wide. It had a length of 72.6 meters and a total width of 12.0 meters. The boggy subsoil required particularly careful work for the foundation and the three arches made with clinker. The roadway was paved with stone and had to accommodate both the carriage traffic and the horse-drawn tram . A cast-iron railing and tall iron bridge lights formed some decorations.
In the Second World War towards the end of the Battle of Berlin , the Wehrmacht was supposed to blow up the dam bridge in order to prevent the advance of the Red Army . This was prevented by the pastor's wife Alide Ratsch. This courageously dealt with the Wehrmacht officers charged with carrying out this order. This enabled her to prevent the dam bridge from being destroyed. And since Karl Henkner did not carry out the order to blow up the Long Bridge, and that should not be forgotten either, the shelling of the old town of Köpenick, which was otherwise to be feared, did not take place.
In 1950, the bridge was widened to 15 meters by adding steel sidewalks. The constant use and the little maintenance work led to irreparable damage to the bridge structure in the following decades, in particular large cracks were found in the central part. In 1983 the East Berlin magistrate finally decided to build a new dam bridge next to the old structure, which was subsequently removed.
The new bridge, which was opened to traffic in April 1986, with the chosen dimensions, met the requirements of shipping for a minimum passage width of 40 meters and a minimum passage height of 4.5 meters and, with regard to the bridge loads, also the requirements for road traffic including use by trams. The new dam bridge received an economical decoration by means of a concrete block cladding of the abutment surfaces and specially shaped lights and railings.
After the political change , the now responsible Senate Department for Urban Development had the bridge renovated for 2.5 million marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 2 million euros) for a year, and traffic has been able to move unhindered again since spring 1996. During this renovation work, paired bronze plates were probably attached to the metal railing as additional decoration, which represent a geometric, plastic ornament on the water side.
literature
- Thiemann, Deszyk, Metzing: Berlin and his bridges , Jaron Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89773-073-1 , pp. 106-108.
- 22 p. On the Senate model project "Noise Reduction Planning" in the Köpenick area, also with images of the dam bridge (PDF; 5.82 MB)
- Marko Beckmann: Adjustment of combined deformation networks and their analysis using the example of the dam bridge in Berlin-Köpenick . Student thesis at the Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin, 2008. Supervisor: Boris Resnik.
- C. Schleicher, Mirko Slavik: Report on the metrological analysis of the explosive vibrations at the new dam bridge in Berlin-Köpenick , Road Design and Engineering Office Berlin, Science and Technology Directorate, Berlin 1986.
- Gustav Tolkmitt, Willy Zander: Basics of hydraulic engineering ; 4th ed. Berlin, Verlag Ernst & Sohn, 1947. 275 p. With 82 illustrations.
Web links
- Two sheets of the dam bridge in the architecture museum of the TU Berlin; the drawings show the almost completed new stone bridge in June 1892; In the background you can see the still used old dam bridge with its folding mechanism
- private photo: on the dam bridge, 1953
- Photo of the dam bridge, 2004
- an all-round panorama on the dam bridge
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Homepage with brief data on the history of Köpenick ( Memento from September 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Berlin and its bridges, ... p. 106
- ^ "Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung", No. 4/1890; Retrieved May 9, 2009
- ↑ From an article in the Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , 1892. Quoted in Berlin and his bridges ...
- ↑ homepage Prospot - Media Team Berlin GbR; Retrieved on May 9, 2009 ( Memento from September 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Alide Ratsch . Gedenkenafeln-in-berlin.de. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
- ↑ Now it's back to four lanes over the dam bridge. In: Berliner Zeitung , April 27, 1996; Retrieved May 9, 2009
- ↑ Jewelery plates seen on September 1st on a boat trip.