Elektrownia (Radom)
Elektrownia ( German power plant ) is a listed electricity plant in the city of Radom in the Masovian Voivodeship in Poland . The power station supplied electricity from 1901 to 1956 and heating until 1998 . In 2014 the Mazowieckie Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej “Elektrownia” (MCSW “Elektrownia”) (Masovian Center of Contemporary Art “Kraftwerk”) , a cultural center and art museum was opened.
history
20th century
Radom was an important administrative seat and seat of military institutions in the Vistula region of the Russian Empire . The city had also developed into an economic and industrial center in the second half of the 19th century. Since 1896 the city presidents made efforts to build a power station. On March 4, 1897, Konstanty Zaremba concluded a preliminary agreement with the Russian joint-stock company UNION in Saint Petersburg .
On December 3, 1899, the Ministry of the Interior gave the Governor General in Warsaw permission to set up electrical lighting in Radom. On April 14, 1900 the contract with the UNION was signed. This undertook to install a central power station at its own expense and risk in order to operate electricity for lighting and all other forms of electricity consumption within the city limits with the exception of telephones, telegraphs and trams. UNION received an annual amount of 6,000 rubles from the city . Industrial consumers paid 18 kopeks for one kilowatt hour , for private consumers the price was 40 kopeks. The concession agreement provided substantial revenue for the city. The cost of the entire investment was estimated at 150,000 rubles.
The power plant was built by the Radom company Edward Kosiński in neo-Gothic style from red brick. The two steam engines , each with 110 horsepower , were supplied by the Heinrich Lanz company in Mannheim . Two six-pole dynamo-electric machines (direct current generators) from the UNION plant in Riga generated 550 volts at a maximum of 118 amperes and an output of 65 kilowatts . The generated direct current could be stored in a battery system. The 262 cells had a capacity of 400 ampere hours. The power station and the city's first 58 arc lamps went into operation on March 15, 1901 at 8 p.m. Berlin had set up a municipal power station as early as 1883, but comparable power stations in the Vistula were only built in 1903 in Warsaw and in 1907 in Łódź .
The UNION sold the systems in 1909. The Radomer Elektrizitätsgesellschaft (Radomskie Towarzystwo Elektryczne SA) finally came to the Belgian company Tramways et Electricite en Russe SA , whose main shareholder from 1911 was the German AEG . During the Russian withdrawal in World War I, they dismantled some of the machines and brought them to Russia. This reduced the capacity of the plant by around 60 percent.
After the independence of Poland , the factory was thoroughly modernized from 1920 by director Aleksander Chądzyński. The growing demand for energy required permanent adaptation to the state of the art. In 1923, the Radom company acquired the Belgian company Societe d'Entreprises Electriques en Pologne SA (ELECTROPOL). The following year the power plant began to generate alternating current . The plant employed around 70 people. In 1933, after a legal dispute with the power plant company, the city was able to enforce lower electricity prices. In the last few years before the outbreak of World War II , all investments were halted, the quality of electricity generation declined and foreign shareholders sought to extract the maximum possible profits. In 1941 the power plant came under compulsory administration and Chądzyński was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered there. The German withdrawal also saw dismantling.
Two weeks after the liberation by the Red Army , a machine set was able to start operating again in the power station. On March 16, 1946, the concession agreement of April 14, 1900 officially ended. As the technology was out of date and the power plant had insufficient production capacity, electricity generation was stopped in 1956. In the same year, the last direct current networks in the city were closed.
The power plant was rebuilt and commissioned in 1963 as municipal heating plant No. 3. It supplied the nearby city hospital with heat until the 1997/1998 heating season. The hall in which the heat exchangers were located was converted into a conference and banquet hall, which was first used by the city and then by a private operator.
21st century
In 2003, Andrzej Wajda suggested that the city of Radom build an exhibition pavilion in the listed Stary Ogród to expand the capacity of the Jacek Malczewski Museum in the field of contemporary art . Wajda is an honorary citizen of the city where he lived from 1935 to 1946. The world-famous director and his wife Krystyna Zachwatowicz donated over 70 works to the collections in Radom. The City Council's Culture Council supported the idea. The voivodeship as the sponsor of the museum was also interested. Ten suggestions were drawn up for the location and Wajda's opinion was expected.
In January 2004, however, an idea was presented in the local Gazeta Wyborcza to adapt the construction of the former power station for the purposes of the new art center. The idea met with great support, including Wajdas. The following year the Mazowieckie Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej "Elektrownia" (MCSW "Elektrownia") was established and it moved into the office of the power plant. After an architectural competition, the renovation was carried out between 2011 and 2014. The MCSW “Elektrownia” was inaugurated on November 6, 2014. In the 2015 Polish Architecture XXL vote , the renovation won first prize in the “Public Facilities” category.
Web links
- mcswelektrownia.pl: Historia Elektrowni. (Polish)
- Art Center website (Polish)
literature
- Mazovia Center for Contemporary Art “Kraftwerk”. In: Ewa Kutyła: Walk through Radom . 3rd edition, Radom 2015. pp. 48–49.
- Tomasz Staniszewski: Elektrownia miejska w Radomiu 1901–1956. Radome 2017.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i mcswelektrownia.pl: Historia Elektrowni. (Polish, accessed May 18, 2020)
- ^ Mazovia Center for Contemporary Art “Kraftwerk”. In: Ewa Kutyła: Walk through Radom . 3rd edition, Radom 2015. p. 48.
- ^ Mazovia Center for Contemporary Art “Kraftwerk”. In: Ewa Kutyła: Walk through Radom . 3rd edition, Radom 2015. p. 49.
Coordinates: 51 ° 23 '53.2 " N , 21 ° 8' 59.2" E