Gasometer Pforzheim
| Gasometer Pforzheim | |
|
|
|---|---|
| Gasometer Pforzheim 2017 | |
| Location data | |
| State : | Germany |
| Region : | Baden-Württemberg |
| City : | Pforzheim |
| Construction data | |
| Construction: | 1912 |
| Business: | 1912-2003 |
| Shutdown: | 2003 |
| Modification: | from 2005 |
| Reuse: | Exhibitions (since 2014) |
| Technical specifications | |
| Height : | ≈40 m |
| Maximum filling level: | ≈ m |
| Diameter : | ≈40 m |
| Usable volume : | ≈40,000 m³ |
The Pforzheim gasometer is a former gasometer that is now used to present circular paintings. It is a listed building .
History of the gas supply in Pforzheim
The brothers August and Moritz Benckiser signed a contract with the city of Pforzheim on June 24, 1852. It was planned to supply streets, squares and public buildings with gas light for the next 30 years. The gasworks was to be built on the edge of the Benckiser family's ironworks on the Enzufer ; The lines, connections and lanterns were also to be supplied by the Benckiser machine works. Of the first 800 gas connections that were laid in 1853, 600 were used by the Pforzheim jewelry industry. On December 9, 1853, the Pforzheim street lighting gas lamps were put into operation. In 1872, Brötzingen was the first village to be connected to the Pforzheim network with gas lighting . Public gas lamps were put into operation in Pforzheim by 1913 in 1743. Most of them were already switched on by remote ignition. After the Second World War , about half of these lanterns could still be used; meanwhile (as of March 2017) only a few of the cast iron lanterns have survived. You can find them at the entrance of the Pforzheimer Stadtwerke and at the city museum in Brötzingen.
However, the gas was soon no longer used primarily for lighting, but primarily for heating, cooking and household appliances. The use of gas for this purpose was promoted, for example, through an exhibition of gas-powered devices that was held in 1886 in a gas advice center that was set up in the 1920s, and above all through the free connection to the gas network for all houses, their Owner signed a gas consumption guarantee. This service was available from 1893 to 1903.
Until 1857, the gas was still produced using wood , then hard coal . In 1870 a new gas factory was built on Eutinger Strasse; Two gas containers were to be built in the immediate vicinity later: the telescopic bell gas container and a spherical gas container. In 1884 the gas works including the pipe network, which until then had been owned by the Benckiser brothers, was taken over by the city of Pforzheim. In 1907 a new gas factory was set up east of the previously used site, which at that time used coal from the Saarland .
gasometer
Gas containers were required as intermediate storage for the gas, which was produced around the clock but mainly consumed in the evening. The first of these tanks was built on the grounds of the Benckiser brothers; There was an explosion there in 1869, killing two workers. They had tried to free the container's jammed bell. In 1870 two gas tanks followed on Eutinger Strasse, each holding 2,200 cubic meters of gas, in 1888 a new gasometer was built that was twice as big, and in 1896 a 10,000 cubic meter gas tank was built next to it by the Dortmund iron construction company Aug. Klönne . In 1904 a gas expansion tank followed on Westliche Kaiser-Friedrich-Strasse, which was completely destroyed in World War II. Only the steam boiler and regulator house, which is now used as an artist's studio by René Dantes , has survived from this container .
The only Pforzheim gas container that has been preserved is the largest gasometer with 40,000 cubic meters, which was built in 1912 and next to which there was a spherical gas container with a capacity of 100,000 cubic meters from 1965. After the switch from hard coal to refinery and then to natural gas in 1969, the gasometer obtained was used as an expansion tank. The gas, which is cheaper outside of the peak consumption phases, was temporarily stored there.
The conversion made it possible to dispense with the coking plant , the long-term effects of which are to be eliminated by a soil remediation in the 1980s: the soil and the water under the gasworks were still heavily contaminated with cyanide and phenol even at a depth of 70 meters . In the course of the renovation attempts, the halls of the old gasworks were demolished after the chimney had been blown up in 1976.
The telescope gasometer preserved in Pforzheim was a low-pressure gas container that stood in a ten meter high water basin. It could be extended to a maximum of 40 meters and also had a diameter of about 40 meters. A clock with a diameter of more than two meters was attached to the guide frame, which indicated the filling level. The filling of the container was regulated in the clock house, which stood next to the gasometer. The gasometer was decommissioned in 2003, but could only be entered from 2005 after the storage room had been made gas-free. In 2009 sealing water, oil and tar residues were disposed of.
Use of the last gasometer
After various concepts for the continued use of the building had been discussed, it was decided in February 2013 to use the gas container for cultural purposes. For this purpose, a redesign including a new interior was necessary. The roof of the bell made of iron plates had to be removed. On the old concrete foundation, six-meter-high concrete walls were built for the ground floor, in which window cutouts were planned to give a view of the steel walls of the old container. Another concrete wall ring in the middle of the room accommodated a staircase and an elevator, which are surrounded by viewing platforms on the 35-meter-high panoramic floor. The elevator leads to the penultimate floor. The panorama floor has walls and roof made of steel girders, which are filled with sheet metal and insulated. An entrance building and a bistro were also added. The new building was planned by Gunter Schwarz , the entrance building by Hans Aescht and Fabian Berthold .
Panoramic pictures by the artist Yadegar Asisi have been shown in the former Pforzheim gasometer since 2014 . The series began with Panorama Rome 312 , and the panorama of the Great Barrier Reef has been on view since November 2018 . A total of five panoramas by the artist will be presented in the Pforzheimer Gasometer. The Gasometer is operated by Wolfgang Scheidtweiler's Private Hotel Collection .
literature
- Irene Stratenwerth, The Gasometer Pforzheim. A monument to industrial history , Pforzheim o. J.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andrea Koch-Widmann, Gasometer in Pforzheim. Illusion of ancient Rome , in: Stuttgarter Zeitung , July 31, 2015 ( online )
Coordinates: 48 ° 53 '43.1 " N , 8 ° 43' 18.1" E