Mariendorf gasworks
The Mariendorf gasworks (also Mariendorf gasworks ) is a former gasworks in the city of Berlin . It is located in the Lankwitzer street in the district of Mariendorf the district Tempelhof-Schöneberg .
The gasworks was built between 1900 and 1901 and at that time was the largest gasworks in Berlin. During the 20th century, it mainly supplied the southern communities of Berlin with town gas , which was primarily used for gas lighting . In view of the technological developments over the 20th century, the gasworks had to be rebuilt several times in order to ensure that it operated efficiently and in accordance with requirements. In 1996 the Mariendorf gasworks was shut down and the facilities were dismantled by 1999 ; most of the historical buildings have been preserved.
In the meantime, the site and the historic buildings have been redeveloped and are being marketed by a newly founded corporation under the name Marienpark Berlin . Various companies have settled in Marienpark. The Stone Brewing Company has opened its first European brewery in Marienpark and Deutsche Post AG has set up a mechanized delivery base . Various start-up companies have also settled here.
history
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In 1826, the Imperial Continental Gas Association (ICGA) introduced gas lighting in the streets of Berlin. The ICGA was a Europe-wide operating gas supply company from London , which took over the supply of town gas in many major European cities . In Berlin, the ICGA mainly supplied the southern communities with gas. In view of the increasing demand at the end of the 19th century, it was necessary for the ICGA to build its own gas works in the south of Berlin.
The ICGA therefore decided to build a new gas works in Mariendorf. Mariendorf was roughly in the center of the communities to be supplied by the emerging gas works, which is why it was well suited as a strategic location. As a further location factors connectivity to coming Berlin-Dresden railway and the Teltow Canal to bear. In 1899 the Association therefore acquired a site between the Teltow Canal, the Berlin – Dresden railway line, Lankwitzer Strasse and Ringstrasse. It was primarily thanks to Adolf Lewissohn , a merchant and real estate agent from Mariendorf as well as the founder of the seaside resort there , that the individual owners from Lankwitz and Mariendorf jointly sell the approximately 300- acre area to the Imperial Continental Gas Association.
Construction began in 1900 and was completed in 1901. The new gas plant is described as "the largest, most modern and technologically advanced gas plant in the Berlin area at the time of construction". Edward Drory was appointed director of the gas works . His aim was to improve the working conditions for the workers in the gasworks and to make the physically difficult work easier for them by using a high degree of mechanization of the technologies in the gasworks at the time.
The gas works in Mariendorf was designed for the production of town gas from coal by degassing . In 1906 the port of Mariendorf opened on the then newly built Teltow Canal , connecting the gasworks to the Brandenburg waterway network. This made the delivery of the necessary hard coal from Silesia much easier. With the Oder and the Oder-Spree Canal , which was widened in 1897, a direct waterway was available for this purpose. Harbor cranes, a suspension railway and storage yard cranes from the Leipzig company Adolf Bleichert & Co. were used to unload and transport the coal on the gas works site .
Following the end of the First World War in 1918, the ICGA was liquidated . The Mariendorf gasworks was then taken over by the Deutsche Gasgesellschaft . Five years later, Berliner Gaswerke AG (GASAG), which is still responsible for the basic gas supply in Berlin, took over the gasworks.
In the following years, production in the gasworks ran at high capacity. The gasworks was structurally expanded several times in order to meet the increasing requirements. In 1922 new residential and administrative buildings were built, and in 1936 the group of buildings was expanded to include the gas meter and regulator house. In 1968 and 1969 two spherical gas tanks and the new water tower were installed.
From around 1960, the production of town gas by degassing coal became increasingly unattractive and replaced by the production of gas by other methods. GASAG also took this development into account and built plants for gas production from methanol and light petrol during the 1960s and 1970s . In 1980, gas production from coal in the Mariendorf gasworks was finally completely discontinued and the gas produced was obtained exclusively from methanol and light petrol.
Stadtgas soon lost its importance in Berlin. In the 1990s, Berlin's gas supply was gradually converted from town gas to natural gas , which is why there was no need for a gasworks. In 1996 the Mariendorf gasworks was shut down; it was dismantled by 1999 .
On December 12, 2010, the roof structure of a 5000 m² listed hall, which was used as a warehouse and workshop, was completely destroyed by a fire.
Design and architecture
The external design of the building was modeled on the north German brick Gothic. In terms of factory planning , the individual buildings were arranged in accordance with the necessary process steps for gas generation in order to minimize the effort involved in logistics. The delivery and storage of the resources took place in the north of the site; The manufacture, cleaning, storage and distribution were arranged from north to south. All the buildings except for the retort houses , in which the combustion and degassing of the coal - and thus the actual production process of the gas - took place, have been preserved to this day.
The architecture of the gasworks comes from the architects Schulz & Schlichting . The architect Paul Karchow was responsible for the renovations and extensions that were carried out at the gasworks from 1903 onwards.
The gas works consisted of around 25 different buildings. The majority of these buildings were erected during the construction of the gasworks between 1900 and 1901. The old water tower with a height of around 29 meters is particularly striking . In addition, a telescopic low-pressure gas container was installed, which was built in 1892 for a gas works in Vienna , dismantled there and reassembled in Mariendorf. The steel construction of this gas container has been preserved to this day. A second gas tank was built in 1905 and demolished in 1996.
The New Water Tower , built in 1969, has no architectural relationship to the Old Water Tower . The New Water Tower was built south of the old tower and consists of a narrow gray concrete base and a conical water tank, so that it appears mushroom-shaped overall. The spherical gas containers built around the same time are very distinctive due to their size and have also been preserved to this day.
Todays use
GASAG built a large open-space photovoltaic system on the area of the Mariendorf gasworks for an investment of around 4.3 million euros . It consists of 7,756 solar modules and went into operation at the beginning of 2011. The maximum rated output of the system is two megawatts .
In 2013 the BMDF Gewerbepark Berlin-Mariendorf GmbH & Co. KG acquired large parts of the site from GASAG. The corporation manages and markets the location as an industrial park for companies. In addition to Deutsche Post DHL and the German branch of the BrewDog brewery from Scotland , various start-ups and small businesses have also settled here. The marketing takes place under the name Marienpark Berlin .
literature
- Edward Drory, E. Körting, H. Schüller: The Mariendorf gas works near Berlin of the Imperial Continental Gas Association built on April 25, 1900 to October 21, 1901. Munich 1903, OCLC 179952010 .
- Hilmar Bärthel: The history of the gas supply in Berlin. A chronicle. Published by: GASAG Berliner Gaswerke Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-87584-630-3 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d The former Mariendorf gasworks. Marienpark Berlin, accessed on November 17, 2015 .
- ↑ a b c d e f monuments in Berlin: Mariendorf gasworks. City of Berlin, Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment, accessed on November 17, 2015 .
- ↑ K. Drews, German loading devices for coal and ore, part 1, pages 1-3 , part 2, pages 17-19 , part 3, pages 33-35 . In: Polytechnisches Journal , Verlag JG Cotta, Stuttgart, 1909.
- ↑ Fire in the historical warehouse B.Z. December 12, 2010
- ↑ GASAG photovoltaic system Mariendorf ( Memento from July 29, 2014 in the web archive archive.today )
Coordinates: 52 ° 26 ′ 16.7 " N , 13 ° 22 ′ 21.2" E