Gosauzwang (brine pipeline bridge)
The Gosauzwang is the place where the brine pipeline from Hallstatt to Ebensee crosses the Gosaubach and the Pass-Gschütt-Straße . Between 1755 and 1758 a bridge with pillars up to 30 m high was built for this purpose. It is located in the UNESCO World Heritage area of Hallstatt-Dachstein / Salzkammergut and is a listed building. The respective ends of the bridge are in the municipality of Hallstatt and Gosau .
Building history
Due to the limited wood resources of the inner Salzkammergut , at the end of the 16th century it was no longer possible to separate all of the brine obtained in Hallstatt. The construction of a new pancake house in the more forested Traunsee area, however, required the construction of a brine pipeline from Hallstätter Salzberg via Ischl to Ebensee. The 34-kilometer-long brine pipeline was built between 1595 and 1607 under the direction of the Ischl mountain master Kalß. The Strenn (= (pipe) string) was put together from a total of around 13,000 up to four and a half meters long wooden tubes ( drawbars ). The most difficult section was the crossing of the Gosaubach. There the pipeline was originally divided into three wooden pipe strings reinforced with iron rings, in which the brine flowed down from the right valley slope, crossed the creek on wooden scaffolding and then under pressure - under pressure - the Climb up the steep embankment on the other side. Material evidence of this oldest Bach translation has not survived, only the name: Gosauzwang.
Due to the increasing demand for salt, a third had to be laid in 1756 in addition to the two brine pipelines leading from the Hallstatt salt mountain to Ischl and Ebensee. In the course of the work for this brine pipeline, a bridge was built on high stone pillars to cross the Gosaubach over the large incline. Under the direction of the Hallstatt saltworks master Josef Spielpichler, the wooden bridge fields, the so-called tensioning system, were built in 1757, on which the Strenn could then be laid with an evenly low gradient. This made it possible to drastically reduce the pressure in the pipeline, which was difficult to control with the technical means of the time.
Building description
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The brine pipeline bridge, which spans the Gosaubach valley on five slender pillars made of limestone ashlar masonry, was already considered to be one of “the strangest and boldest” technical structures in the Kammergut when it was built. With the tapering of the pillars, the development of height is dynamically effective in perspective. The old structure picked up this movement with the trusses, transferred it to the horizontal and let it fade away in the abutments. By converting the structure (to steel), the original effect was partly lost.
technical description
The pillars are extremely slim with a cross-sectional area of 4.0 × 4.0 m at the base, 2.4 × 2.4 m at the support and a maximum height of 30 m. The structure, which is divided into 6 bridge fields with widths between 16 and 21 m, has a total length of 133 m. In 1969 the original wooden truss was replaced by a steel construction, the side parts of which are designed as horizontally boarded railings.
Monument value
The entire brine pipeline as the first cross-location raw material pipeline in modern industrial history and the exemplary crossing of the Gosaubach valley are of outstanding importance. The good condition of the bridge piers and the fact that the bridge is still being used in its original function seem to ensure that it will be preserved for the near future. It has been a listed building since 2017.
literature
- Winfried Aubell: The brine pipeline from Hallstatt to Ebensee , in: Upper Austria. Culture magazine, 31st year, issue 1, 1981.
- R. Erich: The architectural monuments of the saltworks in Austria , Diss. TH Vienna, 1972, p. OA
- J.-C. Hocquet: white gold. The salt and power in Europe from 800 to 1800 , Stuttgart 1993, p. 154 f.
- M. Kurz: Industrial architecture in the Salzkammergut 250 years of the Gosauzwang bridge structure . In: Heimatblätter issue 3/4, 2007.
- Carl Schraml: The way of the salt from Hallstatt to Linz . In: Blätter für Geschichte der Technik , 1st issue, 1932.
- Carl Schraml: The Upper Austrian saltworks from 1818 to the end of the Salt Office in 1850 , Vienna 1936.
- JA Schultes: Travels through Upper Austria in 1794, 1795, 1802, 1803, 1804 and 1808 , Tübingen 1809.
Web links
- The brine line. In: hallstatt.net. Accessed December 31, 2017 .
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 47 ° 35 ′ 28.9 ″ N , 13 ° 39 ′ 0.3 ″ E