Greppin clinker

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Greppiner clinker on the fragment of the train station portico of the Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof in 2005

The term Greppiner Klinker (often somewhat imprecise Bitterfeld clinker ) is a hard-burned yellow brick that was often used to cover representative public buildings such as train stations and schools between 1871 and 1900 .

Due to the significantly higher temperatures when burning the clinker compared to normal bricks , a closed surface is achieved, which makes the brick impermeable to water and at the same time relatively insensitive to the accumulation of dust and soot. The clinker bricks are therefore primarily used for facing facades, for building canals and bridge piers and for paving roads.

history

In 1846, while searching for groundwater in the Wolfen / Greppin area near Bitterfeld, lignite was discovered under a layer of clay . The opencast mines Pit Johannes Nord No. 6 and Pit No. 79 Greppin were set up to develop the lignite deposits . With the commissioning of the branch from Dessau to Bitterfeld of the Berlin-Anhaltische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (BAE) in 1857, the pits received a rail connection and could transport the lignite more easily. In 1860, the new mine owner Carl August Stange concentrated on processing the clay and had brick kilns built north of Greppin.

In 1871 the Greppiner Werke A.-G. for building supplies and lignite (formerly Carl August Stange) based in Berlin , which modernized the kilns by converting to gas firing. Now high-quality facing bricks and terracotta bricks could be produced. In addition, glazed stones in various colors could be produced in porcelain ovens.

A very high-quality clay was found in the Greppin mine: lime-free, low in iron, almost pure kaolin , also known as lignite clay . The processing of this clay resulted in clinker bricks with a yellow, almost leather-like color of very high quality, which were soon chosen for the major new train station buildings and other important buildings of the early years and the decade that followed.

Usage examples

Greppin bricks on the reception building of the main train station in Hanover
Administration and storage building of the Anhalter Güterbahnhof with Greppiner clinker by Franz Schwechten
The Lichterfelde West station was faced with high probability with Greppiner clinker

The regional use of building materials is based on transport costs and transport options. For this reason, typical regional construction methods usually had only a limited spatial expansion before the introduction of the railways. Due to the favorable location of the Greppiner Werke on the Dessau – Bitterfeld railway line of the Berlin-Anhaltische Bahngesellschaft (BAE), the possible uses have expanded significantly. In the founding years, the Greppin clinker bricks were preferred for railroad buildings of this company, but also for railroad buildings of other companies and other representative buildings, primarily in the Central German industrial area and in the Berlin area. The following buildings are currently known that were faced with Greppiner clinker:

Yellow bricked railway buildings, embankment walls and bridge abutments were, in addition to the Hartung columns , the so-called "greenhouse roofs" of the staircases and the cast-iron roof supports, style-defining for the Berlin railway architecture from 1870 to 1900.

It is not known whether there were other brickworks besides the Greppin works that produced comparable yellow bricks. The use of Greppin clinker bricks is not guaranteed in the following buildings mentioned as examples, but can be assessed as very likely due to the time of construction, the typical yellow color scheme and the spatial reference:

End of production

After 1900, the need for clinker facing decreased noticeably with the change in taste after the onset of Art Nouveau . The production of the Greppiner clinker ended due to the decline in sales in 1920. Lignite mining was finally stopped in 1931. In 1932 the factory facilities were dismantled.

In the following years, the chemical industry developed in this area, especially film production.

Contaminated sites

In the following decades, heavily contaminated wastewater, sludge and waste from the Wolfen film factory and synthetic fiber production were discharged and dumped relatively carelessly into the remaining hole in the open pit .

Due to the high concentrations of pollutants ( heavy metals , hydrogen sulfide , carbon disulfide ) and the strong odor pollution, the wastewater and waste dump in the opencast mine gained national recognition under the popular ironic name “ Silver Lake ”. In fact, no silver compounds had been discharged into the mine because they were too valuable and had to be reprocessed for further production in the film factory.

After 1990, this carefree approach was stopped and the renovation of the heavily polluted mine began. Measurements showed that the spread of the highly toxic pollutants was less than feared due to the geological conditions (layers).

literature

  • Helmut Maier: Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof , 1984, Aesthetics and Communication Verlag, pages 149–167, ISBN 3882451084
  • Bitterfeld Miners eV (Ed.): Chronicle of lignite mining in the Bitterfeld district - technology and cultural history in two centuries , 1998, self-published (?)

Web links