Millennium Tower
The Millennium Tower in Magdeburg is 60 meters high, the tallest wooden building - but not the tallest wooden tower - the world. The design and the overall artistic concept of the tower come from the Swiss building designer Johannes Peter Staub .
The millennium tower was built on the occasion of the Federal Horticultural Show in 1999 in Magdeburg's Elbauenpark . There is an exhibition on the development of science, with many vivid, partly interactive experiments. Among other things, you can read the clock of Magdeburg Cathedral through an astronomical telescope . A Foucault pendulum suspended from the top of the tower demonstrates the rotation of the earth.
The tower was originally only designed for the time of the garden show. Only later was the decision taken to operate the tower and the exhibition in it permanently.
Construction details
The tower is constructed at an angle and contains six floors. These can be reached through a staircase inside and an accessible spiral ramp on the outer skin.
The slope of the ramp is greater than the 6 percent permitted for wheelchair users, for this reason the ramp is closed to wheelchair users.
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During use, construction defects became apparent , in particular in the penetration of structural elements by the film covering, which led to moisture damage. It has rained through since the start-up. In 2015 and 2016, the tower and the ramp, which had already been closed due to rotten boards, were renovated; the renovation costs amounted to around 2 million euros.
exhibition
Inside the tower there is a chronological exhibition on the scientific achievements of mankind that goes 6,000 years into the past . It begins on the bottom floor and leads the visitor up to the fifth floor.
The exhibition was designed and designed by Georg Müller (Switzerland), Georg Kniebe, Heiner Ehrensperger (Switzerland) and Brigitte Küchler (Switzerland).
The exhibition floors
- First level : early advanced cultures and the beginnings of human history. Walkable Roman house (including a peristyle ), valley temple of the Egyptian pyramids with the "passage of enlightenment". Illustration of physical and mathematical problems of the earliest times.
- Second level : Middle Ages (500–1500). Ancient world systems and medicine , simple machines and early Arabia. Clear representation of the golden rule of mechanics ( inclined plane with barrel, pulley ). The biggest attraction is the demonstration of the conservation of momentum . For this purpose, eight metal balls, each weighing 60 kg, which hang on approximately four-meter-long steel cables, are set in motion.
- Third level : early modern period (1500–1650). Mechanics , vacuum , magnetism , mathematics , alchemy , medicine and the change of world view . Important wars, the great voyages of discovery and inventions (e.g. printing , telescope ). One can imagine the operation of a linear-axial gear and a spindle inhibition - Movement of Leonardo da Vinci look, next to a replica of Erdapfels of Martin Behaim and a representation of the world view of Johannes Kepler . The employees demonstrate Galileo Galilei's rolling experiments on the inclined plane and the free fall of a plastic ball and a spring in a vacuum tube. Afterwards, experiments by Otto von Guericke , who was mayor of Magdeburg at the time, the greatest scientist in his hometown, are shown: The employees demonstrate the famous Magdeburg hemisphere experiment , you can get an explanation of how the water barometer works and you can try out Guericke's pneumatic load crane.
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Fourth level : 1650-1859. Medicine, chemistry , biology and sensory perception , including optics . The level is divided into levels 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3.
- About it : 1750 to the present. Electricity , radio technology , thermodynamics , fixed star parallax , Doppler effect , space and time, genetic engineering and nuclear energy .
- Fifth level and associated level 5.1 : Modern research in natural sciences and medicine. Focus: microcosm and macrocosm .
- Sixth floor : viewing platform
More wooden towers
Only a few high wooden towers also have the properties of a building (closed building envelope, protection from heat, cold, burglary, etc.), such as the millennium tower, for example:
- The Galileiturm at the Swiss research exhibition Heureka in Zurich (52.5 m)
Most of the other tall wooden towers are "only" observation or radio towers:
- Transmission tower in Gliwice , Poland (118 m)
- Observation tower Pyramidenkogel , Austria (100 m total height, top observation platform 70.56 m)
- Rottenbuch radio tower , Weilheim-Schongau district (66 m)
- Measurement towers in Brück , Potsdam-Mittelmark district (54 m)
- Blumenthal observation tower , Ostprignitz district (45 m)
- Weißtannenturm , Kehl (44 m)
- Goetheturm , Frankfurt am Main (43.3 m) - destroyed by arson on the night of October 12, 2017.
literature
- The millennium tower of Magdeburg - this is how the world was changed . 1999, Stuttgart, ISBN 3-7725-1867-2 .
Web links
- Website of the millennium tower Magdeburg
- Information about the millennium tower and the Elbauenpark (opening times and prices)
- Millennium Tower. In: Structurae
- www.zuercherforum.ch/zuercherforum-dt.htm Zurich Forum: scientific exhibitions
- Johannes Peter Staub, building design for the millennium tower
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Matthias Fricke: The "Millennium Tower" becomes a structural problem of the century for the city. In: Magdeburger Volksstimme , May 29, 2012, accessed on May 11, 2017
- ↑ Michaela Schröder: Tower renovation has started. In: Magdeburger Volksstimme , May 9, 2015, accessed on May 11, 2017
Coordinates: 52 ° 8 ′ 19.6 ″ N , 11 ° 39 ′ 59.1 ″ E