Malakoffturm (Cologne)

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Malakoff Tower
Malakoff Tower
Basic data
Place: Cologne , Altstadt-Süd
Construction time : 1852-1855
Status : completed
Architects : Carl Schnitzler

Bernhard Harperath

Use / legal
Usage : Pumping station and cafe
Owner : Imhoff Foundation
Client : City of Cologne and the military treasury
Technical specifications
Floors : 4th
Building material : brick
Malakoffturm with Rhine bank fortification, left of the harbor basin, in the background the Bayenturm (1884)
Malakoffturm, now to the right of the harbor basin (2012)

The Malakoffturm is a relic of the Prussian bank fortifications built between 1848 and 1858 on the Holzmarkt in Cologne .

history

After the chain of forts upstream of the city of Cologne on the left bank of the Rhine had been consolidated and strengthened in the 1840s, the expansion of the city fortifications on the Rhine side began in 1848. This included the construction of a new security harbor in front of the southern old town, the installation of a new throat wall and the construction of a gate tower at the northern tip of the harbor basin, including an iron swing bridge. Work on the tower and swing bridge took place from 1852 to 1855. The exterior of the tower and its ancillary structures was completed in 1854, while the interior was not completed until 1855. In addition to the actual gate tower, the facility at the northern tip of the "Rheinau" was designed as an open battery with a vaulted gun tower. The engineer Colonel von Platz, Carl Schnitzler , was responsible for the drafts, while the construction management was in the hands of the city master builder Bernhard Harperath .

With the constant development of offensive weapons, the strategic importance of defense facilities also changed. After the Rhine bank fortification, which was no longer required for military reasons, was transferred from the military treasury to the city of Cologne, the city of Cologne was able to begin expanding the area into the Rheinauhafen . A complete redesign took place from 1892 to 1898, during which the new shipyard and port facilities were built according to plans by city councilor Joseph Stübben , city building inspector Wilhelm Bauer and departmental builders Edmund Grosse and Hugo Clef. The Malakoff tower also lost its fortification significance. In the course of the construction of the new harbor basin, it also changed sides; it was located near the old basin intended as a security harbor on the Rhine side, and after completion of the expansion work it stood on the city side.

A hydraulic pressurized water pump was installed in the Malakoffturm to operate the swing bridge connecting the Rheinauhafen with the Holzmarkt . The system, consisting of a bridge and a pump, was manufactured by Harkort in Duisburg and Haniel & Lueg in Düsseldorf in 1888 . In order to move the bridge mass of 420 tons, a pressure of 50  bar was required, which the pumping station in the Malakoff tower generated. Originally an 8 HP AC motor from Helios AG in Ehrenfeld was used to operate the three-cylinder press pump . The connection from the pumping station in the Malakoff tower to the movement units of the bridge was made by means of underground pipes. In 1986 the facility was extensively renovated.

After the Second World War , port handling in Cologne increasingly shifted to new locations, and the Rheinauhafen lost its importance. Today, the swing bridge is usually open to pedestrians and cyclists who use it to reach the Chocolate Museum, which has been located opposite the Malakoffturm since 1993 and was built using old structures at the northern tip of the port.

Since 2005, the "Harbor Terrace at the Chocolate Museum" has been located on and in the Malakoffturm. In 1911 the statue of Tauzieher was erected southwest of the Malkoff Tower .

Naming

In 1855 the tower built to secure the Rheinauhafen was christened "Malakoffturm". The reasons for naming a tower in the Cologne fortifications were not apparent to Ernst Zander, the captain of the Wehrmacht commandant in Cologne, back in the 1940s. It was preceded by the capture of Fort Malakov in Sevastopol by French troops on September 8, 1855, after the defending Russians had withstood the siege by the French, English, Turks and Sardinians for eleven months in the Crimean War .

description

The brick architecture of the Malakoffturm was designed by Schnitzler in similar forms to the forts of the second generation built in the 1840s. (I, III, V, VII, IX and XI). It consists of a two-storey substructure, on the square, city-side part of which there is the two-storey, octagonal tower top and the rectangular extension on the harbor side, which ends in a semicircular cone . The approach of the original fortification of the banks of the Rhine is also recognizable from this. There is an oriel on the city side of the tower, including a plaque commemorating the expansion of the port from 1892 to 1898. Both components are crowned with a crenellated wreath.

  • Malakoff tower and swing bridge, 2010

  • View from the south-east, 2012

  • Rhine side with the starting point of the Rhine bank wall, 2012

  • City side, with bay window and memorial plaque, 2012

  • Memorial plaque, 2012

Web links

Commons : Malakoffturm  - collection of images

literature

  • Architects and engineers association for Lower Rhine and Westphalia (Ed.): Cologne and its buildings. Commemorative publication for the 8th hiking meeting of the Association of German Architects and Engineers' Associations in Cologne from August 12 to 16, 1888. M. DuMont-Schauberg, Cologne 1888, p. 204 (unchanged new edition: Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3 -88375-036-0 )
  • Uta Grefe: Cologne in early photographs 1847–1914. Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-88814-294-6 , pp. 145-147.
  • Hiltrud Kier (arrangement) with the assistance of Fried Mühlberg : List of monuments. 12.1 Cologne District 1 (Altstadt and Deutz) Ed. Landeskonservator Rheinland, Rheinland Verlag, Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-7927-0455-2 , p. 72.
  • Dieter Klein-Meynen, Henriette Meynen, Alexander Kierdorf: Cologne economic architecture . From the early days to reconstruction. Wienand Verlag, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-87909-413-6 , pp. 117ff.
  • Henriette Meynen (ed.): Fortress city of Cologne. The bulwark in the west. (= Fortis Colonia eV, series 1) Hermann-Josef Emons Verlag, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-89705-780-7 , pp. 266-271, 495.
  • Hermann Wieger (ed.): Handbook of Cologne. Hermann Wieger publishing house, Cologne 1925, pp. 251, 322.
  • Jürgen Wilhelm (Hrsg.): The great Cologne Lexicon. Greven Verlag, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-7743-0355-X , pp. 301f.
  • Ernst Zander: The fortification and military history of Cologne (including the formerly independent cities Deutz and Mülheim) from the beginning of the French period (1794) to the end of the British occupation (1926) in two volumes. Volume I, Verlag des Kölnischer Geschichtsverein eV, Cologne 1944 (not published due to the war; flag withdrawn from the historical archive of the city of Cologne ), p. 377f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ernst Zander: Fortification and military history of Cologne (including the formerly independent cities Deutz and Mülheim) from the beginning of the French period (1794) to the end of the British occupation (1926) in two volumes. Volume I, Verlag des Kölnisches Geschichtsverein eV, Cologne 1944 (not published due to the war; flag withdrawn from the historical archive of the city of Cologne), p. 377.
  2. ^ Hermann Wieger (Ed.): Handbook of Cologne. Hermann Wieger publishing house, Cologne 1925, p. 251.
  3. ↑ according to the sign on the swing bridge.
  4. ↑ Dieter Klein-Meynen, Henriette Meynen, Alexander Kierdorf: Cologne economic architecture . From the early days to reconstruction. Wienand Verlag, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-87909-413-6 , p. 118.
  5. ↑ HAFENTERRASSE at the Chocolate Museum on nachrichten.net
  6. ↑ Ernst Zander: Fortification and military history of Cologne (including the formerly independent cities Deutz and Mülheim) from the beginning of the French period (1794) to the end of the British occupation (1926) in two volumes. Volume I, Verlag des Kölnisches Geschichtsverein eV, Cologne 1944 (not published due to the war; flag withdrawn from the historical archive of the city of Cologne), p. 378.
  7. ^ Architects and engineers association for Lower Rhine and Westphalia (ed.): Cologne and its buildings. Commemorative publication for the 8th hiking meeting of the Association of German Architects and Engineers' Associations in Cologne from August 12 to 16, 1888. M. DuMont-Schauberg, Cologne 1888, p. 204 (unchanged new edition: Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3 -88375-036-0 )
  8. ↑ Hiltrud Kier (arrangement) with the assistance of Fried Mühlberg: Monuments directory. 12.1 Cologne District 1 (Altstadt and Deutz) Ed. Landeskonservator Rheinland, Rheinland Verlag, Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-7927-0455-2 , p. 72.
  9. ^ Hermann Wieger (Ed.): Handbook of Cologne. Hermann Wieger publishing house, Cologne 1925, p. 251.

Coordinates: 50 ° 55 ′ 57.6 "  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 49"  E