Friedrichshagen waterworks
The Berlin waterworks Friedrichshagen was built between 1889 and 1899 according to planning work by Henry Gill and began operations in 1893 as the Müggelsee waterworks . The original waterworks, which extends over an area of 55 hectares, is a preserved testimony to industrial history and a monument of European importance.
The museum in the waterworks has been located in a disused part of the waterworks since 1987 . Historical evidence of the history of water supply and urban drainage in Berlin is collected, made accessible and exhibited here. The visitor to the museum experiences nature, historical architecture, technology and museum presentations at the original location. The machine hall with a demonstrable steam engine from the 19th century is particularly worth seeing .
Beginning of the supply of Berlin with drinking water
The original Friedrichshagen waterworks was the third waterworks in Berlin.
The already existing waterworks at Stralauer Tor and Tegeler See , which had been built under the direction of the engineer Henry Gill , were not sufficient due to the industrial and population expansion; there was talk of a water emergency . In 1887, for example, Gill presented his project to set up a water extraction station at Müggelsee and an intermediate pumping station in Lichtenberg in four construction stages. The Berlin magistrate immediately issued the building permits. The project for the use of the Müggelsee was implemented on an area of 7000 m² and on October 28, 1893, the first parts of the system went into operation with a daily output of 86,400 m³. However, Gill died a few months after the Friedrichshagen plant opened. The architect and city builder Richard Schultze planned and implemented the high-rise buildings in the style of the Brandenburg brick building. At the time of commissioning, the waterworks was the largest and most modern in Europe. At the same time, the waterworks at Stralauer Tor ceased operations in 1894. In the same year, the third expansion phase began in Friedrichshagen, the C-departments of which were finished with the first six filters and a pure water tank in the summer of 1895. At the end of all four expansion stages, around 1899, the waterworks had six machine houses, three scooping machine houses (A, B, C), suction chambers, underground intermediate storage, a scooping machine house directly on the lakeshore, 34 slow sand filters , four trickles (systems in which water is de-iced ) , numerous outbuildings and four residential buildings. However, the last quarter of the new waterworks envisaged in the project was no longer implemented.
Initially, drinking water was obtained exclusively from the surface water of the Müggelsee . The daily capacity was 86,400 cubic meters of water. But as early as 1898, the Berlin city administration had two deep wells built on Lake Müggelsee and installed several observation tubes . As a result of long-term measurements of the water quality, it was calculated that when converting to groundwater extraction and treatment, the Friedrichshagen plant would require 350 deep wells in three galleries with a total length of nine kilometers. In the period 1904–1909, the reconstruction of the original waterworks for the use of groundwater took place under the direction of City Planning Officer Beer . Mixed water, from the lake surface and from groundwater, was initially treated. As a result of the groundwater extraction, the pre-calculated 350 wells were created.
Water supply between 1920 and April 1945
After all of the former suburbs / communities had merged into the Greater Berlin community, which was formed in 1920, the joint stock company Berliner Städtische Wasserwerke was established in 1922 as an association of all waterworks . As a result, the group management made necessary technical improvements to several systems. In Friedrichshagen, a partial modernization took place in the period 1925–1927, mainly by switching to electric drives and the pipe network was extensively expanded. In addition, the daily capacity increased to 320,000 m³ of treated water. Friedrichshagen, in Wuhlheide and Tegel were labs opened to monitor water quality.
In the last year of World War II, Allied planes targeted central waterworks in Berlin in order to break the resistance of fascist Germany. The system in Friedrichshagen suffered numerous damage as a result, so that the water supply was even completely interrupted for almost a week. The supply of the remaining population was never jeopardized, however, as all plants worked together.
Between the end of the war in 1945 and German reunification
With the order number 1 of the SMAD it was stipulated that “all municipal operations, such as power and water works […] have to resume their work to supply the population. [...] Workers and employees of the above-mentioned companies have to remain at their workplaces and continue to fulfill their duties. "The Friedrichshagen plant was equipped with a diesel generator and was put into operation on May 2, 1945. For hygienic reasons, only groundwater was treated for the first few days. Expert Soviet engineers and chemical officers checked the water quality. By the end of 1945, all 18 municipal waterworks had resumed operations, but large parts of the water pipes laid under roads were still defective and there were corresponding losses. There was also a severe shortage of coal deliveries and their transport to the plants. It was not until 1948 that there were no more major problems; daily amounts of water were even pumped that had never been reached before.
As a result of the division of Berlin into four sectors , two water companies were created from the previous municipal works. From 1951 onwards, all drinking and sewage works that remained in the Soviet sector merged to form the Groß-Berliner Wasser- und Drainagewerke (WEW). In order to be able to continuously improve the economy and to be able to better supply newly emerging residential areas, economic feasibility studies were carried out on each individual system. For the Friedrichshagen area, this ultimately led to the steam operation being reduced and the slow filters from the early days rebuilt. The treatment of mixed water proved to be problematic from the beginning of the 1960s due to increasing contamination of the Müggelsee water ( coli bacteria , high phenol concentrations). Since then, only groundwater has been pumped and treated.
The East Berlin waterworks finally decided on an extensive program for the complex reconstruction of their most important hydropower plant in Friedrichshagen. The first groundwater works were added in 1979–1981 and the second in 1983. New machine halls were built for these plants, new well galleries (F – M) could be drilled and new pipelines laid in the lake. Also in 1979 the steam engine operation was completely stopped. The reconstruction measures also led to the construction of a new administration building, new transformer stations, a central laboratory, new quick filter stations, and a waste heat recovery plant. This resulted in a gradual transition from the old to the new Friedrichshagen waterworks. All measures ensured an additional daily raw water gain of 100,000 m³.
Since October 1990
After the political change and German reunification , the former West Berlin and East Berlin water supply companies merged to form Berliner Wasserbetriebe (BWB) by December 31, 1991 , combined with a reorganization and restructuring of the company management.
In the area around the Müggelsee extensive canalization was carried out, water protection zones for the whole of Berlin were redefined. The extraction of surface water in the Friedrichshagen plant has been suspended since 1991 and only groundwater is pumped in the new waterworks.
Some buildings on the Friedrichshagen site and the collection wells were restored from 1991 to 1995. In addition, the BWB set up a control center in Friedrichshagen from which the Lichtenberg intermediate pumping station and the Kaulsdorf waterworks can be remotely controlled. In 1998 structural and technical renovations began according to plans by architect Jörn Rauer from the BWB's construction department in order to create a complex waterworks .
The Jungfernheide , Johannisthal and Friedrichshagen waterworks have been operating a total of 14 defensive wells since 2001 for the non -toxic disposal of contaminated groundwater.
The waterworks on the Müggelseedamm, still in operation, has had two two -aisled filter halls with two-layer quick filters since all reconstruction measures were completed. The four clean water tanks installed in the basement have a combined capacity of 12,000 m³ of water. The groundwater works I and II were shut down after 2005, the plant III secures the water supply for the entire district of Friedrichshagen with a daily output of 250,000 m³.
The TV series Anja & Anton played on the site of this waterworks.
Museum in the old waterworks
Museum coordinates: 52 ° 27 ' N , 13 ° 39' E
Since 1987 - for the 750th anniversary of Berlin - the museum in the old waterworks (until 2014: Museum in the waterworks ) on the history of water supply and urban drainage has been located in part of the old waterworks . The old boiler house and machine hall B are used for exhibition purposes. On the 7000 m² area there is the permanent exhibition Water for Berlin , as well as special exhibitions and an outdoor area with exhibits that you can touch.
On August 1, 2014, the operation was transferred from the Berliner Wasserbetriebe to the Berliner Unterwelten association with a long-term usage contract until 2024. To better present the technology and buildings that are worth seeing, the Unterweltenverein has invested around 400,000 euros of its own money by summer 2018 Museum stuck. From August 2015, guided tours (Tour W -Wasser für Berlin) took place on the weekends , during which areas of the historic waterworks that were previously inaccessible were visited and explained. Examples are the collection well, the area below the steam engines and the seawater pumping station built in the late 1980s. Another tour through the slow sand filter vaults should be offered at a later date. However, in June 2018 the water company prematurely terminated the usage contract, initially no more public tours are allowed. However, after registration or as part of the Night of the Museums event, tours should still be possible. The reason for the termination is that the water company itself "wants to develop the old works site in the long term and is working on a 'feasibility study' for it."
In addition to the exhibitions, the museum was used for other cultural events. Numerous concerts, readings and other events have taken place since it was founded. The machine hall is particularly popular because of its excellent acoustics and its own atmosphere of neo-Gothic industrial building.
architecture
overview
The entire building ensemble on Müggelseedamm belongs to historicism in Gothic style. The main building material was bricks , from the 1970s also concrete . Several architects and, above all, water engineers were involved in the designs and buildings.
The lake waterworks occupies a rectangular plot of land, cut through by the Müggelseedamm road . The pumping and scooping machine houses, suction chambers and residential buildings are located on the narrow shoreline to the Großer Müggelsee . Fields A, B and C are located north of the road (A and B each with an engine house, eleven filter basins and a pure water tank), while C had twelve filter basins. The reconstruction carried out in 1904–1909 combined the fields to form groundwater works I. The overpumping stations built in 1935/1936 have been preserved. During the reconstruction in the 1970s, six new fountain galleries were added (Gallery E on the south-west bank of the Müggelsee, two each on the Long Lake and two on the Seddinsee ). And the groundwater works II and III with their machine halls and administrative buildings were built from scratch.
Selected buildings
The first collection well, in a small hexagonal building, based on a chapel with paired arched windows and a pointed roof, was created according to designs by Eduard Beer and Gustav Anklam .
The machine halls of the 1970s were reinforced concrete structures, externally structured by ribbon-like rows of windows. These have been preserved and received a facade beauty treatment after 1995.
literature
- Richard Schultze: The buildings of the Berlin waterworks in Friedrichshagen and Lichtenberg. In: Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung . , Vol. 14, No. 27, 1894, pp. 273-276. (Digitized version) and No. 28, pp. 285–286. (Digitized version)
- Berlin and its buildings. Part X, Volume A (2): Urban technology. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2006, ISBN 3-86568-012-7 .
Web links
- Senate Department for Urban Development Berlin: NATURA 2000 area waterworks Friedrichshagen
- Private website u. a. with the excursion destination Museum im Wasserwerk
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Hilmar Bärthel: Systems and buildings of the water supply . In: Berlin and its buildings . Part X, Volume A (2): Urban technology. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2006, ISBN 3-86568-012-7 , p. 59/60.
- ↑ Information in the museum brochure WissensDURST of the Berliner Wasserbetriebe.
- ↑ a b c Berlin and its buildings…. 2006, pp. 90-95.
- ↑ Berlin and its buildings…. 2006, pp. 96/97.
- ↑ Berlin and its buildings…. 2006, pp. 108-110.
- ↑ a b Michael Brettin: The underworlds must go. In: Berliner Zeitung (print edition), 25./26. August 2018, p. 13.
- ↑ Berlin and its buildings…. 2006, pp. 339/340.
- ↑ Berlin and its buildings…. 2006, p. 68.
Coordinates: 52 ° 27 ′ 7 ″ N , 13 ° 38 ′ 34 ″ E