Phare des Pâquis
| Phare des Pâquis | ||
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| Place: |
 Switzerland , Geneva
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| Location: | Pier of the Pâquis | |
| Geographical location: | 501087 / 118427 | |
| Height of tower base: | 372 m above sea level M. | |
| Fire height : | 15 m | |
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| Identifier : | Fl WG 5s | |
| Scope knows: | 19.45 nm (36 km ) | |
| Scope green: | 12.95 nm (24 km ) | |
| Construction time: | 1894 | |
| International ordinal number: | SWI 001 | |
The Phare des Pâquis ( German lighthouse of Les Pâquis ) is a lighthouse on Lake Geneva , which has marked the entrance to the roadstead of the city of Geneva since 1894 . It is named after the Les Pâquis district .
history
Construction of the Geneva roadstead in 1857
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It was difficult for shipping on Lake Geneva to enter the Rhone . In their outflow from the lake was the old port of the city, which was also near the slaughterhouses. Since the canton of Geneva was reunited with Switzerland after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and peace reigned, shipping traffic on the lake had increased. The desire to build a new port went hand in hand with the demolition of the fortifications , which was decided in 1849. On December 27, 1856, the city council decided to provide funds for the construction of a "main port" (port principal) . The cantonal engineer Leopold Blotnitzki presented the plans for the project.
Using material from the fortress, an area of 33 hectares was separated from the Geneva bay of the lake by two piers in 1857 . Both protect the port, now called «Geneva Roads» (rade de Genève) , from north winds. In addition to the main access for the first steamships, both piers were each given a "Goléron" as a passage for smaller boats. The construction work was completed on September 1, 1857.
On December 6th, 1857, a pier fire was inaugurated on the western pier, which enabled the ships to enter at night. Cast-iron columns, seven meters high and carried a lantern, rose above a four-meter-high octagonal stone base. The physicist Elie François Wartmann had installed an arc lamp there, but adjusting the coals was not yet suitable for everyday use. While in Geneva six months later the fire was switched to petroleum lamps and after four years to gas burners , the first lighthouses with electric arc lamps were able to give their signals between 1858 and 1863. The eastern pier in the Eaux-Vives district was given a similar structure, but with a bell that was struck when it was foggy.
Construction of the Phare des Pâquis
At the beginning of the 1890s, the beacon was no longer up to date. With a maximum width of two kilometers, it was almost no different from the candelabra that the city had installed on the banks in preparation for the second Swiss National Exhibition (1896). In 1893 the council granted a loan to build a tower tower with a modern beacon.
The canton engineer commissioned the architect Paul Bouvier from Neuchâtel. Work began in October 1893. The cast iron pillars were dismantled and replaced by a steel tower with a gallery and lantern. Five tons of pig iron at the foot of the tower gave the structure its stability. The ladders of the lantern could be moved inside.
Four Fresnel lenses from Barbier et Bénard in Paris and the lighting by an Auer mantle increased the range of the beacon to 24 to 36 kilometers, depending on the color. The lens system was rotated by a kind of clockwork, the weights of which hung in the shaft of the tower. The lighthouse keeper had to pull the weights up every 72 hours. Another mechanism with switching cams largely automated the operation and also opened the curtains that protected the equipment from sunlight during the day.
The new lighthouse began operating on April 21, 1894. In May 1894, the friction of the rotating lenses was reduced by a film of mercury . In order to save costs, the erection of a second, red pier fire on the pier at Eaux-Vives had been postponed. This was planned in 1907 and only built in 1911, its fire height is only four meters.
The lighthouse was electrified in 1935. The gas burner was a 500-watt lamp and the weights by a 0.1 hp - electric motor replaced. In the 1940s the power of the lamp was increased to 750 watts, and since 2016 the tower has a 1000 watt halogen lamp . Since then, the fire has been timed and blinds replaced the curtains. The tower is controlled by the Services industriels de Genève , but the attendant only checks the operation once a month and the halogen lamp is replaced every three months.
A renovation took place in 1969. In 1987 the lighthouse was painted white.
The lighthouse of Les Pâquis
Eaux-Vives lighthouse and pier (right)
The drive mechanism
The opened lens construction
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The first lighthouse keeper
The first lighthouse keeper François Marc Delrieu (1857–1944) was 26 years old when he took up his post in 1883 on the old pier. He was hired by Blotnitzki. In addition to serving the two pier lights, he also had to collect the customs duties in the port. When it was foggy, he had to ring the bell on the pier at Eaux-Vives. From April 1894 Delrieu was on duty on the new lighthouse, where he lifted the weights, maintained the rotating mechanism and cleaned the lenses.
description
The tower has an octagonal stone base that was erected in 1857. The metal construction from 1893/1894 is mounted on it. The tower is 18.7 meters high and has a gallery around it. The tower and lantern have been painted white since 1987. The beacon is located at a height of 15 meters and has a range of 36 (white) and 24 kilometers (red). The identification of the fire was changed in 1935 with the installation of the motor, since then a white flash alternating with a green flash has followed every 5 seconds, the mechanical drive still had a flash sequence of three seconds. In addition, since 1969 the entrance has been marked by a green light on the pier at Les Pâquis and a red light on that of Eaux-Vives.
useful information
From 1902 to 1904 the local newspaper Le Phare appeared with the subtitle "Journal des Pâquis - Feuille d'avis de la Rive droite" (The lighthouse - newspaper of Les Pâquis - newsletter of the right bank) .
Between August 2004 and 2005, radio amateurs made broadcasts from the lighthouse on three dates.
The lighthouse has not yet been entered in the Swiss inventory of cultural assets of regional importance (monuments of category A and B).
On Lake Constance there is no lighthouse on the Swiss side. The ten meter high “ Rheinquelle lighthouse ” has stood at the top of the Oberalp Pass since October 2010 . It is supposed to advertise the holiday region at the source of the Rhine . Its model, four meters higher, stood at the main mouth of the Rhine in Hoek van Holland . Another lighthouse was erected near Bad Ragaz in 2018, where it advertised the seventh Bad RagARTz Triennial . It has been standing at the port of Unterterzen on Lake Walen since 2019 .
See also
- Bains des Pâquis , a bathing establishment and monument on the same pier in Les Pâquis.
literature
- Philippe Broillet: La Genève sur l'eau. Edition Wiese, Basel 1997, ISBN 3-909164-61-7 , p. 455.
- Françoise Nydegger, Jean-Pierre Balmer, Armand Brulhart: Genève-les-Bains. Histoire des bains à Genève de l'Antiquité aux Bains des Pâquis. Association d'usagers des Bains des Pâquis , Geneva 1996, p. 287.
Web links and sources
- Fiche technique du phare des Pâquis. Ensemble pour l'histoire numérique de la Suisse romande (French)
- Le phare des Pâquis (informative website about the lighthouse, French)
- ARLHS : Phare des Paquis (Lake Geneva) Light . ( World List of Lights )
Individual evidence
- ^ Pascal Ruedin: Bouvier, Paul. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . Retrieved September 30, 2018.
- ↑ a b c d Fiche technique du phare des Pâquis. (French, accessed September 30, 2018)
- ↑ Phare des Paquis (Lake Geneva) Light . (accessed September 30, 2018)
- ↑ Access to the KGS directories on September 30, 2018; As of January 1, 2018.
- ↑ 20min.ch: Why are there lighthouses in Switzerland? . (August 12, 2018)
- ↑ Lighthouse and cargo ship on the Oberalp Pass . (October 13, 2010)
- ↑ The Alpine Rhine now has a lighthouse.
- ↑ https://www.fm1today.ch/leuchtturm-schwebt-ueber-das-heidiland/1067329