Red Tower (Chemnitz)

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Red Tower

The Red Tower is the symbol of the city of Chemnitz and its oldest preserved building. It was built in the late 12th century and served first as a castle keep , to protect the surrounding settlements, later he was the seat of the Podestà . The tower was probably integrated into the Chemnitz city fortifications as early as 1230.

The name of the tower is traced back to the dominant red color of the building material used. The main body of the building was built from predominantly red varieties of the Chemnitz porphyry tuff . Components of this color can be found primarily in the oldest buildings in Chemnitz. This rock, one of the ignimbrite related Tuffart , has been the Hauptbaugestein in the city and its region for centuries. At the end of the 15th century, he received the attached brick floor, which was covered with red roof tiles. The tower itself was plastered and probably painted white until the middle of the 19th century.

The tower and its extension were used as a prison until around 1900 . This function saved the Red Tower from demolition in the early 19th century when the Chemnitz city fortifications were dismantled. Inmates of the Red Tower during its time as a prison included August Bebel and Karl Stülpner . When Theaterstrasse was rebuilt at the end of the 19th century, the previously free-standing Red Tower disappeared behind a row of houses, so that only the tower hood could be seen of the tower.

The tower burned down during one of the air raids on Chemnitz at the end of the Second World War. It was rebuilt between 1957 and 1959.

Trivia

The shape of the classic 500 ml bottle of fit dishwasher detergent was modeled on the “Red Tower” in 1968. The detergent was produced at VEB Fettchemie Karl-Marx-Stadt until 1967 .

The neighboring shopping center Galerie Roter Turm , which opened on April 27, 2000, is named after the Red Tower .

The Red Tower is older than the cities of Dresden and Berlin and older than the city of Chemnitz itself.

The tower for Chemnitz has been on the game board of the German edition of Monopoly since September 2007 .

  • Red Tower and Herrengasse, around 1890

  • Wrapping as part of an art project, 2008

  • Red Tower, 2009

  • Red Tower, 2009

Web links

Commons : Red Tower  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dehio-Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Saxony II, administrative districts of Leipzig and Chemnitz. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1998, p. 118.
  2. ^ Dietrich Zühlke (ed.): Karl-Marx-Stadt. Results of the local history inventory in the area of ​​Karl-Marx-Stadt. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1979, p. 64.
  3. ↑ http://www.baunetz.de/mektiven/Mommunikations_Stadtgalerie_Roter_Turm_in_Chemnitz_eroeffnet_6939.html

Coordinates: 50 ° 50 ′ 3.2 ″  N , 12 ° 55 ′ 17.7 ″  E