Jump tower
The Schanzenturm is the former largest water tower in Europe on a hill ( 28 m above sea level ) of the Hamburg Sternschanzenpark and has been part of the Sternschanze district under administrative law since March 1st, 2008 . It is industrial architecture , built from 1907 to 1910 by the architect Wilhelm Schwarz employed by the Hamburg waterworks , and was used in its original function until 1961. The base of the tower is a high reservoir for the former city water supply (architect William H. Lindley ), which has existed since 1863 and was decommissioned in 1905 , which was then built for a price of 697,000 gold marks.
The water tower from 1910
The water tower had two water tanks, one above the other, each with a capacity of 2,300 cubic meters , a horizontal diameter of 25 meters, a rounded bottom and walls 2.7 meters high. They were riveted together from 10 to 14 millimeter thick steel sheets. The lower container rested on 24 concrete pillars, each 17 meters high, and in turn supported the upper container with steel supports. The space between the pillars and above the supporting structure was lined with bricks. The octagonal tapering tower roof was covered with copper, under which there was a surrounding gallery. This gallery was also used as a viewing platform, at least initially. It could be reached via a spiral staircase with 181 steps in a side stair tower. The roof was damaged in the Second World War, whereupon it was makeshift repairs and then re-covered with slate in 1958 .
Reclassification for further use
In 1956 the water tower became superfluous due to the modernization of the water network, so that it was decommissioned in 1961.
After regular use, the rooms in the tower were used by the Hamburg waterworks as an archive and equipment test center until 1970. Because of the high maintenance costs, attempts were made from 1969 to sell the tower. However, none of the numerous plans to use it turned out to be feasible, mainly for financial reasons.
In the meantime, the Hamburg waterworks considered using the tower again as an administrative center itself, but the construction of nearby office buildings would have been necessary for the approximately 500 employees. Here the protest of the citizens and the green alternative list (GAL), who saw a danger for the Schanzenpark and therefore called the citizens' initiative against the conversion of the Schanzenturm into being, started. However, the search for an interested subsequent user with intermittent approaches to yet another use dragged on until Mövenpick Hotel & Resorts decided on September 11, 2003 to lease the water tower for twenty years and with Patrizia AG as the client and Walter Bau in to convert a four-star trade fair hotel.
Hotel construction
On January 11, 2005, the gutting and renovation of the water tower began under police protection and was opened as the Mövenpick Hotel Hamburg after two and a half years of construction during the G8 summit in Heiligendamm 2007 .
First of all, the two former steel hanging-floor water tanks , each 24.5 meters in diameter, from 1907 were cut out and the tower was gutted. The lower two floors of the building are located underground in the mound of earth in a brick cross vault built in 1863 , which dates back to the time before the tower was built and was used as the first water reservoir. In the storage facility, openings were cut into the one and a half meter thick foundation walls of the tower, including a. to create an entrance to the lower street Sternschanze. The high cross vaults of the historical warehouse have been almost completely preserved and renovated. From winter 2005/2006, 20 storeys were drawn in around the access shaft raised on the inside. The rooms are arranged around the core on each floor. This concrete skeleton also supports the historic brick facade, which otherwise would have been threatened with collapse. In 2007, the new access building on Sternschanze street was adapted to the slope of the Sternschanzenpark with an earth cover and this was planted and the public paths in the park were restored.
In its current state, the hotel in the Schanzenturm offers 226 rooms, a conference center with meeting rooms for events for up to 180 people, a restaurant open all day in a ground-level winter garden, a bar, a fitness center and a sauna.
Protests against the conversion of the Schanzenpark into a "park with a fair hotel"
Residents and citizens' groups organized citizens' petitions with more than 6000 supporters' signatures and sued the Hamburg Administrative Court in 2005 and 2007 against the use of the tower as a hotel. The administrative court came to the conclusion that the building permit issued by the Eimsbüttel district office on December 27, 1996 for the conversion into a hotel should be “objectively illegal” . The investor, Patrizia AG, on the other hand, saw no major problems in this regard: the use of the park would not be restricted, normal people could continue to use it as usual, and an agreement should be reached with the operators of the open-air cinema.
On January 11, 2005, the day construction began, there was a spontaneous demonstration with over 1000 participants in the Sternschanzenpark and in the Schanzenviertel, which was cordoned off by the police. Slogans such as The park belongs to everyone and No hotel were projected onto building facades with a video projector . Other large demonstrations by several thousand participants followed: Sun Hotel held opponents at night the guards and floodlights at the water tower mirror opposite. There were also “pin pricks”, for example fire, paint or butyric acid attacks on the Mövenpick Hotel.
See also
literature
- Jens U. Schmidt: Water towers in Bremen and Hamburg. Hanseatic water towers . Regia-Verlag, Cottbus 2011, ISBN 978-3-86929-190-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sternschanze / water reservoir and surroundings, map from 1880
- ↑ Mövenpick: "A hotel in the water tower, history" ( Memento of the original from October 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Jens U. Schmidt writes in his book "Wassertürme in Hamburg" (December 2003) of a "spherical" floor, which, however, cannot be brought into line with the stated capacity
- ↑ according to Jens U.Schmidt in the Mövenpick Hotel Hamburg website, Hamburg, 2003 ( memento of the original dated August 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The four-star tower. Hamburger Abendblatt, September 11, 2003
- ↑ Mövenpick and Augsburger Immobiliengesellschaft sign lease agreement for 20 years , AHGZonline, accessed on January 14, 2013
- ^ Crisis of Walter Bau AG delays Hamburg projects , Die Welt, dated February 2, 2005
- ↑ The renovation of the water tower begins under police protection. Die Welt, January 11, 2005
- ^ A district in a state of emergency, Die Welt, January 1, 2005
- ↑ Controversial hotel opened in Schanzenpark. Die Welt, 8 June 2007
- ↑ Water tower almost gutted, Hamburger Abendblatt from March 24, 2005
- ↑ TAZ v. May 20, 2005 on the legal dispute, neighbors speak of an illegally reprimanded illegal construction
- ↑ Schanze 20357 v. Summer 2005: Legal dispute about the reconstruction of the water tower, page 4 ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Park plebiscite effective ?, taz from February 21, 2007
- ↑ on Mövenpick Hotel, MOPO from March 4, 2011
- ↑ Again color attack on Mövenpick Hotel: perpetrators escape undetected, Hamburger Abendblatt from January 21, 2008
- ↑ Schanzenpark: balls of paint against the hotel facade, Hamburger Abendblatt from July 19, 2011 (accessed on January 14, 2013)
Web links
- http://www.wasserturm-schanzenpark.de/ - Presentation of the project developer Patrizia
- http://www.schanzenturm.de/ - Free network to maintain the Schanzenpark
Coordinates: 53 ° 33 ′ 53 ″ N , 9 ° 58 ′ 14 ″ E