Schleusenbrücke (Berlin)

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 57 ″  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 59 ″  E

Lock bridge
Northern railing of the lock bridge
use	Road traffic
Convicted	Werderstrasse / Schloßplatz
Crossing of	Spree Canal , Schleusengraben
place	Berlin, district of Mitte
construction	Steel beam
overall length	23.9 m
width	24.0 m
Longest span	19.7 m
start of building	1914; Widened and extended to the current dimensions in 1936
completion	1916/1937
planner	Fritz Kritzler and Max Tischer (design)
location
Bridge railings by Schirmer and Marker with medallions of historical cityscapes from the 17th and 18th centuries

The lock bridge spans the western arm of the Spree in Berlin-Mitte , the Spree Canal on the Spree island, and thus connects Werderscher Markt with Schloßplatz . The name of the bridge goes back to an earlier lock and the lock ditch at this point. It is a listed building .

history

1748: Area around the Schleusenbrücke (Neues Thor, Dogs ~ (Castle ~) to Alte Cavalier ~ and Lange Brücke), in between the districts of Dorotheenstadt, Friedrichswerder, Alt-Cölln and Alt-Berlin

Lock bridge and building academy as it was in 1915

When a gate valve was installed in the Cöllnischen Stadtgraben in 1443, two wooden bridges were built for the first time. The western one got its later name after the existing lock, the eastern one was called the bridge at the Werderschen mills . A reconstruction of the mill systems and the lock in the 1650s made it necessary to rebuild this bridge. The new lock bridge was built by Vibrand Gerlitzen, it was now 24 meters wide and enabled the ship locks with five pairs of flaps. As early as 1694, the city of Berlin had the old wooden structure replaced with massive substructures.

The Dorotheenstrasse - Alexanderplatz line of the Berlin Horse Railway (BPfE, electrical operation from 1900), founded in the 1860s , the demolition of the development of the Schloss Freiheit and the construction of the Kaiser Wilhelm National Monument in its place required the construction of this bridge. The Berlin architects Fritz Kritzler and Max Tischer supplied the drafts for the architectural design of a new flapless lock bridge made of iron girders (rolled steel St52 and sheet metal girders St37), which was carried out between 1914 and 1916. The parapet and abutment were clad with gray granite. It was now seven meters long and around 17 meters wide. The architects had the artists Robert Schirmer and Otto Markert make a bridge railing influenced by Art Nouveau , which consisted of six openwork cast-iron grids and in each of the end panels had two bronze reliefs with city views from the years 1657 and 1774.

Memorial plaque on the lock bridge

The expansion of the Mühlendamm lock, the removal of the lock weir and the simultaneous expansion of the Spree Canal required a reconstruction of the bridge in 1937, which was now both lengthened and widened. The new railing fields were built like their predecessors, the sculptor Kurt Schumacher created two more medallions each with three-dimensional city views from the years 1650 and 1688. The renovation work also brought to light four copper panels with the dates 1657, 1694, 1863, 1897, which were related to construction work the lock and the erection of the equestrian statue of Wilhelm I refer to the adjacent Schloss Freiheit (1897).

The lock bridge suffered severe damage in the Second World War , especially the bridge decking and the railing were destroyed in May 1945. The bridge was not repaired until 1951, but the medallions were still missing for 20 years. The cast iron bridge railing was reconstructed in 1972/1973. In this context, the city administration had the old city views made of aluminum , which were then bronzed.

Between 1998 and 2000 the lock bridge was extensively renovated.

• The four found medallions with views of the city, the names of the artists are given in brackets
• 

  1650 (Schumacher)

• 

  1657 (Schirmer)

• 

  1688 (Schumacher)

• 

  1774 (Markert)

See also

• List of cultural monuments in Berlin-Mitte / Alt-Kölln

literature

• Eckhard Thiemann, Dieter Deszyk, Horstpeter Metzing: Berlin and its bridges. Jaron Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89773-073-1 , p. 88 f.
• Institute for Monument Preservation (Ed.): The architectural and art monuments of the GDR: Berlin, Part I. Henschelverlag, Berlin 1984, p. 132.
• Wolfgang Schmidt, Wilfried Theile: Monuments of the production and traffic history. Verlag für Bauwesen, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-345-00313-9 .

Web links

Commons : Schleusenbrücke (Berlin-Mitte)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry in the Berlin State Monument List with further information
• Lock bridge at luise-berlin.de
• Schleusenbrücke at brueckenweb.de ( Memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• 13 photos of the lock bridge at structurae.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Information in a bridge forum; Retrieved March 22, 2009