Spinning Hard
The Hard spinning mill is considered the first successful mechanical spinning mill in Switzerland and one of the first on the European continent . It was built from 1801 to 1802 on the western edge of Wülflingen an der Töss , which is now a district of Winterthur in the canton of Zurich . The factory, which was initially also a stock corporation , was built by the Sulzer, Sulzer-Wart, Ziegler and Haggenmacher families with French capital as the «Hardgesellschaft Winterthur». The facility, built in the classical style, is now a national monument .
history
The mill was built in the hardware where the then closest, not water law protected waterfall was Winterthur. At the beginning there were 44 mechanical spinning chairs in the spinning mill, which made around 8,000 home spinners unemployed. In addition to the spinning chairs, a workers ', tenants' and manorial houses also belonged to the company. The spinning mill was expanded for the first time in 1811. In 1817 a boarding school for the workers with a dormitory as well as a bakery and a wash house was added. A barn with a farm was completed in 1822 and a mill was built in 1825 to provide its own food supply. In 1824 a weaving mill was added to the spinning mill . In the 1820s, the factory's first heyday came to an end and the boarding school had to be closed.
In 1841/42 the Hardgesellschaft was liquidated due to the economic crisis of 1837 and Karl Sebastian von Clais took over the spinning mill. At that time, the Hard mechanical workshop was producing its own spinning and weaving machines and sold them to other spinning mills. The decline of the Hard spinning mill began with the economic crisis of 1857 . After Clais' death in 1858, the three sons could no longer hold the company and it was pledged in 1866.
The spinning mill was taken over by Elmar Wild from Glarus and the Honegger brothers from Wald. These lengthened the water canal and expanded the hydropower plant and let the spinning mill flourish again. In 1874 seven workers' apartments were built on Wülflingerstrasse. In 1918 the Hard was connected to the public power grid. After the First World War the economic situation of the spinning mill deteriorated noticeably and textile production was finally stopped in 1924.
Use after the spinning mill's decline
After the decline of the spinning mill, the Neftenbach button factory took over the factory in February 1924, which ceased operations four years later. The button factory that was closed was taken over by Hans Stüdli and converted for his plastic injection / pressing plant. A new industrial hall with support-free halls was built on the site. The internationally active company was based in the Hard until it went bankrupt in 1985.
During the economic crisis of the 1930s, the first Swiss vocational camp for unemployed young metal workers was opened on the Hard site in 1935. This example was followed by 94 other labor camps throughout Switzerland, including a camp for electrical engineers in the Hard. In 1942 an extension for auto mechanics was built. In 1946 the Hard labor camps were taken over by the “Fachschule Hard” foundation, which organized further training courses there. Today's Swiss Technical College remained in Hard until 1962 and then moved into a new building in the Schlosstal .
Today (2018) the area is managed by the Hard community , which took over the area after the demise of the Stüdli company. Today around 140 people live on the site and there are roughly the same number of jobs in various commercial enterprises. In addition to various handicraft businesses such as the "Ego Elektrikergenossenschaft", there are also hard studios and an organic farm on the area.
Hard power station
In 1845 the previous water wheels from Karl Sebastian von Clais were replaced with the installation of a Jonval turbine from Rieter . The hydropower plant was electrified in 1937 and two new Francis turbines were purchased in 1939 . The old machinery was shut down in March 2014.
The Hard community had the old Töss power plant , the components of which are an integral part of the building complex, renovated and expanded in order to increase the electricity yield and take ecological measures. With the relocation of the power plant center to the outermost edge of the settlement (where the underwater tunnel of the old Hardkraftwerk used to flow into the Töss), flood protection was improved and the turbine noise problem solved. The new double- regulated Kaplan turbine from Watex is designed for an additional flow of 6.5 m 3 / s and a net head of 10.47 m. It achieves an output of 575 kW. The generated voltage of 400 V is stepped up to 11 kV via a transformer and fed into the network of Stadtwerke Winterthur .
In March 2015, electricity was generated for the first time with the new power plant. With an average annual electricity generation of around 2.55 GWh, that of the old power plant (1.1 GWh) can be more than doubled. Around 12 percent of the electricity is required for the area's self-sufficiency, the rest can be fed into the public grid as clean energy. The new water law was granted for a further 60 years.
Web links
- Community Hard
- IN.KU 12 : Publication of the Swiss Society for the History of Technology and Industrial Culture (PDF; 149 kB)
- Hard, Spinnerei im Winterthur Glossary.
Individual evidence
- ↑ NZZ of December 8, 2001: The Swiss textile industry is 200 years old.
- ↑ Hydro Zek April 2016: The oldest industrial monument in Switzerland opens a new chapter in the use of hydropower
Coordinates: 47 ° 31 '3.3 " N , 8 ° 40' 33.6" E ; CH1903: 693199 / 263,716