Power bath
The Viennese river baths were bathing ships that made bathing and swimming as safe as possible. The majority of them were stationed in the Danube Canal . The Badeschiff Wien took up this idea under private management.
Urban power baths
Electricity, air and sunbathing in Kuchelau
The Kuchelau electricity, air and sun baths in the Kuchelau harbor near Kahlenbergerdorf were owned by the City of Vienna and were the model for the later river baths in the Danube Canal. It was connected to the beach between the Danube and the harbor basin via a floating jetty.
History of the municipal river baths in the Danube Canal
In order to improve the extremely poor hygienic conditions in the city, the city administration built public baths , the so-called drip baths . In addition, in the area of the Danube and the Old Danube there were swimming pools operated by the city and privately owned. However, since these were difficult to reach, especially from the western districts of the city, the pressure increased on the magistrate to also build baths in the Danube Canal, which was meanwhile largely protected from contamination by the construction of the main collecting canals , or to build baths in the Vienna River .
However, this did not allow the construction of the two bodies of water. The only way to obey this pressure from the population was to build swimming pools, for which the Imperial and Royal Lower Austrian Lieutenancy gave its approval in principle in a decree of May 28, 1902.
However, the Danube Canal itself caused problems in the execution of the project. Due to its narrow width, the high flow speed and the numerous relatively sharp bends, only a few unused places for anchoring bathing boats could be found without hindering navigation in the canal. Since bathers should be protected from prying eyes, these berths should also not be too close to a bridge.
Various conditions, which the municipality of Vienna was supposed to meet, prompted the municipal council to temporarily withdraw its plan to build a first stream pool in the area of the Nussdorf weir and lock system on September 12, 1902 in order to be able to conduct further negotiations.
With the support of the Danube Regulation Commission and the First Danube Steamship Company , the City of Vienna finally received the water law consensus on the construction of five river baths from the Lower Austrian Lieutenancy in October 1903. Among other things, the locations were fixed in it
- below the Nussdorf weir and lock system,
- on the left bank of the canal above the Augarten Bridge ,
- on the right bank below the connecting railway bridge ,
- above the Sophienbrücke and
- at the Kaiser-Josefs-Brücke .
The construction of bathing ships in the hard-built section of the Danube Canal was not approved.
Despite this choice of location, additional safety measures were prescribed at least for these first two electric baths. A changing stand had to be set up for the municipal electricity pool in Nussdorf, so that it could be stationed either on the banks of the Danube Canal or the Danube, depending on where the shipping took place. At the Badeschiff Sophienbrücke, on the other hand, an advisory service had to be set up in order to prevent two ships from meeting at the level of the Badeschiff, as it blocked the ships' view in an arch of the Danube Canal.
In order to test both the technical functionality of the river baths and their acceptance by the population, but also for financial reasons, the municipal council initially only approved the construction of two bathing boats for the Nussdorf and Sophienbrücke locations on December 4, 1903. This should be completed on May 24, 1904.
The original plan was to assemble both river baths in Nussdorf , the location of the first bathing ship, and then relocating one of the two ships to the Sophienbrücke by means of a remorquing system . However, since the passage of the Ferdinandsbrücke was recognized as too risky, only the two floats were put together in Nussdorf and brought to the mouth of the Wien River, where the pool could be assembled without hindering shipping.
The originally set opening date could not be kept. In spite of this, the power bath at the Sophienbrücke, which was put into operation on July 18, 1904, was very busy, so that the municipal council decided to reschedule the remaining bathing ships, which would give the new power baths additional capacity for the rush of visitors. In addition, the bath currently located at the Sophienbrücke should be relocated and replaced by one of the new ones to be built.
Around 1910 there was an intention to build another river bath at the Brigittabrücke . However, the project does not seem to have been realized.
The Strombad Nussdorf was extended in 1918 by a sun and air bath with changing facilities, shower and sand areas located between the lock, the Danube Canal and the railway embankment. In 1922, the Badeschiff, which was relocated from the Rotunda Bridge between the Aspern and Schwedenbrücke in 1921, was given sun and air baths for men and women on the prairie area. The source “The New Vienna” leaves some ambiguity on this point, however, because according to it, the fourth of the river baths in the Danube Canal was still at the Rotunda Bridge.
Visitor numbers
The two river baths in Nussdorf and at the Sophienbrücke could not be put into operation until later than planned and were therefore not available for the entire bathing season in 1904. Nevertheless, the bathing ship, which was opened earlier, was visited by 40,461 bathers at the Sophienbrücke.
In the summer of 1908, 78,899 bathers, around 30 percent of whom were women, used the electricity pools at Kaiser-Josefs-Brücke, Sophienbrücke and Augartenbrücke.
During the winter of 1908/1909, the Strombad near the Augarten Bridge remained open. Between the middle of September and the end of December 1908 around 1,300 bathers bathed in the cold water. The changing rooms were heated for this.
Tariff
For the two new baths, the local council decided on May 17, 1904 both bathing regulations and the tariff for the entrance fees.
- Adults, 1st class: 70 Heller (including laundry)
- Adults, 2nd class: 30 Heller (including laundry)
- Children, 1st class: 40 hellers
- Children, 2nd class: 20 Heller
- The tariff also provided for the issue of annual tickets.
At the suggestion of the then Magistrate Director Richard Weiskirchner , after consultation with the school council and the city physics, the municipal council approved the issue of 9,000 free tickets for the Nussdorf power pool and a further 3,000 for the Sophienbrücke power pool. In addition, all pupils of the Viennese elementary, civil, commercial and middle schools, who were already taller than 1.3 meters, received entrance tickets according to the children's tariff if they were proof of age. An expansion of this campaign was planned with the commissioning of further baths.
Furnishing
The first two bathing ships were 50 meters long and 10 meters wide. They were carried by two tubular floating bodies with a diameter of 1.5 meters made of sheet steel, which were reinforced inside with angle iron and divided at intervals of 5 to 6 meters with thick transverse walls with manholes. These floats were mounted in such a way that there was a clear width of 6.3 meters for the swimming baskets between them.
The bathing ships could be reached from the bank via a footbridge, which initially led the visitors into a covered anteroom with the cash registers and the entrances to the men's and women's departments.
For reasons of space, only cloakroom boxes for 2nd class bathers could be set up on the long sides. The changing rooms for 1st class were placed on the transverse sides.
The men's section had 12 cubicles and 80 small boxes, a urinal with an oil siphon, a toilet with flushing water and showers. The toilet, the showers and the drinking water pipes were supplied with high spring water. The floating basket, made of steel and designed to be raised and lowered, was 16.6 meters long and 1.5 meters deep with a width of 5.7 meters.
The women's section offered space for 60 boxes and, due to the elimination of the urinal, for 13 cubicles. The bathing basket was 12.4 meters long, 5.7 meters wide and 1.5 meters deep. As in the men's department, a 1.3 meter wide strip was separated as a children's pool on the narrow side of the swimming basket. The toilet had this department as sphagnum -Streuklosett to a collecting container, which could be pumped out from the shore, to be executed.
The production costs for such a bathing ship were around 48,000 crowns. There was also around 6,000 crowns for laundry. The construction plans were drawn up in the department of building officer Karl Haubfleisch in the Vienna City Building Office by engineer Johann Bischanka, who also supervised the construction of all four power pools. The city architect Leopold Eber was responsible for the architectural design of the bathroom. The two bathing boats were built by the Viennese company A. Kroi, which employed the master carpenter Johann Sulzbacher for the superstructures and the iron designer Albin Ogris for the bath baskets as a subcontractor. J. Med was busy installing the water pipes and the toilet system. Rieker & Co supplied the linen fabrics from which the Erste Wiener Produktiv-Genossenschaft für Frauenhandarbeit (Erste Wiener Produktiv-Genossenschaft für Frauenhandarbeit) made the linen needed for the bathrooms. The used laundry was cleaned in the steam laundry of the municipal Danube baths at today's Reichsbrücke .
The electricity baths ordered for 1905 were lengthened by a total of 13 meters. The men's pool was enlarged to a total length of 24 meters and the women's pool to 16 meters. The bathing baskets were lengthened by 9 and 4 meters respectively. Overall, the new bathing ships now offered space for 365 people. Because of this increased load, the support tubes were enlarged to a diameter of 1.6 meters.
The support tubes and the floating baskets of the two new bathing ships were made by the Allgemeine Österreichische Baugesellschaft in their shipyard in Linz . The wooden construction of the superstructure was made by Johann Sulzbacher and Johann Tröster.
Badeschiff Vienna
The currently existing Badeschiff Wien consists of two converted barges, one of which carries the 189 square meter and 1.6 meter deep swimming pool filled with spring water and the second, in addition to the gastronomy, also the so-called “cargo space” for events.
The Badeschiff Wien opened on July 12, 2006.
The Badeschiff Wien is considered to be a successful project in efforts to make the vicinity of the Danube Canal attractive.
In 2017, the Court of Auditors complained that the rents for properties on the Danube Canal were too low. The leasing of the pre-quay area at the Badeschiff and some other restaurants from November 2018 will be put out to tender by the Danube Flood Protection Competition (DHK), which consists of the three curiae federal government, the state of Lower Austria and the city of Vienna. DHK is the landowner of the gastronomic areas on the Danube Canal. Gerold Ecker, tenant of the Badeschiff, is suing for an omission due to "non-transparent and non-equality search for interested parties."
See also
literature
- The new urban river baths in the Vienna Danube Canal - memorial sheet on the occasion of the opening of the first bath next to the Sofienbrücke , Vienna, 1904
- Journal of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects , Vienna, August 4, 1905
- Technical guide through Vienna , published by the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects, edited by Ing. Martin Paul (urban planning inspector), Vienna, published by Gerlach & Wiedling, 1910
- Das neue Wien, Städtewerk, published with the official cooperation of the Municipality of Vienna , Vienna, 1927
Web links
- badeschiff.at: Badeschiff Vienna, own homepage
- wien.gv.at: "Badeschiff Wien" - realized project Zukunft Donaukanal
Individual evidence
- ^ Journal of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects
- ^ The new Vienna
- ↑ a b Technical guide through Vienna
- ^ The new Vienna
- ↑ http://www.badeschiff.at
- ^ Ingrid Ganster: Tröpferlbad - swimming pool - wellness oasis. Association for the History of the City of Vienna, Vienna 2007, p. 21 ( google book search ).
- ^ "Badeschiff Wien" - realized project target area Danube Canal , wien.gv.at, accessed on May 22, 2016
- ↑ Gastronom sues against "expropriation" orf.at, January 22nd, 2018, accessed January 2nd, 2018.