Untersee (Arosa)

Submarine
Geographical location	Arosa ( Schanfigg , Canton of Graubünden , Switzerland )
Tributaries	Mittelbach, Seelitzibach
Drain	Seebach to the Plessur
Places on the shore	Arosa
	Data
Coordinates	771 271 / 183334 coordinates: 46 ° 46 '45 " N , 9 ° 40' 54" O ; CH1903: seven hundred seventy-one thousand two hundred and seventy-one / 183334
Altitude above sea level	1691 m above sea level M.
Maximum depth	17 m
particularities	Regulated swimming lake

The Untersee is a mountain bathing lake located at 1691 m in Arosa in the Swiss canton of Graubünden .

Location and description

The Untersee is the smaller and further down of the two lakes in the middle of the Arosa settlement area. Its name is derived from this fact. The sister lake at 1734 m is the Obersee , with which it was previously directly connected via the Mittelbach. The Arosa reservoir lies around 90 meters lower in the valley floor . Before the development of Arosa from a mountain farming village to a health resort , which began in the second half of the 19th century, the Untersee was also known as the Unterer Chureralpsee . It is owned by the Chur community .

Geology and formation

Like most of the more than 20 Arosa lakes and ponds, the Untersee was probably created in connection with the deeper incision of the younger Plessur ; the main morphological phenomena are a series of sagging and prehistoric landslides. The geological structure is extremely complex and can hardly be disentangled. The Untersee is a trough lake, as it is typical for the surface shape of the deposit area of a landslide . It lies on the Arosa scale zone , which is made up of dolomite , limestone slate, crystalline scales and serpentine .

history

Untersee with tributary Mittelbach around 1900, in the background the Tschirpen

Much has been written and litigated about the affiliation of the maritime rights of the two Chureralp lakes. Archduke Ferdinand of Austria , the then sovereign of the Arosa, issued a mandate to prohibit fishing in the Arosa lakes as early as 1545, as he had heard that his subjects were doing excessively amicable on the fishing grounds. The authorities of the Davos High Court , to which Arosa belonged, assumed without further ado that they had sovereignty over fishing in their area, and that is why the bylaws of the Davos Landbuch should also apply there. In 1657 part of the Ten-Court League bought itself off from Austria with Arosa . 21,500 guilders were to be paid to the Austrians and 1,000 to the episcopal sovereignty of the diocese of Chur. When the Ten Courts were liberated from foreign rule, the Davos region gave the Arosa Pfrund their share of the sovereign rights in the form of the fishing rights of the two lakes. These ransom sums were difficult to raise by the Ten Courts, which is why the city of Chur advanced money. Since the repayment was not made as requested, an agreement was reached on January 30, 1669, according to which the Arosa Lakes (Upper and Lower Lakes) were transferred to Chur against a charge of 800 guilders.

Flora and fauna

Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Untersee was a completely natural body of water. The area - in particular Seegruaba to the west - was only used for agriculture. The flora and fauna were largely identical to those of the Obersee. In contrast to this, interventions in the area around the Untersee were cautious, which benefited the preservation of biodiversity. In summer, dragonflies frolic in large numbers on the shore. Practically the entire shore of the Untersee - especially the south - is surrounded by the mighty spruce trees. Numerous water and reed birds, such as diving ducks and most of the European swimming ducks , stop at the Untersee again and again, be it as migrants or as random visitors . However, the Mallard is also the only state bird become. Every now and then hoopoes , herons or black-throated divers can be seen.

Leisure, tourism, sport and culture

Bathing on the Untersee, in the back right of the Schafrügg

Nowadays, the function of the Untersee as an alpine lido is of paramount importance for the holiday and sports resort of Arosa . From 1891 the Kurverein Arosa (today: Arosa Tourismus) leased the two large lakes from the community of Chur. In the beginning there was plenty of sport - especially ice skating and ice hockey - on the frozen Untersee. Today it is left entirely to nature in winter. In summer, the Untersee is mainly used for fishing, swimming and rowing. The lake is also suitable for diving , subject to prior approval from Arosa Tourism. The Kurverein Arosa took over the lake charter from the owner of the Pension Seehof and also his bathing house, which was soon renewed. Initially, only the men bathed on the Untersee, while the women had to make do with the colder water of the Obersee. In 1919 the Arosa football club held its first large swimming festival in the Untersee.

The beach pavilion from 2010

In 1920, the newly founded bathing company built a bathing establishment for mixed use on the north bank for CHF 25,500.00 . The architect was Alfons Rocco , the builder of the Schanfigger train stations . With a small budget he created a wooden structure in a kind of pile-dwelling aesthetic. This infrastructure led to various international and national swimming , jumping and water polo championships being held in the Untersee in the following years . For example, on October 6, 1922, the first Switzerland-Germany swimming competition took place with snowfall and a water temperature of 13 ° C. Rocco built a five-meter high diving platform especially for this purpose . On this occasion, the annual city swimming day arose. In 1926 the Untersee was the venue for the Swiss Championships , in 1931 the Eastern Switzerland Championships.

In 1930 the lido was expanded. It was about the - as gentle as possible - use of the beach meadow in the influence delta of the Mittelbach and the construction of the beach pavilion at the eastern end. In 1931 a grandstand and a 10-meter diving platform were built, which had previously been given the catchphrase "Höhenwahnsinn". In 1948 it was decided to modernize the outdated bathing establishment for CHF 220,000.00. The Arosa Citizens' Council was commissioned to conclude a building lease agreement with the swimming club for a period of 99 years. In the new building, also made by Rocco and made of wood, there is a permanent exhibition with historical pictures of the Untersee.

The regulated inflow of the Mittelbach

The traditional Arosa sports relay , which has been held every year in August since 1947, starts in the swimming lanes of the Untersee at the west end of the bathing establishment. In 1957, the temporary installation of a 25 by 33 meter heated swimming pool in the middle of the lake was considered. In 1958 the beach meadow was removed three meters deep and refilled with water-permeable gravel from the Isel . In 1969/70 a project envisaged the construction of a spacious indoor swimming pool at the location of the pavilion. The construction project, which the Swiss Federal University of Sports Magglingen described as exemplary due to the combination of structural and natural pool infrastructure , was to cost CHF 4.6 million. However, it was not followed up by the local council for the time being. It was not until 1977 that the population expressed its opinion in a referendum and rejected both this proposal and a competing project at the Ochsenbühl at today's sports and congress center . To date, Arosa does not have a public indoor sports pool. Various efforts to buy back the lake from the community of Chur were unsuccessful. That is why Arosa Tourismus still pays the owner an annual sum of several thousand francs for sea lease and fees.

Access to the lido has been free since 1980. The inflow of the Untersee is now underground and regulated with a sluice located on the Unterseestrasse next to the pavilion in order to keep the water temperature constant. However, this led to the fact that the Untersee had to be subjected to extensive lake cleanings in 1949, 1965 and 1989 in order to counteract the threat of silting up the lake bed. The other infrastructure that has developed over the years includes a children's playground and a public barbecue area with table tennis and boccia . In 1994 the old, rectangular children's pool from 1938 was replaced by a heated system. In 1996 certain areas of the beach meadow were converted into a sandy beach and equipped with beach volleyball fields, after which a tournament has been held every year at the end of June / beginning of July. In 2009/2010 the old beach pavilion was replaced by a new building, which guarantees a year-round restaurant operation.

A driver safety training on the Untersee planned by the organizers of the Arosa ClassicCar for the winter of 2011/12 was refused by the lake owners after resistance from some residents.

On June 21, 2013, the Oropax Chaos Theater used the lake as an open-air stage for its program “Open Water Show: Pool Position”. Episode 10 of the 10th season of Bauer, single, sucht ... with guest presenter Christa Rigozzi was shot in the summer of 2014 at Untersee and in Medergen .

A survey carried out by the Graubünden Food Safety and Animal Health Office in mid-July 2015 confirmed that the water quality of the Untersee was very good.

The Untersee as an advertising motif

The "scandal poster" on an information board at Arosa train station on Obersee

The Untersee has a long tradition as an advertising medium for the Arosa summer season. The first known advertisement for the bathing establishment was a postcard with the inscription "Arosa im Sommer - Strand Bad Leben", designed around 1920 by Giorgio Muggiani from Milan . Around 1925 an advertising vignette from an unknown artist followed, which showed a swimmer. The first poster was created in 1926 by Hugo Laubi , who, like Edwin Hermann Henel, focused on a female bathing beauty five years later. In 1933 two more posters with similar motifs were created by Johannes Handschin in Art Déco elegance and Werner Weiskönig , with which the 1950s seem to shimmer through stylistically. The last poster in the so-called bathing mermaids series was that of Viktor Rutz (1935), whose motif is now considered sexist in some places . After the poster was relaunched by Arosa Tourism in the 2000s, it became known throughout Switzerland as the "Scandal poster" and was portrayed as such in Rolf Thalmann's 2009 publication, "So not! Controversial posters in Switzerland 1883-2009".

swell

Marie-Theres Herwig: "Strandbad", career of the swimming pool, the lido and the pavilion at Untersee in Arosa, Arosa 2010.
Marcel Just, Christof Kübler, Matthias Noell (eds.): Arosa - Die Moderne in den Berge , gta, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-85676-214-8 , pp. 92–95.
Ernst Rahm: The Arosa Lakes , Arosa printing house, Arosa 1982, pp. 3–9.
Hans Danuser : Arosa - as it was then (1979–1995) , Volume 6, self-published by Danuser, Arosa 2002, p. 161 f.
Hans Danuser: Arosa - as it was then (1962–1978) , Volume 5, self-published by Danuser, Arosa 2001, pp. 26, 88, 100, 112 ff., 124, 179, 218.
Hans Danuser, Ruedi Homberger: Arosa and the Schanfigg , self-published by Danuser / Homberger, Arosa 1988, pp. 103-105.
100 years Kurverein Arosa, 1884-1984 , Kurverein Arosa (Ed.), Arosa 1984, p. 81 ff.
Fritz Maron: From mountain farming village to world health resort Arosa , Schuler, Chur 1934, pp. 92/93, 148–154.