Wash ship
Washboats were floating, often public facilities, anchored on the bank, giving laundresses the opportunity to wash and rinse their laundry in the soft river water. In 1531 Woensam shows two washing ships near Cologne. Simple washing ships already existed in France in the 17th century . In the middle of the 19th century, multi-story ships with a laundry room and drying rooms have been handed down in France . In the 18th and 19th centuries there were simple washing ships in Zurich as well . In some parts of the Main and Rhine in Germany there is evidence up to the 20th century.
France
A lot of water is required for washing clothes and especially for rinsing them. As a result, washing places were often tied to running waters or water sources.
The first mention of washing boats (bateaux lavoirs) in France dates back to the 17th century. On September 16, 1623, the entrepreneur Jean de la Grange, who was also secretary to King Louis XIII. was granted the right to operate washboats in various locations in Paris . The number and locations of use could be determined at will, as long as neither shipping nor the tranquility of the Notre-Dame monastery on a neighboring island were impaired. The first floating wash house, the “Sirène”, was anchored on the banks of the Seine in the same year . It was destroyed by ice in the winter of 1830.
Washships were equipped with a laundry room from 1844 in order to prevail against the great competition from public washplaces and washhouses in the suburbs. Some washing ships were real washing factories that provided the washerwomen with hot water, spin dryers, hot air dryers, dining rooms and sometimes even childcare. The ships were 25 to 30 meters long. The work place of the laundresses and the boilers were located on the first deck. The washing and rinsing points were in a row, with the laundry being rinsed directly in the flowing river water. The laundresses knelt as they worked. If the ship had two floors, the drying rooms were located on the upper floor. Sometimes the home of the owner or manager and an ironing room were also located here.
In the second half of the 19th century, the number of Paris laundromats compared to the public washhouses on land ( lavoirs ) decreased increasingly. In 1852 there were 17 washboats on the Canal Saint-Martin and 64 on the Seine. For many poor families, however, their use has been an expensive proposition. Especially for people from more distant parts of the city, it was very tedious to transport the laundry with a wheelbarrow. The decline in laundromats was also accelerated by a law of February 3, 1851, which subsidized public laundries if the working class were offered free or up to 30% discounted use.
In 1880 there were only 64 washing boats left on the Île de France, offering space for 3800 washerwomen. 23 of these floating laundries were in Paris, 6 of them on the Saint-Martin Canal, and 35 were spread along the suburbs on the Seine, Marne and Oise.
The Bateau-Lavoir studio house in Paris was named after these washboats because of its appearance.
Washer ships in Würzburg
In the middle of the 19th century, a raft for the tanners was anchored in Würzburg near the Alter Kranen to give them the opportunity to water their animal skins there. The Pleichachbach, originally used for this purpose, was no longer available due to a vault. But the Würzburg housewives also appreciated the soft river water, which was much better suited for washing clothes than the calcareous tap water. In September 1900, the first wash ship was moored at the confluence near Reibeltgasse on the bank. After a short trial period, during which there was only one objection from a hotel owner about the sight of the laundresses and long johns in front of his hotel, other ships followed. In the following years, more than 10 washships lay in the city along the banks of the Main.
The washing ships had an iron hull with a length of 12.5 m and a width of 2.35 m. On the sides of the ships that was lift cut deeper to the wooden arm affixed thereto on which the laundry was soaped and scrubbed. Wire baskets were attached under the outriggers in which the laundry could be soaked and rinsed without being swept away by the current. With these booms, the ships had a total width of 3.8 m. Hanging over the high railing at the bow and stern of the ship, the laundry dripped off after cleaning before it was spread out to dry on the Main meadows.
Washing clothes was a very strenuous job at the time. The laundry first had to be soaked for a long time and was then transported to the river in baskets or on handcarts . The dirt was scrubbed out of the fibers with curd soap and a brush . Up to twenty women could wash on a ship at the same time. In addition to the housewives, the maids also came to wash for their rulership, or commercial washerwomen . But the Würzburg washing ships not only worked hard; they were also meeting places for the women to exchange news.
The washing ships were only available over the summer half of the year. In autumn, when it got too cold to wash in the river, a fisherman dragged the ships into the harbor, where civil engineering officials repaired them and prepared them for the next season. After the destruction of Würzburg on March 16, 1945, the washing boats were the only way to do laundry for many households in the post-war period. According to the Franconian Volksblatt, the waiting time to get one of the coveted seats on the ship was up to two hours during this time. On December 2, 1964, the city council decided, with reference to the pollution of the Main and the increasing use of washing machines, to pull the washing ships off forever. With one exception, all ships that were now quite old were sold or scrapped. The last wash ship was still on the promenade at Alter Kranen until 2002, but was closed to the public. Every two years, the Würzburg Main-Franconia District demonstrated at the crane festival how washing was done on washing ships in the past. In 2002 this ship was also lifted out of the water. In the following years there were several attempts to restore this wash ship or one of the sister ships and make them accessible to the public, but this failed for several reasons. A sculpture of a washing ship made of sandstone was erected when the bank of the Main was rebuilt in Veitshöchheim .
Washboat Treichler in Zurich
There was no running water in the houses of the city of Zurich until 1869 and the existing wells were not allowed to be used for washing clothes. This is why there were several smaller wooden washing ships in Zurich in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of these were provided with a roof to protect them from rain and sun.
In 1857, the boat builder and ship rental company Heinrich Treichler planned a much larger, two-story wash ship as a wash house in the center of Zurich, similar to the one in Paris. The lower tier should be used for washing, the upper tier for drying and smoothing laundry. In order to flatter the authorities, according to Treichler, the ship should be given a "pretty look". Even so, his first request was denied. In a second application, he reduced the height of the ship to just one storey and changed the ship's berth slightly so that disruption to shipping traffic was excluded. This time the application was approved, with special emphasis on the promised "pleasing appearance". The exterior design of the 22 m long, 9 m wide and 4 m high ship was assigned to the architect Gottfried Semper . After some delays, the ship was able to go into operation in the autumn of 1864 below the Hotel Bellevue.
The office and a switch for laundry delivery were at the side entrance. In the center of the ship was the engine room for the production of hot water and heat. The drying rooms for the laundry were arranged directly next to it. The actual wash basins were spread over the rest of the ship, with the whites being washed in round washing kettles in the corners of the ship. Ironing was probably carried out on the shelves near the outside wall of the washship. In contrast to the original application, however, the wash ship was not “rented out to those in need of washing”, but operated by Treichler and his family as a customer laundry.
The outer walls were brightly painted with Pompeian motifs. The roof was supported all around by 42 female figures. According to Semper's classification of the building types, the wash ship belonged to the “Roman / thermal baths / commercial” category.
As early as 1872 the ship had to give way to the construction of new quays. It was towed in front of Seestrasse in Wollishofen , where Treichler owned a property by the lake. As early as 1874, Treichler received the permit to completely fill up his property. The wash ship was included in the replenishment and formed the core of the operating buildings of the Zurich wash station . After numerous changes, the architectural past was further and further forgotten until the last remains were destroyed in 1955.
Web links
- Washships. Würzburg Wiki, accessed June 10, 2017 .
- Würzburg wash ship. Würzburg 360 ° (Panorama Factory), accessed on June 3, 2017 (Panorama animation of the remains of an old washing ship).
- Gottfried Semper, wash ship Treichler in Zurich, 1963. Kunstmarkt.com, accessed on June 10, 2017 (graphic representation).
- Marianne Burkhalter, Christian Sumi: Pompei in Zurich. (PDF) Gottfried Semper's washboat Treichler in the Museum of the School of Design in Zurich. archithese, May 2003, accessed June 11, 2017 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d La lessive 3: lavoirs, laveuses & lavandières. Retrieved July 10, 2017 (French).
- ↑ a b Felix Gensmer: building for medical and other welfare institutions . Washing and disinfection facilities. Ed .: Professor Dr. Eduard Schmitt. tape 4 . Arnold Bergsträsser Verlag Buchhandlung, Stuttgart 1899, p. 70–72 ( archive.org [accessed March 11, 2018]).
- ↑ le Bateau-Lavoir on www.larousse.fr
- ↑ a b c Hans Behr: Würzburg and his washing ships: fabric softener for free . In: The second spring. - Würzburg. - 4 (1991), 2, pp. 8-9
- ↑ a b c Washboat back on the water? In: mainpost.de . August 27, 2012 ( mainpost.de [accessed June 6, 2017]).
- ↑ a b c d Harald Zoepffel and Andreas Mettenleiter: Würzburg 1943 to 1945 - Pictures from a lost time. Volume 1, 2nd edition. Akamedon Verlag, Pfaffenhofen 2010, p. 95 ff
- ↑ a b c Oliver Mehling: With curd soap and brush on the Main: In the footsteps of the Würzburg wash ships , in: Communications of the Association of Bavarian History Societies. - Munich. - 26 (2014), pp. 125-132.
- ↑ a b c d Christoph Wieser: The wash ship Treichler by Gottfried Semper. (PDF) A lost Zurich curiosity. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 5, 1998, accessed June 10, 2017 .
- ↑ Lost and found things . In: Thursday News . tape XV . Zurich April 13, 1769 ( google.de ).
- ↑ a b c Prof. Dr. Daniel L. Vischer: The Semper wash ship in Zurich . In: Horst-Christian Knoll (Ed.): Navalis: Journal for the history of inland navigation, inland navigation and waterways . Issue 3. Verlag Knoll Maritim, 2006, ISSN 1613-3846 .
- ^ Marianne Burkhalter and Christian Sumi: Pompei in Zurich . Gottfried Semper's washboat Treichler in the museum of the School of Design in Zurich. In: Archithese . No. 5 , 2003, p. 28–31 ( ktcolor.ch [PDF]).
- ↑ Harald Tausch: Housing of the Mnemosyne: Architecture as a written form of memory . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, ISBN 978-3-525-35578-7 ( google.de [accessed on July 16, 2017]).