Water tower (worms)

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The Worms water tower
Basement of the Worms water tower

The Worms water tower is a historical water tower in Worms and with a height of 58 meters a building that can be seen from afar.

Geographical location

The water tower is located in the west of the core city of Worms on Karlsplatz, surrounded by the Eleonoren grammar school , the Luther Church and the old tax office building. Together with these buildings that forms a cultural monument , the monument zone "Karlsplatz". The water tower is the tallest building in the western part of Worms, whose street layout is largely based on this visual dominant feature.

history

The water tower was built between 1889 and 1890. Its main task was to ensure the drinking water supply of Worms. Until then, drinking water in Worms had to be drawn from public wells. Almost at the same time, similar water towers, such as the Mannheim water tower , were built in many large and medium-sized cities . The elevated tank in Worms held 1200 cubic meters and was in operation until 1962 when it was replaced by two elevated tanks, each with a volume of 8000 cubic meters in the Herrnsheim district .

After a long period of inactivity and the beginning of decay, an owner company was founded at the beginning of 2007, which built apartments taking into account the historical building fabric.

In addition to belonging to the "Karlsplatz Monument Zone", the building is also a (individual) cultural monument due to the state law on the protection and maintenance of cultural monuments .

Water supply

The groundwater under Worms was too sulphurous and iron-rich to be used as drinking water. For this reason, the water was first taken from about 1.5 m below the river bed, filtered in the waterworks on Klosterstrasse, stored in the water tower and fed into the urban pipe network. The public and private pump wells that had been common up until then lost their function. The water quality of the Rhine water was very different. Both high and low water and, not least, the discharge of wastewater from Mannheim and Ludwigshafen and the local industry could affect them. After the Ernst Ludwig Bridge was completed in 1900, water was drawn from the groundwater works in the Bürstädter Wald, which is still in use today, via a pipe running in the bridge structure .

Building

The design of the water tower comes from the then city architect Karl Hofmann , who designed the tower in a neo-Romanesque style, locally also known as the "Nibelung style". The tower is made of concrete and clad with sandstone. Its shaft is structured by horizontal bands and cornices . The top floor is designed as a gallery. There are four smaller towers attached to the sides, one in each direction. In the west there is a spiral staircase. The tower-like, pointed roof is striking and noticeable. The concept for the technology in the tower came from the Basel engineer Karl Heinrich Gruber. It was completely preserved around 1990, but had to give way for the installation of the apartments.

For use as a residential building, five apartments were built on nine levels, the largest of which extends over the top three levels. It has five rooms and occupies 156 m 2 .

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Water Tower  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Postal address: Karlsplatz 1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Spille, p. 110.
  2. ↑ Spille, p. 110.
  3. ↑ Spille, p. 110; Sparkasse Worms-Alzey-Ried: Unique!
  4. ↑ Kuhn.
  5. ↑ Spille, p. 110.
  6. ↑ Kuhn.
  7. ↑ Spille, p. 110.
  8. ↑ Sparkasse Worms-Alzey-Ried: Unique! .

Coordinates: 49 ° 37 ′ 59 ″  N , 8 ° 20 ′ 57 ″  E