Belvedere water tower (Aachen)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Belvedere rotating tower

The water tower Belvedere , also called rotating tower Aachen and rotating tower Belvedere, is a former, 35 m high water tower in reinforced concrete construction on the Aachener Lousberg , which was built from 1956 to 1958 according to the plans of the then Aachen city planning council and architect Wilhelm K. Fischer .

Building history and use

The first flooding of the water tank took place on October 23, 1957. The revolving restaurant "Alt Aachen" was set up on the top floor in July 1966 and later run as the "Liège Baroque Room". The viewing platform can be reached from there. The rotation time of the rotating segment on which the guest area is mounted on the new eighth floor is 56 minutes.

The three floors below the restaurant were used as office space. All floors could be reached by elevator and on foot via 173 steps. The total height with all superstructures is approx. 35 m, without superstructures 32.75 m, the diameter with terrace is 21 m, without it is 18.5 m.

After the restaurant operator's bankruptcy , the revolving restaurant was closed in 1999 and reopened as a “revolving café” in April 2005 after extensive renovation and refurbishment work. The catering business was closed again at the end of March 2011 due to economic difficulties on the part of the investor . In October 2011 the turret was sold to two new investors. After extensive renovation work, the restaurant was reopened in 2013 with a beer garden at the foot of the tower and terrace. The restaurant on the ground floor and beer garden have been closed again since 2014. The ground floor has now been partially converted into a normal office space. However, the top floor can still be rented for events. Brunch is served there on Sundays.

Extensive renovation work began in December 2012 to add four new office floors. For this purpose, the water tank that had not been used for decades was welded out of the building and every second of the 16 wall segments was removed. The new floors were placed on top of the existing floor supports. The stairwell was re-cast and the elevator was expanded by opening the inner cylinder to new floors.

monument

Since 1990, the rotating tower has been registered as a technical monument with typical 1950s elements in the list of monuments of the city of Aachen. The function as actual water storage was outsourced in the 1980s and was now located on the right of Buchenallee. The level of the new water tank is 45 m above Aachen, so that a constant line pressure of 4.5 bar was built up. In 1988 the operation as a water tower was completely stopped.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dorothée Hugot: Lousberg and Salvatorberg , 2nd edition, Aachen 2003, p. 38
  2. ^ Dorothée Hugot: Lousberg and Salvatorberg , 2nd edition, Aachen 2003, p. 38 f.
  3. ↑ Belvedere rotating tower sold to Aachener . Aachen newspaper . Retrieved October 28, 2011.
  4. ↑ Drehurm-aachen.de: History of the rotating tower ( Memento from July 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on July 1, 2015
  5. ↑ aachener-zeitung.de: Future of the revolving restaurant open again , accessed on July 1, 2015
  6. ↑ List of monuments of the city of Aachen, entry Turntable Belvedereallee 5 , accessed on July 1, 2015

Web links

Commons : Wasserturm Aachen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 47 ′ 11.4 "  N , 6 ° 4 ′ 49.6"  E