Water tower favorites

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Water tower in Vienna-Favoriten

The Favoriten water tower is a landmark of Vienna's 10th district of Favoriten . The striking building in the style of industrial historicism can be found on the top of the Wienerberg , Windtenstrasse 3 and is visible from afar from the south.

history

The now listed water tower was designed by Franz Borkowitz and built between 1898 and 1899. Some of the building material came from Kaisersteinbruch , hard Kaiserstein from the broken house and Neukaiserstein from the Amelin family's chapel . The tower was part of a larger building complex and served to supply the higher-lying areas of the 10th and 12th districts of Vienna , for which the pressure from the Wienerberg water reservoir located directly next to it was insufficient.

At that time, Vienna showed an extraordinarily strong population growth and thus a steadily growing consumption of drinking water . After the commissioning of the Second Vienna High Spring Water Pipeline in 1910, the tower was only in operation occasionally, for example when the high spring water pipeline was drained for maintenance work.

Since 1956 the water tower has not been used for water supply. An extensive general renovation of the landmark was carried out between 1988 and 1990 at a cost of 15 million schillings . The interior of the tower is used as a space for exhibitions on the subject of water or other events . Today, the tower can be visited 7 months a year on certain days by appointment with a free guided tour (as of May 2014). Finally, via the spiral staircase in the middle of the conical roof, you reach a height of 48 m and have a good view of the city from a tour that leads around the lantern above the conical roof.

On the site west of the tower, the water tower water playground was set up, where a water festival for children was again celebrated in June 2014. In January 2014 Martin Küchen played the saxophone in the water tank.

Structural details

Facade details
Historical plan of the entire plant with the machine house

The Favoriten water tower has a total height of 67 meters. Two sheet steel tanks inside the tower were able to store a total of 1000 cubic meters of water at about the level of the lower row of windows all around. The central, goblet-shaped rests on a 25 m high wall cylinder and, like a glass bottle, has a bottom that curves upwards in the form of a spherical cap. All around it widens in a conical shape to taper off cylindrically at the top. A much smaller container, also made of sheet steel riveted in two rows, runs as a cylindrical ring around the base of the chalice and is also supported by supports in the outer wall.

The raw brick masonry of the tower outer wall - consistently at a distance from the water tanks - forms a cylinder with an inside diameter of 16.7 m at the base. The wall thickness tapers from below 2.3 m or 3.2 m including struts to 1 m above. On the inside of the wall, a 203 m long "staircase" inside the railing, 1 m wide, in the form of a helix (commonly known as a spiral) leads to the level of the water tank. It can be assumed that it was set up for the rolling transport of heavy components. Building materials, such as the steel profiles for the roof structure, are typically craned up to one of the large upper windows with a bracket and pulley.

The old floor plan shows that the wall cylinder supporting the tank has 5.8 m inside and 8.8 m outside diameter, a feed pipe and a spill pipe lead upwards. In the separate machine and boiler house, there are also two steam engine-pump units, a steam boiler with a coal feed track of 40 cm gauge to the coal depot. The 2 suction lines had air tanks near the pumps, the pressure line ran in a "pressure pipe channel" which was covered with grids on the outside of the building walls. Outside stood the chimney with a base diameter of 3 m, a “bridge scales” and a residential building.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D75xWd26_Oc Martin Küchen - Wiener Wasser, playing the saxophone in a water tank, youtube video by Johannes Heuer, February 9, 2014, accessed on May 23, 2014
  2. ↑ Architectural monuments of technology and industry in Austria

Web links

Commons : Water tower favorites  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 10 ′ 8.7 ″  N , 16 ° 21 ′ 12.1 ″  E