Altglienicke waterworks
The (former) Altglienicke waterworks with the striking Altglienicke water tower , the landmark of the Berlin district Altglienicke , was built in 1905/06. The wells were closed in 1999. The subsequent use of the site and in particular the listed buildings of the waterworks and the water tower , which can be seen from afar , has not yet been secured.
history
The three municipalities of Altglienicke , Adlershof and Grünau (with Bohnsdorf ) had little industry until the turn of the century in 1900, but the number of inhabitants has risen sharply in the present decade, due to the convenient location on the Görlitzer Bahn . At the turn of the century, 15,000 citizens were already living here.
To improve the infrastructure, a water supply association of the three municipalities of Adlershof, Altglienicke and Grünau was formed in 1904 - a suitable area for the joint waterworks was found on the street “Am Falkenberg”. The Altglienicke waterworks was built according to plans by the Düsseldorf architect Heinrich Scheven by the company of the same name under the direction of his son Friedrich. The drilling for the wells began in the spring of 1905 and the waterworks could already be put into operation on April 1, 1906. At the same time as the waterworks, a water tower was built on the higher Schirnerstrasse, which applied the necessary pressure for the water pipes that led from this north side of the Falkenberg to the northeast Adlershof and southeast Grünau.
Water tower
The water tower at Schirnerstrasse 19 was built as a 38.55 meter high tower in Gothic form with red brickwork and contains a 60 m³ water kettle in the upper part. Inside, it is accessed through the basement, four intermediate levels drawn in by wooden floors and a stone upper floor, connected by a staircase over which the kettle is arranged. Inside the kettle there is a tube with a spiral staircase leading to the currently nonexistent attic.
While Grünau and Adlershof, direct neighbors of the Görlitzer Bahn, were already quite well developed, the construction of the Teltow Canal in 1910 brought a rapid population increase for Altglienicke. Increasingly, further settlement areas on the Falkenberg were designated. If the water tower was still in the open when it was built, it was completely surrounded by the time the town was incorporated into Greater Berlin in 1920. While the tram built in 1909 still went to Altglienicke Church , in 1920 it was extended to the Falkenberg water tower. So the water tower developed into the distinctive landmark of the Altglienicke district of Berlin.
From 1912, the basement of the monument was regularly used for church services by the evangelical community, as the Falkenberg area grew in population and the Altglienicke parish church meant a long walk. This happened until the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt community center in the immediate vicinity in Rosestrasse was completed in 1937 . In the 1940s, the actual function of the water tower was increasingly decommissioned, but continued to be used by the municipal water companies for storage purposes and for storage purposes.
At the end of the Second World War , the water tower was used again for Protestant services from 1945 to 1951, as the community center was unusable until it was re-consecrated after the war. In 1956 the boiler in the tower was finally taken out of service.
In 1993, the then Treptow district took over the water tower from the Berliner Wasserbetriebe as part of its specialist assets, originally with the aim of using it as a socio-cultural center for the Falkenberg location. Due to the high need for redevelopment determined, these plans were rejected by the district and a private investor was sought for the area. In mid-1999, the water tower was sold to a building contractor who preferred to use it as an apartment, office space and a public space on the basement floor as a gallery and café. In a first step, an inventory and damage analysis was carried out, followed by safety measures, including on the wooden parts. In September 2002 the water tower could be viewed by the public for the first time as part of the Open Monument Day .
A project-related development plan procedure was initiated in 2003 with the objective of further structural development. As part of this, structural regulations also had to be met, such as a second, fire-protected escape route, which was to be created via a separate stair tower with an elevator. In addition, the owner planned a modernized rebuild with larger panoramic windows to make better use of the tower head. The citizens' initiative, the water tower interest group, formed against the planned changes . The owner of the water tower then stopped further activities to convert the water tower according to his ideas, the development plan procedure was not pursued any further.
In agreement with the Lower Monument Protection Authority, the entire masonry surrounding the kettle was demolished in 2005 after this part was considered to be in danger of collapsing. Since then, the upper part of the water tower has been covered by a white plastic tarpaulin. Further plans of the owner with the building are not known. The tower was built by the owner, Wasserwerk Altglienicke e. V. from 2006 to 2008 for transitional use.
Waterworks
The buildings of the waterworks are on the street Am Pumpwerk near the street Am Falkenberg . They form a uniform architectural image arranged around a rectangular courtyard, which consists of the machine house as the largest central building, the smaller Rieseler building, a large and a small residential building and the underground water reservoir with its entrance houses. The facades were designed in the Brandenburg brick Gothic style. The fronts are characterized by a contrasting change in color and material from white plastered mirrors and red brick structures so that the buildings blend in with the green of the surrounding landscape.
The waterworks was used for the water supply until 1990, with a pump system instead of the water tower providing the required water pressure from 1956. The residential buildings were still in use until the beginning of the 1990s and even renovated with considerable financial outlay to make them suitable for historical monuments. Roofs were renewed, windows replaced, facades renovated and the electrics modernized. After that, however, residential use was prohibited for reasons of water protection, the buildings were locked and the entire area at the pumping station was closed to the public and left. In 1999 the Berliner Wasserbetriebe removed the wells, so that it was not possible to restart the technical facilities in their existing form. Until 2009, the water protection area around the waterworks continued to exist in the form of a reserve area with all water protection requirements.
Since 2004, the site of the waterworks outside the building has been part of the Grünauer Kreuz nature reserve .
use
There were several interested parties for re-use for the striking structure of the water tower and its evacuated outbuildings in Schirnerstrasse. Some of them were also ready to meet the requirements of the monument protection, which had existed since 1996. The water tower was ultimately sold to a private investor. With regard to the site of the waterworks at the pumping station, however, it turned out that in the course of the changes to Berlin's fountain ordinance in 1999, the site had been classified as a class I water protection zone - and entry into parts of the site, including former residential buildings, is generally prohibited.
In the years that followed, the unclear situation turned into a city posse , with repeated reports, including unannounced security measures on the building, intermittent looting and vandalism . In the spring of 2003, citizens of Altglienick discovered that the doors of the waterworks and the residential buildings had been unlocked and that several windows had been removed. At that time, the buildings were in very good condition after the renovation in the early 1990s. Despite immediate information from the water company and a request from the citizens to secure the building again, this only happened several weeks later. In the meantime, the buildings have been completely looted and much has been destroyed. Especially painful is the loss of around 40 meters of tiles bordüre in Art Nouveau style from the turbine building, on a white lily, the flower of purity, was displayed. One of the very last samples made up of fragments was created by the Wasserwerk Altglienicke e. V. saved.
The association Wasserwerk Altglienicke e. V. was founded on March 17th, 2004 with the aim of saving the waterworks from deterioration and demolition. To this end, the association held numerous discussions with water companies, politicians and the monument authority and kept the public informed. So he organized u. a. An exhibition on the history and possible future use of the waterworks in the Altglienicker water tower for several years. The water company had submitted a demolition request in 1999, which was formally approved by the district, but which was stopped by the monument authority.
At the request of the CDU parliamentary group in May 2008, the Senate decided to abolish the water protection zone for the former Altglienicke waterworks on Pumpgraben. Although the new regulations have only been in effect formally since 2014, the owner was given the right to dispose of the site as early as March 2009. As a result, the association pushed again to preserve the buildings, to renovate them and to make them available for meaningful use with the involvement of the Altglienick citizens.
Web links
- Entries in the Berlin State Monument List: Waterworks andWater tower
- WWA-eV.de - Website of Wasserwerk Altglienicke e. V.
Individual evidence
- ^ Ordinance on the Grünauer Kreuz nature reserve in the Treptow-Köpenick district of Berlin dated May 4, 2004 , published in the Law and Ordinance Gazette for Berlin, 60th year, No. 23, June 2, 2004, online .
- ↑ " Check drinking water protection areas in Altglienicke" , printed matter 16/1459, CDU parliamentary group Berlin, May 21, 2008
- ↑ Philipp Appelt: Measures for water protection ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , BZ , January 29, 2009
Coordinates: 52 ° 24 ′ 49 " N , 13 ° 33 ′ 29.4" E