Gasometer, Vienna
As a historic monument since 1981
The Gasometer in Vienna - Simmering are four obtained in the facade, a former gas tank from the year 1896. They were revitalized in an extensive renovation from 1999 to 2001 and now have an entertainment center, several apartments, a dormitory and a convention hall on. The Gasometer were a part of the gas plant in Simmering, to compensate for supply fluctuations in the Vienna gas network. They were executed technically and low-pressure accumulator for the coal-derived gas city. The gasworks was simmering beside the gasworks Leopoldau one of two municipal gas works around the turn of the century.
The building has always been considered as a symbol of the 11th district of Vienna Simmering since it can already be seen from a distance because of their size. The gasworks Simmering with the Gasometers was in operation from 1899 to 1975. Since the revitalization include tourists from all over the world and architecture experts to the visitors of the Gasometer.
Through the decades of large-scale gas plant operating underground loads were determined by phenols, hydrocarbons and cyanides on the site and added several parts of the site in 1996 as a legacy W18 in Altlastenkataster the Federal Environment Agency.
- 3.1 use 3.1.1 Gasometer A
- 3.1.2 Gasometer B 3.1.2.1 Students Home
Design data
The cylindrical bells gas tank with 90,000 cubic meters of gas per volume, which stood in a pool of water, were surrounded with a brick facade. The bells Gasometer measured from street level to the tip of around 70 meters and about 60 meters in diameter. A fifth, around 1910 added built Gasometer was designed as telescope gas tank and at the same time with 150,000 m3 of the largest Gasometer in Simmering. It was located south of the four surviving buildings on a now used as a sports field complex and was demolished in 1981.
History
The construction of the Gasometer in Vienna's eleventh district of Simmering took place from 1896 to 1899 as part of the construction of the gas plant Simmering. Manufacturer of boiler designs, the company was Friedrich August Neuman from Eschweiler. The gasworks was built on the so-called Simmering Civil Hospital ground on which there were up to then market gardens and fields. On March 15, 1897, the construction of the central furnace house, which consisted of 1,620 retorts coal gasification began. Per 250 kg coal retort could be implemented per day and so a total of 432,000 m3 per day town gas are produced.
Before this time the supply was made by the Imperial Continental Gas Association ( ICGA ), based in England. After the agreements between the ICGA and the City of Vienna expired, the city decided to build its own municipal gas supply. The gasworks was the time of the establishment of the largest of its kind in Europe.
Original use
In the Gasometer the town gas, which has been obtained through what is called coal gasification furnace in house from the dry distillation of bituminous coal and subsequent gas scrubber in the wash house was stored before it was released for consumption in the gas network. The city gas is also known as coal gas, coke oven gas or coal gas called because it was first used for street lighting by gas lanterns on the public roads. It was not until 1910, established the use for cooking and heating in private homes.
In addition to the gas meters for gas storage, the gas plant in Simmering from the oven house consisted of coal gasification, the largest building in the complex with 18 arranged concentrically and 35 m high chimneys, and subsequently building of coal gas purification with tar separator, ammonia wash and Naphthalinwaschanlage and various operational and administrative buildings. To produce the raw gas were 180 accommodated in the furnace house furnaces, each with nine inclined retorts and a detached oblique chamber furnace. In the cooler house the deposition of tar and ammonia took place from the raw gas, transportation of the city gas pipeline network in the twelve were driven by steam engines, erected in the gas suction exhausters house. The coal gas production was operated until 1966, then until the end of operation of the gas plant 1975, the fission gas generation.
After the conversion from town gas to natural gas mid-1970s - the city gas is toxic due to its high content of carbon monoxide - the Gasometer in 1984 were shut down. Natural gas is now stored in underground gas storage or gas in spherical vessels under high pressure at a much smaller volume than is possible in the large voluminous telescopic gas containers. Since 1981 are the Gasometer and other parts of buildings such as former administration building and the original standing in front of the demolished Ofenhaus water tower under monument protection.
Revitalization after decommissioning as a gas tank
The City of Vienna as the owner of the urban gas station company was involved in a change of use and revitalization of the listed building. In a time of ideas found in the huge, freed from its technical installations dome spaces instead of, among other exhibitions, such as the Hundred Years exhibition of the SPÖ. Museale uses, such as the Technical Museum in Vienna were in discussion, there was also Gazometer raves and filming for the James Bond film The Living Daylights were also held. From this period comes the name Gazometer, which stood for the raves in the Gasometer. Due to the round cylindrical shape the music inside the Gasometer was to perceive with a special echo effect, which caused the raver scene for a wide reputation. Also, the Vienna-born musician Falco use both the inside and the outside view of the Gasometer for recordings of his music video for Coming Home ( Jeanny Part II).
Search total concept
1995 competitions were organized for finding ideas for the conversion. It was designed concepts for use as a hotel and exhibition center (architect Manfred Wehdorn ) for the planned World Expo in Vienna and Budapest. However, it was decided for the realization of a mixed use with housing, work and entertainment consisting of the apartments, a dormitory, offices, shopping center and cinemas.
Conversion start at the Gasometer
The four architects Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelb (l) au (Wolf D. Prix ), Manfred Wehdorn and William Wood Bauer developed for each one of the Gasometer remodeling, which was implemented from 1999 to 2001. The innards of the gasometer were removed during rehabilitation - only the brick exterior walls and the roof remained. As a developer, the SEG, the GPA and the Gesiba, which sold around 600 flats partly as condominiums and cooperative apartments rent partly as acted.
The construction costs amounted to 2.4 billion shillings, the equivalent of around 174 million euros. 310 million shillings ( 22.5 million euros ) was the city of Vienna, in the form of housing assistance funds to this.
On 30 September 2001, the opening ceremony was held with the present mayor. The residents moved already starting one from May 2001.
The building complex
The Gasometer are characterized by a special character of the village. At 220,000 m² they stand as an independent city within the city. Due to the high identification of the approximately 1,500 residents of the Gasometer with its living room was the formation of a large residential community that exists both virtually in a gasometer community as well as a real club and lived Community neighborhood. Numerous theses and dissertations in the field of psychology, spatial planning and architecture, and journalism dedicated to this phenomenon.
About the " Gasworks bridge " the nearby Praterau be achieved.
Use
Through all four Gasometer through to the annex "E" extending to the realignment of a 450 -meter shopping center with a total of around 70 business premises ( retail, catering businesses), which runs in the Gasometer A over three floors and in the other only one or two occupies floors. In the basements below the shopping center there are parking garages. All four Gasometer are open up and get through the old roof their old silhouette. They have only " Windgleitbleche " on.
Through a " Skywalk " (glass bridge ) connected between the Gasometers "C " and "D " to the main corridor and crosses the Guglgasse, leads to a likewise the complex to associate with that building called the entertainment center or originally " Pleasure Dome". Inside is a 12-screen cinema, which is operated by Kima Cinemas Vienna and the Hueber family, and is used by the Megaplex group after the initially planned operator Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corporation went bankrupt shortly. The entire public shopping and entertainment section of the complex was called once "G -town ", later " Gasometer City ", but occurs now under the name " Music City " on.
Since the designed for 50,000 people shopping center compared to only 1,500 Gasometer residents and are in close proximity to other shopping centers Simmering and land Hauptstrasse, struggling business in the gas holders since the opening to customers. At the end of 2007, all shops were the annex "E" and about a third of the retail space in the Gasometer " A" to " D" empty. Lack of real estate proceeds from the gasometer construction were common with miscalculations in the Zaha Hadid - building on the Danube Canal important causes of the bankruptcy of the developer SEG. According to a 2011 report, the General Court rental of commercial space in the years 2007 to 2009 was achieved only 50%.
After long-term plans of the realignment, the classic shopping center concept retail space was abandoned in 2012, significantly reduced and all concentrated in the same year in the Gasometer A. Now contains around 30 shops in it on three floors. In March 2011, there were still eleven percent of the space to forgive. The concept of the other former area of the shopping center is now aligned to focus on music. Accordingly, logo and advertising campaign of the complex of " Gasometer City " were changed to " Music City ". Gasometer B was to the effect until the spring of 2013 rebuilt. Tenants are here now the Electronic Music Academy ( EMA), the Jam Music Lab and Pop Academy Vienna. A similar approach will be implemented in the Gasometer C, which has been empty for several years. In Gasometer D Opened in 2010, a music store to 3,500 square meters, and here takes almost a whole the retail space.
Gasometer A
The French architect Jean Nouvel designed the 2001 apartment building in this Gasometer star-shaped. In each of the eleven residential floors, which only begin at a height of about 30 meters, there are about 20 apartments, divided in 2 blocks. In between, there are gaps in the width of about a home that make the landmarked facade Gasometer visible with its high windows. This, and the exclusive glass front of the apartments and the mirrored remaining walls, a high utilization of sunlight is generated.
Among the apartments are three business floors of the shopping center and underground parking. The adjoining the Gasometer "A" subway stop is right outside the main entrance of the mall. Furthermore, located in the second to fourth floor office premises which are owned by the CEE Immobilien Development AG.
Gasometer B
" Gasometer B" was designed by the Viennese architects " Coop Himmelb (l) au ". He is easily recognizable from the outside because he adduced a shield-like annex - a 18-storey residential building. The former gas tank plus additional construction include a total of 254 apartments. According Mitarchitekt Wolf D. Prix was the " shield" " the character of the new contents of the Gasometer. Would the shield are not there, you do not even know that there is something new emerged. " Also that the event hall is housed in the designed of them Gasometer, is no accident, as " Coop Himmelb (l) au " " always have mixed-use buildings pleads, "says Prix on.
The 1,400 square-meter meeting hall holds 4,200 people and has for Vienna a special meaning, as between the up to 16,000 visitors comprehensive Wiener Stadthalle and the other event locations with a maximum of 1,500 visitors (Hall Oberlaa ) far gaped a large gap and music groups, the city hall which does not were able to fill, for most smaller venues were too expensive.
The apartments within the Gasometer nestle in the form of an unbroken circle to the walls of the gasometer and leave in the middle just a 20-meter diameter large light passage free. The windows of each floor in the tower tightly strung together.
Dormitory
The lowest four to five floors of the living area in the Gasometer "B" occupies a dormitory. The total floor space of 5,850 m² located 247 home places, which are housed in 73 different apartments (up to 115 m² apartments with 199 single rooms and 24 double rooms). There are numerous common areas such as club room, shared kitchen, gym, sauna area, rehearsal room and laundry room. The dormitory is run by the " housing association for private employees " of the GPA. In autumn 2006, an extension of the dormitory in the immediate vicinity was opened to the gas holders, together with a Protestant private school and retirement home.
Gasometer C
The Viennese architect Manfred Wehdorn who takes care of the "simplicity" and yet maximum comfort, was responsible for the design of the Gasometer "C". The 92 apartments spread over 6 floors with a white facade are graduated upward, resulting in a higher penetration of sunlight to reach the bottom. The first apartments start from a height of around 32 meters above street level. Between the residential storeys and the shopping center on three storeys, the office or the office of the mobile operator Three.
In the courtyard there is a large glass dome, shining through leaves "main mall " an underlying, or the sunlight donated. Around the dome contains a roughly four -meter wide green belt, on which several trees were planted. By the stepped upwards courtyard terraces and walkways have been created that are planted with flower beds and trees. Wehdorn wanted to realize the "green " concept of an arboretum here.
Under the central corridor of the former shopping center there is a public parking garage.
Gasometer D
As the only Gasometer, the designed by Wilhelm Bauer wood Gasometer "D" no central courtyard, but is still the only one in which each of the 119 apartments at least a loggia has a small green space or. The residential tower in the center of the gasometer, the basic shape of a circle with three rectangular " arms " on. Between these three equal " poor" there are three equally large green areas. Mitgrund for this form is also "that people do not see each other's homes, or must all face the same court ," as Wood Bauer mentioned.
Among the homes that start in 31 meters height above the Guglgasse, the Municipal Department makes 8, Municipal and Provincial Archives on four storeys wide. The shopping areas are found here only in a spur, as the central aisle of the mall between the Gasometers "C " and "D " to the left in the annex "E" is bent.
Criticism
The new "G -Town " or " Gasometer City " was applied to their opening with great intensity in the electronic and print media, such as by numerous multi-page special inserts in newspapers. Nevertheless, it was from the outset to critical word messages. Unresolved appear until today the problem of sustainable appreciation of the residential area in a still industrially and commercially-focused atmosphere. The fate of the ailing, to large-scale shopping center, despite now to realignment to " Music City " is uncertain. Compared with the conversion, as it took place during Panometers Dresden and Leipzig Panometers, also the utter loss of all four of the giant dome rooms has to be stated.