Gasometer, Vienna - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Gasometers in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

are four former gas tanks

Gasometer

A gas holder is a large container where natural gas or town gas is stored near atmospheric pressure at ambient temperatures. The volume of the container follows the quantity of stored gas, with pressure coming from the weight of a movable cap...

, each of 90,000 m³ storage capacity, built as part of the Vienna municipal gas works Gaswerk Simmering in 1896–1899. They are located in the 11th district, Simmering

Simmering (Vienna)

Simmering is the 11th district of Vienna, Austria . It borders the Danube and was established as a district in 1892. Simmering has several churches, some museums, schools, old castles, and many cemeteries.- History :...

. They were used from 1899 to 1984 as gas storage tanks. After the changeover from town gas to natural gas

Natural gas

Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...

between 1969 and 1978, they were no longer used and were shut down. Only the brick exterior front walls were preserved. The structures have found a new use in modern times.

History

The Gasometers were built from 1896 to 1899 in the Simmering

Simmering (Vienna)

district of Vienna

Vienna

near the Gaswerk Simmering gas works of the district. The containers were used to help supply Vienna with town gas, facilities which had previously been provided by the English firm Inter Continental Gas Association (ICGA). Once the contracts with the ICGA expired, the city decided to construct facilities to handle its own gas needs. At the time, the design was the largest in all of Europe.

The Gasometers were retired in 1984 due to new technologies in gasometer construction, as well as the city's conversion from town gas and coal gas

Coal gas

Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made by the destructive distillation of coal containing a variety of calorific gases including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and volatile hydrocarbons together with small quantities of non-calorific gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen...

to natural gas

Natural gas

. Gas can be stored underground or in modern high-pressure gas storage spheres under much higher pressures and in smaller volumes than the relatively large gasometers. In 1978, they were designated as protected historic landmarks.

During the years after their decommission, they were used for various purposes, including being used as a setting in the movie James Bond: The Living Daylights
The Living Daylights
The Living Daylights is the fifteenth entry in the James Bond series and the first to star Timothy Dalton as the fictional MI6 agent 007. The film's title is taken from Ian Fleming's short story, "The Living Daylights"...

and as a venue to host the Gazometer-Raves. Sound in the large round structures reverberated and exhibited a special echo that was popular to the ravers, and the term Gazometer was well known in the scene.

Vienna undertook a remodelling and revitalization of the protected monuments and in 1995 called for ideas for the new use of the structures. The chosen designs by the architects Jean Nouvel

Jean Nouvel

Jean Nouvel is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of Mars 1976 and Syndicat de l'Architecture...

(Gasometer A), Coop Himmelblau (Gasometer B), Manfred Wehdorn (Gasometer C) and Wilhelm Holzbauer (Gasometer D) were completed between 1999 and 2001. Each gasometer was divided into several zones for living (apartments in the top), working (offices in the middle floors) and entertainment and shopping (shopping malls in the ground floors). The shopping mall levels in each gasometer are connected to the others by skybridges. The historic exterior wall was conserved. One of the ideas rejected for the project was the plan by architect Manfred Wehdorn to use the Gasometers for hotels and facilities for the planned World Expo in Vienna and Budapest.

On 30 October 2001, the mayor attended the official grand opening of the Gasometers, but people had begun moving in as early as May 2001.

Technical details

The Gasometers are four cylindrical

Cylinder (geometry)

A cylinder is one of the most basic curvilinear geometric shapes, the surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given line segment, the axis of the cylinder. The solid enclosed by this surface and by two planes perpendicular to the axis is also called a cylinder...

telescopic gas containers, each with a volume of about 90,000 m³ seated in a water basin; each is enclosed by a red-brick facade. They are each 70 meters tall and 60 meters in diameter. The Gasometers were gutted during the remodelling and only the brick exterior and parts of the roof were left standing.

Coal gas

Coal gas

was dry-distilled from coal and was stored in these containers before it was distributed into the city gas network. The "town gas" was originally used only by the street lamps, but in 1910, its use for cooking and heating in private homes was introduced.

The Gasometers today

The Gasometers have developed a village character all their own and are a city within a city. A true sense of community has developed, and both a large physical housing community (of tenants) as well as an active virtual internet community (Gasometer Community) have formed. Numerous theses

Thesis

A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...

and dissertations in psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, urban planning

Urban planning

Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....

, journalism

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

and architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

have been written about this phenomenon.

Indoor facilities include a music hall (capacity 2000–3000 people), movie theatre, student dormitory

Dormitory

A dormitory, often shortened to dorm, in the United States is a residence hall consisting of sleeping quarters or entire buildings primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people, often boarding school, college or university students...

, municipal archive, and so on. There are about 800 apartments (two thirds within the historic brick walls) with 1600 regular tenants, as well as about 70 student apartments with 250 students in residence.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.