3. - Schlösser-Magazin

Technical Monuments
Technical monuments are considered to be
buildings and facilities serving to distribute
goods, as well as technical objects and
historically unique and/or typical facilities in
connection with a technical standard. Within
this broad range and in a garden context
it is frequently irrigation systems that are
considered technical monuments today.
I. For interior rooms, only the stage
machineries of court theatres will be
mentioned here. Those at Ludwigsburg and
Drottningholm have been preserved, as has
the one at Versailles, which is, however, not
functional.
II. Many of the properties compared to
Schwetzingen feature 19th-century technical
monuments. Herrenhausen has the water
wheels and pumps of its water displays
installed in 1860, Sanssouci the steam
engine hall of 1841-43, and Nymphenburg
the early 19th-century cast-iron pumping
stations in the “Green Wellhouse” and
“Johannisbrunnenhaus” that are considered
to be among the most significant technical
monuments in Bavaria.
III. Technical monuments from the 18thcentury
are significantly more rare. At Wörlitz
the “Vesuvius” steam engine constitutes
a technical monument similar to that at
Sanssouci, with the exception of the pump,
which was newly installed in 2005.
Frequently 18th-century irrigation systems
have been partly replaced at some stage,
or only survive in parts like those of
Wilhelmshöhe and Versailles. Many facilities
use the water pressure created by a gradient
to operate their water displays. At Caserta
the remarkable aqueduct remains of this
system, and at Peterhof the water pranks and
the “Wishing-Table”. The very early Bayreuth
water towers date from the earlier 18thcentury.
The first of them, built 1718, works
purely on the principle of communicating
pipes. The second, constructed in 1750,
3. Justification for Inscription
already uses a different system and is supplied
with a system of pressure and levers modelled
on the machine of Marly. Both precede the
Schwetzingen waterworks that also use
Marly as a model. However, of the Bayreuth
waterworks only the tower and reservoir
survive. At Veitshöchheim the old water tower
and the waterworks, with a water wheel, date
from 1765-68 (enlarged in 1770), and are
still functional. The Upper Waterworks at
Schwetzingen, however, was constructed in
1762-64 (tower rebuilt and enlarged 1771-74),
and is still in perfect working order.
IV. The bone mill attached to the Lower
Waterworks (1774-1779), which pounded the
bones left over from the Elector’s table into
bonemeal, completes the unique range of
monuments.
At Schwetzingen, recent research has
moreover discovered a remarkable technical
innovation by Pigage. The “ruined” temple
of Mercury with its broken dome lacks by
necessity an edge ring at the base of the dome,
the purpose of which would have been to
hold in the dome’s weight against thrusts,
and allow the construction of a dome in the
first place. Instead an ingeniously concealed
new construction of ring beams and imposts
creates a stable open ring capable of bracing
the dome’s thrust. The temple of Mercury
thus features a precursor of the pre-stressed
construction.
With the Upper Waterworks and the
functional pumping stations Schwetzingen
features the oldest complete pump-based
water supply system of all the residence
gardens. The Lower Waterworks’ bone
mill and the equally unique historic
lightning rods by Hemmer, today the oldest
surviving specimens of Europe’s modern
era, complement a remarkable inventory of
outstanding technical monuments. Moreover
the “temple of Mercury” boasts an early
version of a pre-stressed construction.
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