Building with Boiler House and Water Tower

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Plötzensee Prison, service building: profiles AB, CD, EF and GH. From: Atlas zur Zeitschrift für Bauwesen, Jg. 30, 1880

• 1871

  Construction as service building with boiler house, water tower, well, steam chimney, coal shed and gasworks house with gasometer, connected to the north-west

• Late 1920

  Conversion of lighting from gas to electricity

• 1964

  Construction of an independent water supply plant and oil heating system

• 1978 – 1981

  New low-rise building for electricity supply and ventilation technology on the south side of the boiler house

• 1985

  Construction of the new chimney and decommissioning of the historical steam chimney

• 2010

  Conversion from oil to gas

Due to its “distance from Berlin and other towns” at the time of construction, it was necessary to establish an independent supply of water and energy for Plötzensee Prison. Energy was generated in the tall central block with coal-fired gas retort furnaces. All buildings, including the lanes and yards in the prison re originally illuminated with gas lamps.

The pump machines on the ground floor of the water tower also pumped water from the newly drilled, nine-metre-deep well nearby to the reservoir on the fifth floor. The reservoir’s capacity corresponded roughly with one tenth of the daily requirement of 600 cubic metres. The machines in the waterworks were powered with steam generated in the right wing of the premises.

All wastewater was piped to the adjacent sewage fields, whose surface area had to be expanded just a few years after the prison started operating.

Copyright: Berliner Forum für Geschichte und Gegenwart e.V., Cornelia Ganz

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