Jahrhunderthalle (1913)
The most influential structure on the development of large, enclosed public space of reinforced concrete was the Jahrhunderthalle (Centennial Hall) of Breslau. This structural icon was designed to commemorate 100 year anniversary of the defeat of Napoleon's army in 1813 by the Preussische army near Breslau. The city fathers wished to erect not only a monument to this moment in German history, but to take the opportunity to build a large, multi-purpose hall for their present and future needs. The City Building Commissioner, Max Berg(1), was under pressure to bring Breslau back into the limelight of the eastern part of the Preussen Empire as the "Metropole des Ostens." Berg had been chosen to come to Breslau in 1909 to begin the design of the main hall of the large exhibition. This building was to serve as both an exhibition hall and assembly hall. Prior to this appointment, Berg served as Frankfurt am Main's City building department director. During his tenure in Frankfurt, Berg was closely associated with the construction of the Festhalle (designed by the well kown German Architect von Thiersch)(2) which began construction in the summer of1907 and was completed in1909.
Berg's initial designs for the Breslau hall clearly reflected his close association with the Festhalle in Frankfurt. Like von Thiersch before him, Berg was also faced with the difficult task of satisfying the specific wish of the city fathersto a multi-purpose hall: a longitudinally oriented plan was thought to be appropriate for an exhibition hall, and a central plan for a meeting hall. Berg's assistant, Konwiatz, described the first designs as a typical longitudinal building which evolved in a short time to form a square with four apses(3). Berg(4) said: "I decided to follow the best design for a meeting hall: the centralized construction." He designed an enclosed floor space of over 5,600 sqm which could hold 10,000 people. Berg continually compared his design to the Festhalle and lauded his improvements, including the elimination of the glazed dome found in Frankfurt (see Fig. II.5.2-5) which he found to be "... an acoustic failure." He also replaced the hard smooth interior surface of the dome with stepped clerestory windows which were continuous around the entire circumference. Berg found that this was :
".. better for exhibitions. In order to bring as much light as possible into the space, the walls have been dissolved as much as possible. In no case did I want the windows to be seen as holes in a wall, rather as space containing planes of light; such as one sees in the Ancient method of making windows of panes of thin plates of marble."
Berg's perception of how this was to be realized can be seen in the rendering below.
The entire structure had been designed by Berg and calculated by his engineering colleague at the city building department, Trauer. Berg had designed not only the spatial concept but also determined the expression the load-bearing structure was to give. Trauer(5) described this as,"...an unusually large and challenging project for us Engineers. Challenging not only due to its monumental size ... but mostly due to the incredibly clever structural design developed by the architect. It is natural that we engineers should adapt ourselves to these clever forms and serve the architect."
The last three word of the quote seem actually a bit out of place. They imply that Trauer was not very happy with the design, perhaps bitter for the role he had to play, or that the editors of the Deutsche Bauzeitung changed his original text. A very detailed article appeared in Armierter Beton in the same year and in the Bericht des Deutschen Beton-Vereins which was basically the same text. The following sentence was included in the introduction of both articles:"The spatial design and the choice of the load-bearing system is clearly the work of the Architect, but from the very beginning both the architectural and engineering designs must be parallel."
Such a design process is hard to imagine without the close cooperation of the two men from the very beginning. It seems from other various sources that these two men did indeed work very well together and that the structural designer did not play the role of the servant to the architectural designer. The two completed a detailed feasibility study and put together the documents for the competitive bidding. Projects that had both steel covered with concrete and reinforced concrete were considered when the contract was let for bidding.
Due to the fires which had just occurred at the World Exhibition in Brussels (1910), the bid documents required that all structural steel elements be coated with a fire-proof cladding. Since the exhibition was to include "very valuable historical objects," a "no-risk, fire-proof" solution was necessary(6). Due to the greater section necessary to fulfill this requirement and the increased dead weight that resulted, it was concluded that a fire-proof steel structure of this size was impossible. No one had ever erected such an enormous reinforced concrete hall and there was great doubts as to the feasibility of its construction. The City Board of Directors approved Berg's reinforced concrete project on the 28th of June, 1911. They awarded the contract for the construction of the main hall to Dyckerhoff & Widmann AG of Dresden and the Lolat-Eisenbeton Company of Breslau a contractt for the smaller single-story buildings around the hall. The first shovel was turned on the 31st of August, 1911, the foundations completed on the 12th of November, 1911 and on the 20th of December, 1912 the raw construction, after 14 months time, was finished. It was opened to the public by the Imperial couple in 1913.
Max Berg had placed the Exhibition hall on the site of the old Scheitniger horse-race track in the center of the site. He had foreseen the addition of an "Olympic" track to one side of the hall and a restaurant to the other. After the approval of the project and the letting of the contract for the main hall, Berg searched for an architect to design the entire exhibition grounds. Hans Poelzig, who was director of the School of Fine and Applied Arts in Breslau at that time, was chosen for the job. Poelzig took Berg's extremely rigid project and developed it into a more cohesive whole.
The Jahrhunderthalle was only one part of the large exhibition. The grounds also contained a botanical garden, velo race track, zoological gardens, various of other rides and games for children of all ages, a dance pavilion, exhibitions of farm implements, etc..
Poelzig was also responsible for the design of a number of ancillary temporary structures as well as the fire-proof building for the Historical Exhibition. Originally, the latter would have been placed in the single-story "Ringhalle" which circumscribed the main hall (see plan above). It was decided that this was not functional, and that a separate structure would be required. This project, especially the Jahrhunderthalle, greatly influenced Poelzig for the rest of his career(7).
After the construction contract was let, the final structural calculations and design were completed by engineers at Dyckerhoff & Widmann with the cooperation of the city engineers. These calculations were published in exact detail in Armierter Beton in 1913. In order to reduce the number of unknowns in the design of the entire structure, it was subdivided into as many smaller statically determinate elements as possible; essentially, the dome was seperated from its base and each of the butressing elements was designed to be a curved two-pinned collumn. This was mainly due to the limitations of the calculation capabilities of the engineers at that time. The engineers simply could not solve a problem with a high degree of indeterminacy.
"The exact calculation of the internal forces of the dome under wind and asymmetrical snow loadings was significantly more difficult than for the symmetrical dead-loads. Due to the unusual dimensions of the dome.... it was decided to design the individual elements of the structure with enough strength to be sure that the whole would be structurally sound."(8)
The structure could not be calculated as a single entity: it was simply too big. The individual parts were calculated for their worst case loading and then a bit was added for safety. The most important reason for the separation of the dome from its supporting structure was that this allowed for a simpler plan of erection. That is, the two parts could be built with a certain degree of independence and thus shorten the time of construction. A shortening of the construction time resulted in a distinct savings in costs. Not only a savings in building costs, but a profit of 300 Reichsmark per day for the contractor when they finished early. The construction was completed six weeks early, and thus a bonus of the maximum possible amount of 10,000 Reichsmarks
was received.
The methods of calculation in the first part of this century were limited to graphic statics and basic numerical solutions of determinate structures. In order to facilitate the engineering design of the whole structure, and based on structural design li
mitations, the upper dome was separated from its lower supporting structure by 32 hinges (G in the figure above). The lower supporting structure was sub-divided into four parts by hinges at the apexes of each of the arches. Additionally, the small apse bu
ttresses were all two-hinged. The engineers had wished to build hinges at all of the abutments of the supporting arches in order to make them statically determinate three-hinged arches. However, after making some model tests this was found to be unnecessa
ry. Berg found that the addition of a hinge at a point which had a cross-section section of 22 sqm nothing short of perversion of structural form.
Setting a circular dome upon a square is a problem which has always been a challenge to structural and architectural designers. When built, the dome actually sits on only four points. Thus, the dome freely spans the distance between these points, leaving
the corners free. These corners were part of the reason that the Turkish architect Sinan developed his cascading domes of the mosques in Istanbul. Berg solved this problem by resting the dome on a 2.0 m thick vertical standing cylinder with a radius of 6
7.36 m (clear span of 65.0 m).
This cylinder was then "cut" horizontally by two more cylinders perpendicular to each other. Cutting the cylinder in this way provided a continuous arched support for the dome, but the four arches which were created by this "cutting" were no longer stable
and tended to tip out radially. The apses were then added as small, two-hinged, curved flying buttress-like columns. They act to keep the dome supporting ring in place.
The supporting arches have hinges at their apexes and are fixed at the abutments. The design and detailing of these was a direct result of the experience gained in the design and construction of the massive end arches at the Main Train Station in Leipzig
(soon to be a case study!). The two arch halves in Breslau cantilever from the massive abutment in a butterfly-like winged way to create a single structural element. Their width is 4.5 m at the abutments and decreases continually to 2.0 m at the hinge. T
heir depth varies from 3.00 to 1.53 m. The form of the arch was determined by calculating the caternary curve envelope for the various loading conditions. As was often found in the erection of bridges, the concrete for these arches was not of one constant
mix. An approximately 20 cm thick band of a rich mix of concrete was rammed into place on the formwork. When this layer hardened, it created an arch which helped support the mass rammed on top of it. This mass was of a lean mixture, and the last 20 cm wa
s again richer concrete. Trauer(9) noted that due to extermely low tension forces, these lower arches could have been built without any reinforcing; but it was added anyway.
The ribbed dome was conceived to have 32 meridial ribs. It had both a tension ring at it's base and a compression ring at the apex which had a diameter of 17.4 m. The 1.20m deep ribs sprang from the tension ring to rise 15 m to the compression ring. T
he ribs were of constant depth along most of their length, but reduce in size to 1.05 at the compression ring. The 67.36 m diameter tension ring was constructed of two steel trusses, laid "flat," placed one above the other and embedded in concrete. It wa
s supported on a series of hinges. Each hinge was placed immediately below the tension ring at the points where the ribs met the ring. They were oriented so that radial, not lateral, movement was possible. Thus, any temperature loadings would not load t
he supporting structure with a condition which was difficult to control and calculate. The action of these hinges was tested in the construction of the Main Train Station at Leipzig. A stepped supporting structure was erected upon the meridial ribs. The
vertical surface of the "steps" was glazed and the horizontal surface poured-in-place concrete. There were 3 cm thick insulating cork panels applied to the undersides of the horizontal roofs. These were simply lain on the formwork before the concrete was
rammed into place. The cement was then partially absorbed into the cork acting like a glue. These cork panels were for both temperature and acoustical insulation.
Despite the simplifications imposed upon the structural system, the structural designers were still not certain of the structures behavior and decided to build models to test their assumptions. This was not an unknown practice to Dyckerhoff & Widmann. Due to the unknown effects of the extreme size on the behavior of the arches at the Hauptbahnhof at Leipzig, they built a 1:1 model of the element in question and tested it. They used the results to refine their calculations as well as to prove to the Building Inspectors that their assumptions were valid. Such a model of the Breslau structure would have been impossible. Instead, the engineers decided upon a 1:25 wood model. Oak was chosen as the wood with "physical properties closest to those of reinforced concrete," and the model was built exactly as the finished hall would be. In order to investigate the variation of the compression forces in the sections, carbon-paper was placed in the "hinges." After loading, the intensity and location of the blue-black print was observed. This was analyzed by the structural designers who found that the buttresses were much more important to the stability of the supporting arch ring than had been previously assumed. As a result, the apse buttresses were strengthened to 1.0 m wide by 1.6 m deep, stiffening ribs were introduced between the buttresses in order to help reduce their buckling length, and their foundations were redesigned to take the additional horizontal loading. This shows the value of always testing ones assumptions with models (And all this without a calculator).
To construct such an enormous hall without the help of machines would have been almost unthinkable. The introduction of machines to the construction site was being resisted with considerable success by the unions at that time. However, the ever increasing lack of skilled labor and the impulse from America, where machines were common, were helping to increase their acceptance. There were a number of hand-held machines, as well as larger free-standing machines, utilized to make the work more efficient in Breslau. The concrete was mixed by four mixers at either of the two on-site mixing plants, and rammed into place with new pneumatic rammers. These tools compacted an 18 cm layer of loose concrete to 13 cm; 2 cm more than required by law. The aggregate consisted of granite which originated as road bricks which were no longer needed by the city and crushed on-site. All of the timber work was done on mechanical band and circular saws and the Adolf Bleichert & Cie. Company of Leipzig developed a number of special mechanical lifting devices for the site(10).
A fixed wooden tower, 51 m tall was erected in the middle of the dome. Two smaller wooded towers, 14 m tall, were constructed on rails which circumvented the entire area with a diameter of 200 m. Cables connected the smaller towers to the pinnacle of the central tower. These "cranes" could lift 2,600 kg each and were powered by electric motors, reaching any and every point around the entire construction site. These cranes allowed the completion of the concrete work for the dome in only 24 working days.
It was again the desire to build a public monument to celebrate a "significant" event which led to the design of the Centennial Hall in Breslau. The perception of permanence, fire-proofing and economics were the factors quoted as leading to the choice of reinforced concrete. The limitations of the technological knowledge were tested and broadened with the structural design and erection of the monumental hall. The clear design of the different parts of the supporting structure were the direct result of experience previously gained through the design and construction of not only bridges, but also of the contractor's earlier works.
The Inside is defined by the sweeping ribs. The space is reminiscent of the monumental dome of the Pantheon with the coffers punched out. The small horizontal roof planes disappear in the light which streams through the vertical aperatures of glass. The Outside is in the form of a stepped pseudo basilica which does not imply in any way the energy of the interior; recalling images such as Hadrian's Tomb or the Castello S. Angelo in Rome. The sihouette of the "Jahrhunderthalle" was chosen on one hand for its iconographical (representational) aspects, and on the other hand for the functional reason to apply horizontal bands of windows for lighting. The Inside and the Outside are still two distinctly differing forms. The In-between was not hidden behind a false front of Rabitz or Monier panels. The monumental vault is present in the virtual surface created by the load-bearing ribs. The architectural intention, as expressed in the chosen design, dictated the form of the load-bearing structure. This hall not only demonstrated that reinforced concrete could be used effectively to span very large spaces, but that it could be left exposed as a material in its own right. It was instrumental in setting the stage for the design of the next period of construction of large reinforced concrete public halls.
References
- Berg, M. "Die Jahrhunderthalle und ihre Anordnung auf dem Gellaende." In Die Jahrhundertausstellung Breslau 1913. Sondernummer der Schliessische Zeitung. Breslau:Verlag Wilhelm Korn, 1913. p. 6.
- Marschall, H.K. Friedrich von Thiersch: Ein Müncher Architekt des Späthistorismus. Mümchen: Prestel Verlag, 1982. pp. 312-316.
- Berg, M. "Die Jahrhunderthalle und ihre Anordnung auf dem Gellaende." In Die Jahrhundertausstellung Breslau 1913. Sondernummer der Schliessische Zeitung. Breslau:Verlag Wilhelm Korn, 1913. p. 7.
- Berg, M. "Die Jahrhunderthalle und das neue Ausstellungsgelaende der Stadt Breslau." Deutsche Bauzeitung, No. 42, 1913. p. 463.
- Trauer, M. "Die Jahrhunderthalle in Breslau." Deutsche Bauzeitung, No. 14, 1913. p. 114.
- Berg, M. "Die Jahrhunderthalle und ihre Anordnung auf dem Gellaende." In Die Jahrhundertausstellung Breslau 1913. Sondernummer der Schliessische Zeitung. Breslau:Verlag Wilhelm Korn, 1913. p. 7.
- Schirren, M. "Festspielhaus und Messegelände die Jahrehundertausstellung 1913 und ihre Nachwirkung im Werk von Hans Poelzig." In Schirren, Matthias. Herausgeber. HansPoelzig: Die Pläne und Zeichnungen aus dem ehemaligen Verkehrs- und Baumuseum in Berlin. Berlin: Verlag Erst& Sohn, 1989. p. 32.
- Trauer, M. "Die Jahrhunderthalle in Breslau." Deutsche Bauzeitung, No. 14, 1913. p. 119.
- Trauer, M. "Festahalle in Breslau." Bericht der XVI. Haupt-Versammlung des Deutschen Beton-Vereins. 1913. p. 164.
- "Bauinstallation fuer die Jahrhunderthalle in Breslau." Schweizerische Bauzeitung, Band LXIV (no. 8), 1914. p. 98.
Copyright © 1995,1996 by Chris H. Luebkeman