Location: Germany Gender: Male Total Likes: 514 likes
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Massive Abandoned Gas Works in Austria < on 10/11/2017 7:29 PM > | Reply with Quote
As if we were exploring a ghost town! At least it felt like that when we were visiting a vast abandoned industrial area on day two of our urbex road trip in Austria. Once, this was one of the biggest gas works sites in the region. Today the compound fallows and nature is winning back what was once hers. Together with Tato from the YouTube channel “thetatogram” we explored a variety of buildings on an area of around 20 hectares. While doing this, we were overwhelmed by the impressive dimensions. We are one of the last people who will be able to see the site with their own eyes before there will be a massive change shortly.
Many years ago, a gas plant operated on this site. Today, this can only be guessed. But the fact is that this area was like its own small town. There were residential houses for the executive employees and engineers, as well as a hospital, workshops and a big canteen with stage. Some acres of land were even provided for the cultivation of vegetables and the breeding of rabbits. Once, the premises had a size of over 40 hectares. Today only half of the size is left because parts of this property already have a new use. For example, a power plant was built right next door. Around a third of the still existing buildings are under monument protection.
In 1911, the gasworks went active. Due to the general mechanization here, only 150 people were employed. During World War 2, the site was hit by over 200 bombs due to which seven workers left their lives. The whole plant was damaged really badly back then. Not until the postwar years it was possible to rebuild the gasworks. In 1952, it started to operate again.
Originally, around 50 million cubic meters of city gas were produced here per year. After the reconstruction, the output could even be increased to 166 million cubic meters. Until 1969, the gas production conducted from coal. Only thereafter natural gas was taken as base material. After that, the operation of the gas plant ceased bit by bit. In 1987, the facility was superseded by a district heating plant.
Until the year 2006, some of the remaining buildings were used by the administration. Today, mainly the impressive one and two-storied houses, which remind you of mansions, are left. They’re surrounded by two big alleys. It is said that a former worker is still living in one of the residential houses today.
In the course of the production and because of the effects of war, it came to an extensive and profound pollution of the underground. Typical contaminants for gasworks like chemicals got inside the soil and groundwater. Around the year 2005, the whole area was all-encompassing decontaminated. Control examinations of the groundwater proved that the site is no risk of danger any longer.
Now the area is supposed to be revived. A whole new neighborhood is going to be constructed here. Over 1.400 housings are planned as well as large parks. All the design work is already done. In this very year, the building works are supposed to start. The first houses are supposed to be ready at the end of 2018. And nothing will be left that reminds of how this area looked erstwhile.
Location: Toronto, ON Gender: Neither Total Likes: 16 likes
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Re: Massive Abandoned Gas Works in Austria < Reply # 1 on 10/28/2017 6:49 PM > | Reply with Quote
Awesome post and impressive video! Very well-researched, as well.
I always love the scale of some of these places -- it never ceases to amaze me how much space these sites take up, only to one day be modified into something else.
Location: at the beginning Gender: Male w/ Female Bits Total Likes: 277 likes
Cave Cave Deus Videt
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Re: Massive Abandoned Gas Works in Austria < Reply # 2 on 10/28/2017 8:09 PM > | Reply with Quote
nice shots and thanks Mr. Shicken, for your help!!
M
Kabbalah is an undramatic tradition that requires great patience and stability. One of the reasons for this tempo is that everyone has to mature his potential gradually and thoroughly at his natural pace. In this way his life's work unfolds at the right moment in his own and the cosmos's time. Z.B.S. Halevi -- Kabbalah