Alte Steinbücke Jena Burgau by Marcus Beckert

About "Alte Steinbücke Jena Burgau"

by Marcus Beckert

About the artwork

In 1484, a wooden bridge was mentioned for the first time as part of a trade route at this location. In 1491, Hans Münch von Würghausen began converting it into a stone arch bridge, which was completed in 1534 with the addition of three arches.[1] After its destruction during the Thirty Years' War (1637), it was rebuilt in 1706 and after further alterations, it was given its current appearance in 1744. From 1915 to 1938, the Pennickental cable car passed over the bridge on the east side; a wooden structure protected bridge users from falling rocks from the cable car carriages. Until the construction of a new Saale bridge in the 1930s, all traffic to and from Lobeda travelled over the Burgau bridge. A simple traffic light system was therefore used.

During the Second World War, on 12 April 1945, the Wehrmacht blew up arches two, three and four. The bridge was not completely rebuilt for decades. Instead, the bridge was given a temporary wooden structure over the destroyed arches and from then on only served as a pedestrian bridge; in the 1970s, a steel footbridge was also built about 100 metres south of the old bridge. In 1983[2], the temporary structure was closed and the unused bridge fell into disrepair, but there was resistance among the population to its complete demolition. In 1992, an "Association to Save the Old Saale Bridge Jena-Burgau e.V." was founded and work began to secure the bridge's structure. Reconstruction of the bridge with its three arches over a length of 55 metres began in 2001 and was completed after a ceremonial opening as a foot and cycle path bridge on 3 October 2004.
Source: Wikipedia: Wikipedia