Barbara Berger speaking at the EOGAN 2018 in Norway
With her lecture on "Historic Gasholders and Their Perception - as illustrated by Surveys and Archives" Barbara Berger opened the conference of the European Oil at Gas Archives Network EOGAN 2018 in Norway. The conference was titled "Learning from Energy History: education, dissemination and access to memory" and took place from 06.06. to 08.06.2018 in Stavanger, Norway.
Historic Gasholders and their Perception – as depicted by Surveys and Archives.
The gasholder was introduced in the beginning of the 19th century as a technical building for the storage of locally produced coal gas. Its emerging iron structure presented a new kind of industrial architecture and became symbolic of the gas industry.
The gasholder`s structure was determined by its function and had to fulfil two basic requirements: A variable capacity and a gas tight construction.
A water-based system met both requirements. It was composed of two primary elements: a water tank and a lift for the gas. The latter was immersed into the tank and rose and fell according to the current content of the gas. An external guide frame guaranteed the reliable movement of the lift. Because of the increasing demand for gas, receptacles with more storage were needed. In the 19th and early 20th century there were generally two different kinds of water sealed gasholders: The bell-type gasholder (or single-lift gasholder) and the telescope-type gasholder (or multi-lift gasholder).
Over the century the development advanced from the water-sealed to the waterless or dry-sealed system: The Piston-type gasholder was invented 1913 in Germany and led to a new appearance and form of the gasholder.
This topic aims to show the history of the gasholder and its different investigation approaches via surveys and researches in various archives in in the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany: e.g. National Gas Archive, Warrington (UK), Archivio Storico e Museo Italgas, Turin (IT), Archivi Storici AEM, Fondazione AEM, Milan (IT) and the Deutsches Museum, Munich (DE).
For further information:
- B. Berger (2017): ‘Der Gasbehälter als Bautypus – Baukonstruktionsgeschichte des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts. In England entwickelt, in Deutschland optimiert, weltweit verbreitet – gezeigt am Beispiel Italiens’. Dissertation at the Technical University of Munich (on-going publication).
- B. Berger (2015): ‘The Gasholder – Shaped by its function. The Italian example’, in: Bowen, Brian; Friedman, Donald; et al. (Eds.): 5th International Congress on Construction History, Proceedings. Vol. 1. Chicago, 2015, pp. 203-210.
- B. Berger (2014): ‘Il gasometro come tipo edilizio tra Ottocento e primo Novecento. Il caso dell`Italia settentrionale.’ In Rivista AIPAI (Associazione italiana per il patrimonio archeologico industriale), 2014-14, Naples.