Background
The Water Castle and the Freiburg City Seal
Why the Water Castle carries three battlemented towers - and what that has to do with the city seal of 1245.
The Water Castle in the Sternwald forest above the Wiehre was built in 1895/96 by the Freiburg firm Brenzinger & Cie. and is one of the city's most unusual utility buildings. Its castle-like façade of sandstone and concrete blocks, with three battlemented towers, is a deliberate homage to the Freiburg city seal of 1245. At 314 meters above sea level, the building stores about 3,800 cubic meters of drinking water in two chambers and supplies the eastern districts by gravity. In 2001 the facility was expanded with an additional reservoir of about 6,000 cubic meters, because population growth and dense construction were stretching the reserves thin. The reservoir ensemble is operated today by bnNETZE, a subsidiary of the utility badenova.
The model for the façade, the great Freiburg city seal, is documented since 1245 and shows a three-towered city wall with an open gate, two hornblowers on the side towers, a lily beneath the central arch and four stars above the battlements. The symbols stand for judicial authority, justice and public peace. The motif still shapes the city's coat of arms and can be seen on the cast-iron manhole covers of the Old Town, which lie underfoot like a small, walkable city archive.
The Water Castle and the manhole covers thus link the same medieval imagery to two eras of technical infrastructure, making Freiburg's city history literally legible in public space.
