LATARNIE GAZOWE WARSZAWY

• Authors: Marek Barszcz

Title variants

EN

GAS LAMPS IN WARSAW

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Permanent street lights appeared in Warsaw in 1716 when twelve oil lamps were installed on the town hall walls. A true breakthrough, however, came with gas lamps. The first gas lamps, placed in Zamkowy Square and at Warsaw University in 1844, were fuelled with bottled gas supplied by a factory in the district of Solec. In 1856 the German Continental Gas Society of Dessau opened gas-works in Solec and initiated the installation of gas pipe networks. On 27 December 1856, 92 gas lamps were lit along Ludna, Książęca, Nowy Świat and Krakowskie Przedmieście streets and in Zamkowy Square. The lamps of the period were open-flame and their burners produced light similar to candlelight. In 1892 the inventor Karl Auer von Welsbach devised a special incandescent mantle which under the impact of the gas flame yielded a much stronger stream of light. Constructions of this type were applied in Warsaw in 1898. At the beginning of the twentieth century the city streets featured more effective electric lights. The fashion for gas lamps returned at the end of the 1930s. In 1927-1939 the gas-works in Ludna Street used a device for automatically turning the lamps on and off. The enormous damage incurred during the second world war produced a considerable decline in the number of the lamps : in 1945 there were only twenty lamps. In 1956, the number of functioning lamps totalled 2 611 but subsequently their number gradually dropped. In order to preserve remnants of historical gas lighting the city lamps were registered as historical monuments and submitted to legal protection (upon the basis of a decision made by the Voivodeship Conservator of Historical Monuments, no. B-1209 of 15 December 1982). This decision pertained to 181 gas lamps, of which 28 were nine-flame and 153 four-flame. The legal protection encompassed not only the form of the gas lamps but also the manner of obtaining light with the assistance of burners outfitted with the Auer mantles. The disassembly of the lamps and their conversion into electric fixtures became forbidden. Unfortunately, the practice of listing the lamps in the Register of Historical Monuments provided insufficient protection. Only six nine-flame gas lamps have survived out of a total of 28, i. e. barely 21 % of all the objects protected by law. The surviving fourflame lamps amount to 130, i. e. 85% of lamps of this type under legal protection. The above presented figures demonstrate that one-fourth of the lamps listed in the register does not exist or has been devastated. The implementation of a sensible plan for the revalorisation of gas lamps required co-operation between the Office of the Conservator of Historical Monuments, the Voivodeship Conservator of Historical Monuments and the authorities of particular districts, responsible for city lights. The prime task, however, consists of guaranteeing steady financing of historical gas lamps.

Keywords

PL

William Murdoch; latarnie gazowe; Komitet Gazowy; palnik motylkowy; siatka Auera

• Publisher: Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa
• Journal: Ochrona Zabytków
• Year: 2003
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 122-133

Dates

published

2003

Contributors

author

Marek Barszcz

• mgr, historyk, absolwent Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, pracuje w KOBiDZ. Jest sekretarzem Polskiego Komitetu TICCICH.

Identifiers

ISSN

0029-8247