Powder tower

(Redirected from Pulverturm)

A powder tower (German: Pulverturm), occasionally also powder house (Pulverhaus), was a building used by the military or by mining companies, frequently a tower, to store gunpowder or, later, explosives. They were common until the 20th century, but were increasingly succeeded by gunpowder magazines and ammunition depots. The explosion of a powder tower could be catastrophic as, for example, in the Delft Explosion of 1654.

The powder tower of Prague
The powder tower in Meschede

List of powder towers

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Buildings formerly used as powder towers include the following:

Germany

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These are sorted by states of Germany, since there are so many.

Baden-Württemberg

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Bavaria

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Brandenburg

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Bremen

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Lower Saxony

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Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

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The Pulverturm, Demmin, bears the name, but was probably not used for this purpose.

North Rhine-Westphalia

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Rhineland-Palatinate

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Saxony

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Saxony-Anhalt

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Thuringia

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Austria

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Czechia

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Italy

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Latvia

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Namibia

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Switzerland

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  • Pulverturm, Zofingen
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Literature

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  • Adolf Weinbrenner: Pulvermagazin, in Otto Lueger (ed.): Lexikon der gesamten Technik und ihrer Hilfswissenschaften, Vol. 7 Stuttgart, Leipzig 1909, pp. 274–275; digitalised at zeno.org
  • Brewer, Ted (1999). Czech and Slovak Republics Guide. Londres: Open Road Publishing.
  • Legal, Claus; Legal, Gert (2020). Friedrich II. von Preußen und Quintus Icilius: Der König und der Obrist. Munique: utzverlag GmbH.
  • Prokopovych, Markian (2009). Habsburg Lemberg: Architecture, Public Space, and Politics in the Galician Capital, 1772-1914. Lafaiete Oeste, Indiana: Imprensa da Universidade de Purdue.


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