Malakowturm Prosper II
1875 · Round Malakoff Tower · Work 322 of 1,871
The Malakow tower of Zeche Prosper II at Bottrop, a massive square brick tower over thirty metres high with polygonal stair turrets at its corners, its storeys divided by cornices and pierced by rounded-arch windows, a crenellated crown at the top, the headgear sheaves set inside the top of the tower, miners crossing the pit yard of cobbles and cinders, the men in cloth caps and dark jackets, daylight only.
- What it was used for
- The tower stood over Shaft 2 of the Prosper colliery in Bottrop. Sinking began in 1871 and hoisting started in 1875. The brick block, about 18 by 18 metres in plan and over 30 metres high, was not cladding but structure: the masonry itself carried the sheave wheels. Sources disagree on completion - the city of Bottrop says 1873, the LWL gives a building period of 1871 to 1875, the industrial heritage foundation 1874/75. The tower was taken out of service in 1987 and is now used as a climbing hall and event venue.
- What was new
- The tower is not an invention; the LWL explicitly classes it as "a document of mining between 1850 and 1880". What the type could do was carry the loads of larger sheave wheels, which according to the city of Bottrop the old wooden or cast-iron frames could not bear. That is exactly what reversed. As early as 1896 a lattice headframe was set on top of the tower; in 1933/34 a free-standing plate-girder headframe took over the hoisting: the tower remained, while the machinery it had been built for moved out of it. Of the masonry headframe towers in the Ruhr, ruhrgebiet-industriekultur.de reports that only "a good dozen" survive - and the viewing platform visitors have climbed since 2014 sits on the steel headframe that stripped the tower of its function.