Feuerwache West, Former fire station in Kleinweidenmühle, Nuremberg, Germany.
Feuerwache West at Reutersbrunnenstraße 24 is a "picturesque group building" in the historicist Neu-Nürnberger-Stil, designed by architect Otto Seegy and opened in 1902. It consists of a three-storey central block with a hipped roof, half-timbered dormers and sandstone oriels, a two-storey vehicle wing behind it, a cross-built two-storey structure with a six-storey tower, a workshop building and single-storey head buildings of the garage block.
Nuremberg's annexations at the end of the 19th century lengthened response times from the central fire station, so a second station was built on Reutersbrunnenstraße near the Johannisbrücke, one of the few Pegnitz crossings. The architect and civil servant Otto Seegy designed it in the historicist Neu-Nürnberger-Stil, and after about a year of construction it began operating on 1 May 1902. It remained in continuous use as a fire station until 9 February 2021.
The name Feuerwache West marks it as the western fire station of Nuremberg's fire brigade, which ran it as Wache 1 until 9 February 2021. Inside, the ground floor held a telegraph room, a feed store, a drivers' rest room and a sick stall for a horse; upstairs a dormitory had 40 beds.
The building stands at Reutersbrunnenstraße 24 in the Kleinweidenmühle district, near the Johannisbrücke, one of the few bridges over the Pegnitz. The site was chosen for its convenient access, and the new Fire Station 1 opened nearby at Reutersbrunnenstraße 63 between Maximilianstraße and the prison. The future use of the old station was undecided as of May 2021.
The horse stalls were placed directly behind the vehicle bays, so the horse-drawn engines could leave in under a minute after an alarm. The massive vaulted cellar also allowed the vehicle wing to keep serving once heavy motorised pump units replaced the horses.
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