Wasserturm Bad Schwartau, Water tower in Bad Schwartau, Germany

Wasserturm Bad Schwartau is a 34-meter brick tower built in 1910, with a shaft that tapers upward and is pierced by narrow round-arched windows. Below the tank, a ring of rectangular panels alternates four small windows with plastered fields; the projecting tank masonry is reinforced with iron framework. A conical roof with a lantern and four small dormers tops the structure.

The tower was built in 1910 and initially supplied about 220 households with water as the town developed into a health resort. By 1933, the number of connected buildings had risen to 900, reflecting the rapid growth of Bad Schwartau as a spa destination.

The tower shapes Bad Schwartau's skyline with its distinctive design and red brick construction that reflects early 20th-century industrial pride. Visitors can observe how such structures became landmarks that people navigated by and took for granted in their daily routines.

The tower stands a few metres from the A1 motorway on the southern edge of Bad Schwartau. It is not open to visitors: since 1986 it has belonged to the Schwartauer Werke food company, which restored it and uses the interior as an archive. The exterior can be viewed from the public street.

The tank was a suspended-bottom container holding 200 cubic metres, fed by just two pipes to the network and fitted with no overflow pipe at all. An iron staircase inside ran up to the dripping floor beneath it. The tower's masonry around the projecting tank is reinforced with an iron frame.