Oranienburg granary, Historical warehouse in Oranienburg, Germany.
The Oranienburger Speicher is a roughly 37-metre grain silo on the Havel, built in 1917 for the Oranienburger Dampfmühle. Its 16 cells held 4,000 tonnes of grain, fed by suction equipment and screw conveyors from the river or by a bucket elevator over loading ramps. Above the iron-concrete structure sits a neo-baroque facade with a tower, curved saddle roof and baroque gables echoing Oranienburg Palace.
Built in 1917 for the Oranienburger Dampfmühle founded in 1875, the silo replaced an earlier grain store destroyed by fire on 24 February 1916; the Berlin firm Enders und Lichtenstein designed it, and the Cementbau-Aktiengesellschaft built it from 165 tonnes of iron and 14,000 sacks of cement. After the mill burned down on 20 May 1930, only the silo survived and served the Oranienburger Lager- und Getreidegesellschaft until the mid-1970s. Listed as a monument in 1995, it has been the subject of a demolition dispute since 2016.
The neo-baroque facade deliberately echoes Oranienburg Palace, visible from the silo: a grain store dressed like a residence. The tower carries a curved saddle roof and baroque gables, and its spire held a 9 m³ water tank feeding a sprinkler system against fire in the grain cells.
The silo stands at the Havel in central Oranienburg and is visible from the public riverside paths; it is not open to visitors, and the planned conversion to housing has not been carried out. The site is fenced off, so the building can only be viewed from outside. The 37-metre tower with its curved gable roof is best seen from a distance.
The tower's tip held a 9 m³ water tank feeding a sprinkler system, an early fire-protection measure for a grain silo. The 16 cells stored up to 4,000 tonnes of grain, filled by suction equipment and screw conveyors directly from the Havel or by bucket elevator over loading ramps.
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