A particularly fine example of the asynchrony of the industrial revolution can be seen with the King Frederick Augustus Tower, built in 1854 on Löbau Hill. It is the only surviving cast-iron lookout tower in Europe and probably the oldest cast-iron tower in the world. In the planning phase, architects wavered between a traditional stone tower and a technically state-of-theart appropriate cast-iron construction. They opted for the modern version – and then built it in a very conservative revivalist style. The lush ornamentation is based on Gothic and Oriental styles. The technical and organizational feat is beyond question: the delicate but nonetheless heavy castiron parts for the now 28 m high tower with its inner spiral staircase and three exterior galleries were so precisely cast in the ironworks in Bernsdorf that they only needed to be assembled on site. This had the incidental advantage that it was easy to dismantle the tower for refurbishment in 1993 and 1994, restore it in a workshop and reassemble it.
King Frederick Augustus Tower
Löbauer Berg
02708 Löbau
Germany
+49 (0) 3585 - 450140
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