Here Come The Waterworks: Warsaw’s 19th-Century Engineering Gem
The Lindley Filters in Warsaw are a unique example of late 19th-century waterworks that still successfully serve their original purpose. Find out why this great industrial monument was built and what makes its design so timeless. What lies inside the great industrial complex? A historical water tower, a massive underground filtering chamber and more.
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
Lindley’s Filters in Warsaw , photo: Jerzy Dudek/Forum
In the heart of Warsaw lies a vast green area that may seem almost undeveloped to the casual observer, only a handful of (mainly historical) structures are visible at first glance. But this approximately 30-hectare space contains the city’s beating heart, one that like most hearts is hidden from the outside world.
The heart in question lies in great rooms concealed beneath the small, grass-covered slopes and pumps water, a liquid that is a city’s lifeblood. Filtry Lindley’a, or Lindley’s Filters, as the area is called, is where one of the city’s three waterworks is located. This one is particularly interesting since it’s a unique monument to 19th-century technology and industrial architecture. According to Polish Radio similar facilities can be found only in Paris and London.
Text
Unique, beautiful and superbly designed, the Warsaw Filters have been working for over 130 years and amaze with its masterful architecture and how precisely it was executed. The historical complex of structures in the station’s area is considered a pearl of 19th-century industrial architecture.
Author
From the website of the Municipal Water Supply and Sewerage Company in Warsaw, operator of Lindley’s Filters
A plan of Warsaw's waterworks, 1863-1864, Waterworks And Sewerage in Warsaw: old designs - Lindley's design, 1879, photo: Polona - The National Digital Library The reason to build this facility to provide the city with this lifeblood was in fact… death. In the second half of the 19th century the population of Warsaw was increasing very rapidly (it tripled to count almost 700,000 people in the year 1900). The masses of people needed clean, fresh water and the existing waterworks couldn’t meet the growing demand. When the decision to build the Warsaw Filters was made the city was still being supplied with water by the Marconi waterworks from 1855.
Text
That facility didn’t satisfy the capital’s water needs neither in terms of quality not quantity. (…) Its efficiency couldn’t match the increasing demand and it was a common thing that taps in apartments would be open with vats standing beneath, waiting to catch some of the sporadically appearing water.
Author
From the 1938 book Wodociągi i Kanalizacja Warszawy (Warsaw Waterworks and Sewerage) by Jan Kozłowski
A great many people living in poor sanitary conditions – with fresh water shortages and lack of a sewage system (gutters were still in use) – resulted in a high death ratio linked to diseases like typhus. Fortunately, in the mid-1870s, the mayor of Warsaw Sokrates Starynkiewicz decided to build the Warsaw Filters and a state-of-the-art sewerage system, which eventually put an end to the sanitary problems the city had faced.
A Russian and an Englishman
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
A statue of William Heerlein Lindley in the the Waterworks and Sewerage Museum, photo: Jacek Łagowski/Forum & William Heerlein Lindley's portrait, photo: Wojciech Traczyk/East News
Intriguingly, the man to decide about the creation of the Warsaw Filters was Russian and the man to build them was an Englishman – Willam Heerlein Lindley. In the 19th century Warsaw was under the Russian partition of Poland and was governed by Tsarist bureaucracy, hence the mayor’s nationality. After Starynkiewicz took office in 1875, he quickly contacted William Lindley, an English engineer specialising in the field of sanitation. By then William Lindley was already a renowned professional, having built systems in a number of European cities including Hamburg, Prague and Budapest. He would often work with his three sons, one of whom was William Heerlein Lindley, an eminent engineer himself. The latter would become a member of the clan most closely associated with the Warsaw Filters.
Portrait of Sokrates Starynkiewicz, President of Wasaw by Adam Badowski, 1895, oil on canvas, photo: National Museum in Warsaw Lindley Sr came to Warsaw in 1876 to conduct a survey and two years later he proposed his waterworks and sewerage design. But when the construction contract was being signed in 1881 it was already his son William Heerlein who was in charge of the family business – Lindley Sr had retired by then.
Text
The municipal contract for the building of waterworks, sewerage and surveys in Warsaw was consistently realised and prolonged for additional work until the outbreak of World War I. The main engineer in charge of the construction for over three decades was William H. Lindley, and his representatives were his two brothers – Robert Searls and Joseph.
Author
From the 2017 article On The 100th Anniversary Of The Death Of William H. Lindley (1853-1917), Creator Of Warsaw’s Water And Sew
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
The construction of Lindley's Filters in Warsaw in the 1890s, photo: Marta Sapała, from the publication For The Common Good: 120 Years Of Warsaw Municipal Waterworks 1886-2006
The building of the waterworks and sewerage was a huge undertaking. It required a detailed survey of the city (the existing maps wouldn’t do the trick), digging up streets, raising new buildings, installing machines… It is estimated that a whopping 2,500 people worked on Lindley’s system in various capacities. Among the Polish engineers and architects involved one could mention Alfons Grotowski, Józef Bandtkie, Józef Słowikowski and Julian Herde.
The construction process was divided into four parts. That way the results of each phase could be observed before the completion of the entire system. Not only did this improve the sanitary situation in the short term, but also helped tackle the arguments of those who opposed the ambitious project seeing it as too expensive, extravagant or even detrimental to health.
Indeed, the investment wasn’t cheap since William Heerlein would permit only the use of top quality materials. But the cost proved to be well worth it:
Text
Each and every single brick used for the buildings at the station was diligently checked and weighed. If it didn’t meet the very strict requirements the whole batch was rejected. The effects are still visible today – these filters (…) have been standing almost without any maintenance and are still functioning superbly. The canals also work very well, the core of the sewer system in the central parts of town is based on the canals built by Lindley toward the end of the 19th century.
Author
From the article Filtry Lindleya w Warszawie: Jedyny Taki Obiekt na Świecie (Lindley’s Filters: The Only Such Facility In The W
The halls of mediaeval castles
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
Inside Lindley's Filters, photo: Franciszek Mazur/AG
In 1886, the first phase of the construction was through and the waterworks opened. Here’s how William Heerlein himself later described the functioning of his system:
Text
In order to supply the city, the Vistula water is taken at Czerniakowska Street situated upstream; two pumping stations, each one equipped with three pumps, serve this purpose; then they convey water to the vaulted sedimentation tanks on high ground in Koszyki. The treated water is gathered in reservoirs there and, using the natural downward gradient, is conveyed to the distribution network in lower parts of the city and the suburb of Praga, while the city parts located on higher ground are supplied by the Koszyki pumping station, also equipped with six pumps, and by the 39-metre high water tower.
Author
From the album 125 Years of Warsaw Municipal Waterworks
This informative quote mentions of a number of Lindley’s Filters’ crucial elements. First you have the source of the water – the Wisła (Vistula) River. Then you have the location of the system’s key installations, ‘on high ground in Koszyki’. The area between today’s Koszykowa, Raszyńska, Filtrowa and Krzywickiego streets which is fairly close to the city’s centre, was undeveloped and big enough to accommodate several large facilities, leaving extra room for future development. Also, it was located higher than the surrounding grounds, allowing for a natural flow of water in the system.
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
Lindley's Filters in Warsaw, photo: Justyna Rojek/East News
William Heerlein also writes about the famous reservoirs, which is quite probably what most Varsovians picture when they hear the expression ‘Lindley’s Filters’. These massive, mostly underground structures are, above ground, beautiful green grass, which makes the whole area look like a great big meadow. The structures include fresh water reservoirs, sedimentation tanks and filters designed so skilfully that they still work today in practically their original form, providing perfectly drinkable water – only one slight alteration was made in the late 1990s.
Text
The filters are called sand or English filters, or due to the speed they operate at slow filters. They take up an area of over 82,000 square metres. The filter media consists of an 80 cm layer of sand, a 40 cm layer of gravel and stones of diameters from 5 to 20 cm. In 1998, a 10 cm layer of active carbon was added. The water level rises about a metre above the filter media. The water soaks through the filter at a speed of approximately 10 cm per hour.
Author
From the website of the Municipal Water Supply and Sewerage Company in Warsaw, operator of Lindley’s Filters
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
The water tower, photo: Franciszek Mazur/AG, The plan of the water tower at Lindley's Filters, 1880, photo: Marta Sapała, from the publication For The Common Good: 120 Years Of Warsaw Municipal Waterworks 1886-2006
Apart from their practical and technological value, the filters also impress with their majestic architecture that’s sometimes compared to the halls of mediaeval castles. Here’s how the interior of one of the filters was described during Polish Radio’s broadcast Magazyn Kulturalny (Cultural Magazine):
Text
[Here we have] characteristic architecture or sail vaults made of clinker brick, resting on capitals of sandstone transferring the weight to granite columns standing in a rather dense, 4 metre by 4 metre grid. The room has is 2400 metres large.
Last but not least, William Heerlein’s quote also mentions the water tower, one of the most eye-catching buildings of the complex. This magnificent example of 19th-century industrial architecture no longer serves its original purpose but still is a major tourist attraction, as it always has been:
Text
For many long years the water tower at the Filter Station was one of the highest buildings in Warsaw and also a tourist attraction that one could visit ‘free of charge after registering with the office of the local engineer’ [as reported by the Kurier Warszawski newspaper in 1887 – ed.]
Author
From the 2017 article On The 100th Anniversary Of The Death Of William H. Lindley (1853-1917), Creator Of Warsaw’s Water And Sew
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
A relief showing William Heerlein Lindley by Andrzej Krawczak on one of the buildings at Lindley's Filters, photo: Jacek Łagowski/AG
When Lindley was finishing his professional involvement with Warsaw due to the outbreak of World War I his waterworks provided over 60% of the city’s buildings with high-quality, fresh water. Together with the new sewerage this solved the problem that initially needed solving: Lindley’s system reduced the death rates by improving the city’s sanitary conditions.
Text
Edward Szenfeld, Lindley’s co-worker and, in later times, the director of the waterworks, wrote at the beginning of the 20th century that ‘if we consider that the overall death rate has fallen over a 30-year period from 33 to 19, then this means that the lives of 14 inhabitants in 1,000 have been saved, then we have got as a result that in a city of 781,000 inhabitants the lives of 10,934 people that have been saved in a year, not counting the suffering and poverty that go hand in hand with practically every illness, even if it does not end in death.
Author
From the album 125 Years of Warsaw Municipal Waterworks
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
The Waterworks and Sewerage Museum in Warsaw, photo: Bartosz Bobkowski/AG
Today’s Warsaw is still grateful to the eminent engineer’s contribution to its development. A number of things testify to that. One of the streets leading to the Filters area is named after him. In the still active station a post-industrial 19th century building houses the Waterworks and Sewerage Museum where you can find plenty of information and exhibits linked to William Heerlein and his work. Lindley’s Filters are open for sightseeing on selected summer Saturdays and apart from the Museum one can also visit the historical water tower, one of the slow filters, as well as a 1930s art deco filter facility containing original, old-school apparatuses. Also, nearby the tower a ‘natural monument’ grows: the Starynkiewicz Yew. This shrub is a state-protected plant named after the initiator of the Filters’ creation (a large square nearby the station is also named after him).
30 thousand litres of water
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
A stone with a metal relief of Lindley designed by Zofia Wendrowska Soboltowa at the pump station in Czerniakowska street, photo: www.audiovis.nac.gov.pl (NAC)
In recent years visiting the station (which was declared a historical monument in 2012) has become a very popular thing – tickets tend to disappear quickly – and, year after year, Filtry remains one of the biggest attractions of Warsaw’s Museum Night. People often stand in line for over 3 hours just to get a glimpse of what is inside the mysterious, monumental brick buildings of the Filters.
One can find commemorations of William Heerlein Lindley in other places in the city. At the pump station in Czerniakowska street, by the Wisła River there’s a stone with a metal relief of Lindley designed by Zofia Wendrowska Soboltowa, an award-winning artist educated at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. It has been standing there since 1936.
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
Statue of William Heerlein Lindley at the Multimedia Fountain Park, photo: Arkadiusz Ziółek/East News
In 2011, another monument devoted to the English engineer was unveiled. The light-hearted sculpture has the form of a bench made of pipes, with William Heerlein standing next to it, turning on a tap attached to one of its arms. The sculpture of Lindley is the work of professor Jan Pastwa of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts whereas the bench was designed by Dr Norbert Sarnecki and Anna Sarnecka, sculptors educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań. The nifty monument is located beneath the Old Town’s escarpment at the Multimedia Fountain Park, a hugely popular complex of four fountains that from May through September hosts shows ‘combining sound, light and water created by up to 30,000 litres of water streaming every minute’. All of this brought to you by William Heerlein Lindley.
Author: Marek Kępa, September 2018
