Lauch­ham­mer Bio-Tow­ers

The Lauch­ham­mer bio-tow­ers are a fas­ci­nat­ing land­mark with many faces. The tow­ers are the remains of what was once a huge cok­ing plant - the first of its kind in the world. They were only built in the 1950s for the bio­log­i­cal purifi­ca­tion of the process waste­water pro­duced dur­ing coke pro­duc­tion. The large cok­ing plant was shut down in 1991 and demol­ished in 1994. In 2002, the bio-tow­ers went out of oper­a­tion. Saved from demo­li­tion and ren­o­vated, his­tory and sto­ries from the energy indus­try of Lower Lusa­tia are pre­sented here. Lig­nite was processed into high-tem­per­a­ture coke, which could be used to smelt iron. Today, the unique ensem­ble with its strik­ing aes­thet­ics also serves as an exhi­bi­tion venue and some­times as an event loca­tion. Together with a guide from the Tra­di­tionsverein Lauch­ham­mer, you can climb one of the tow­ers and look out over the area of the for­mer large cok­ing plant from the glassed-in view­ing plat­forms.

Tip: You can lis­ten to an audio guide about the Lauch­ham­mer bio-tow­ers both on site and from home. It can be accessed on a smart­phone with the free Hearony­mus app. In six chap­ters, a con­tem­po­rary wit­ness explains how the cok­ing plant was built and how it func­tioned.