Tröckneturm (Drying Tower)
The Tröckneturm illustrates a chapter of industrial history between the collapse of canvas production in the end of the 18th Century and the boom of the embroidery industry in the end of the 19th.
History:
The history of the Tröchneturm is closely intertwined with the Burg Waldegg (Waldegg Castle), on whose lands the large site with the castle’s ponds all the way down to Schönenwegen lay.
The grand estate, owned for almost 300 years by the monastery of St.Gallen, had fallen to the Canton after the Helvetic revolution. In 1825, St.Gallen entrepreneur Johann Jakob Täschler (1786-1830) bought the site and built a factory extension onto the castle, in which he ran a red dyeing house – highly fashionable at the time. It was he, too, who built a drying tower – a “Tröckneturm” – by the so-called ”Alter Weiher” (Old Pond) in 1828. The construction was well thought-through, with a heatable interior so that the fabric panels could be hung and dried either inside or outside, depending on the weather.
Present-day use:
Thanks to the new ownership of the Sittertal site, which the pond area also belonged to, the Tröckneturm was passed on to a foundation in 1997, which renovated this unique piece of textile history for use as a meeting place, complemented by a museum with a permanent exhibition on “Economic and social history of the City of St.Gallen”, “The sitter landscape as an economic landscape” and “The history of the St.Gallen textile industry”. The tower can also be rented for social events.
The history of the Tröchneturm is closely intertwined with the Burg Waldegg (Waldegg Castle), on whose lands the large site with the castle’s ponds all the way down to Schönenwegen lay.
The grand estate, owned for almost 300 years by the monastery of St.Gallen, had fallen to the Canton after the Helvetic revolution. In 1825, St.Gallen entrepreneur Johann Jakob Täschler (1786-1830) bought the site and built a factory extension onto the castle, in which he ran a red dyeing house – highly fashionable at the time. It was he, too, who built a drying tower – a “Tröckneturm” – by the so-called ”Alter Weiher” (Old Pond) in 1828. The construction was well thought-through, with a heatable interior so that the fabric panels could be hung and dried either inside or outside, depending on the weather.
Present-day use:
Thanks to the new ownership of the Sittertal site, which the pond area also belonged to, the Tröckneturm was passed on to a foundation in 1997, which renovated this unique piece of textile history for use as a meeting place, complemented by a museum with a permanent exhibition on “Economic and social history of the City of St.Gallen”, “The sitter landscape as an economic landscape” and “The history of the St.Gallen textile industry”. The tower can also be rented for social events.