View of Szczecin at Kłodny Bridge

Works of artists active in Szczecin in the second half of the 19th century documented changes occurring in the buildings along the riverside, including bridge crossings. One of them was the Kłodny Bridge (Baumbrücke) connecting the left-bank Szczecin with the river island Łasztownia (Lastadie), built at the turn of the 15th/16th century. In 1731, it was rebuilt as a drawbridge, and the last general renovation modernising the drawbridge span was carried out in 1873. Between 1907 and 1909, a new, 121-metre-long steel bridge (Neue Baumbrücke) was built to replace the wooden one. The architectural design was made by the Szczecin building councillor Wilhelm Meyer-Schwartau (1854-1935). In the following years, a tramway line and an electric traction were laid across the bridge. After the war destruction, it was never rebuilt. A watercolour woodcut with a view of Szczecin from Łasztownia in front of the wooden Kłodny Bridge by Adolf Georg Closs (1840-1894) and Hans Bartels (1856¬-1913) was published in 1881. A. Closs came from Stuttgart and associated his whole life with this city. He was a wood engraver and was considered one of the best German reproduction printmakers. In Stuttgart, he ran the Xylographische Institut, which produced illustrations for geographical publications. These illustrations were created according to the compositions of, among others, H. Bartels. The Hamburg-born son of a Russian civil servant studied painting in Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Berlin and specialised in maritime motifs and scenes from fishermen’s lives. He was one of the leading German painters of watercolours. In 1891, he was appointed professor of painting. A woodcut with the Kłodno Bridge was included in the publication Küstenfahrten an der Nord- und Ostsee written by the German novelist Edmund Hoefer (1819-1882).

Małgorzata Peszko