Eber’s Water Towers – Belgium

The leading trade journal in Sweden, VA-tidskriften Cirkulation has since 1998 an article series under the heading Ebers vattentorn (Eber’s water towers), where Eber Ohlsson with text and photo presents interesting water towers in the world (except Scania and Sweden). Below is a free translation to English of these texts.


Eber’s water towers in Cirkulation 4/2022

A free translation to English:

Today, the water tower is often retrofitted with masts for ether communication, not least for mobile traffic, which has devastating effects on the water tower’s appearance. A tower, however, initially planned for both functions is in the Flemish city of Mechelen, a town halfway between Antwerp and Brussels.

The construction consists of a 120 m high cone-shaped hollow shaft in reinforced concrete, at the base 9.2 m wide and higher up 3.4 m. At the top there is a 20 m high mast in stainless steel. The reservoir, built on the ground, has a diameter of 40 m and accommodates 2,500 m3. Professor Fernand Mortelmans has designed the tower.

Published 2022-06-08


Eber’s water towers in Cirkulation 6/2019

A free translation to English:

In a small stretch of woodland at Berendrecht, one kilometer east of the Scheldt River and north of Antwerp in Belgium and only a few meters from the border with the Netherlands, stood between 1968 and 2003, a modern spherical shaped water tower in concrete. It was 34 meters high and 20 meters in overall width of the reservoir.

The water tower was blown up in 2003 and this because the concrete in the tower had serious injuries caused by carbonation, which can occur when carbon dioxide from the air reacts with the calcium hydroxide in the hardened concrete, which lowers the pH and can get reinforcement to corrode. Everything does not last forever.

Published 2019-10-02


Eber’s water towers in Cirkulation 3/2016

A free translation to English:

When it at home were introduced restrictions on water towers, such that they do not even get photographed, thoughts go easily to the old conclusion that if you get a security officer you also get problems with the security. It is then pleasing that in other countries it is still possible to visit these verticals.

Something you can do in the water tower in Bredene in Flanders in Belgium. The 50 m high tower from 1956 holds 800 m³ and with horizontal bands marks in the settlement. During the tourist season one can pay to get up the tower and get a view over the town, the nearby Oostende and the North Sea.

Published 2016-04-27


Eber’s water towers in Cirkulation 4/2015

The Swedish word ”Ranka” can be translated to ”Rocker”, it means to sit and ride on someone’s lap.

A free translation to English:

”Ride, ride Ranka – the horse is named Blanka” begins a popular nursery rhyme in the Nordic countries. How coming a water tower in this context? Well, in the Belgian city of Namur most prosperous area and high above the Walloon town stands a water tower from 1913, with a water reservoir of 110 m³. The street closest to the tower is called ’Avenue Blanche de Namur’, and Blanche will translated to Swedish be Blanka.

Blanka in the nursery rhyme is 1300’s king Magnus Eriksson’s queen, who just came from Namur. The person that rode rocker was her son Håkan, who later became king of Norway. See what the clutch to a water tower, with views of the rivers Meuse and Sambre, can provide.

Published 2015-06-10


Eber’s water towers in Cirkulation 5/2007

A free translation to English:

The new water tower in Tienen, a town in the Flemish part of Belgium, has been build with the ambition to be an open construction in the landscape and not disturb or blockade the sight. For even if water is transparent, so is concrete not.

Architect Ortwin Deroo has drawn the 46 meter high white water tower, there one from the outlook platform on the top, get a good view over the surrounding. The halfway up located footbridge has got a dark grey colour in order to strengthen its function. The tower, that was finished 2001, is built in reinforced concrete and have room for two reservoirs, each on 500 m³.

Published 2007-08-29


Eber’s water towers in Cirkulation 5/2006

The Swedish word ”tankar” can mean both tanks and thoughts.

A free translation to English:

Some tanks/thoughts are global. It seems even to be valid for water-tanks/water-thoughts. When there are many spherical steel water towers in the world, the thought to paint the tank as a globe must spontaneous turn up at some persons, on more than one place on the globe. The Scanian place Bjärnum is one example; another is Bierbeek in the Belgian Flanders.

The 29 meter high water tower at Bierbeek, with a reservoir on 500 cubic meters, stood clear 1969. The year 1993 get it the global painting, which done the tower so well-known and popular, that it now has been the municipalities logo. A worth considering thought is that the tank till circa 70 percent is blue-painted, that part of the globe that is water.

Published 2006-08-23