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Over the years that I've been making videos.
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I've visited quite a few strange elevators and lifts.
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And every time I do, I get emails from people in Germany saying,
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what about the one in the new town hall in Hannover?
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Um, look, I don't want to become that weird elevator guy, but uh, I finally made it.
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This new town hall is the only one in whole Germany with a dome.
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That's the first specialty.
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And another one is of course our curved elevator, that's the only one in the world.
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The elevator was opened 1913.
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At the same time as this building was finished.
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They didn't want to change the design of this building, otherwise they had to install this elevator just in the middle of the main hall.
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So they found one spot on this building, one small tower and the elevator follows the form of the cupola.
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It starts in the third floor of this building, 42 meters high, 8.3 meters sideways.
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This elevator technique was developed during the construction of this building.
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Elevators were already fairly common in high buildings by the time this was constructed, but this elevator has a unique design requirement.
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It means to travel up the side of a dome.
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The whole elevator shaft is curved.
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It's not a diagonal straight line like the Eiffel Tower lifts.
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The track bends as it goes up about 17 degrees.
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And it doesn't bend evenly, it's not a smooth curve, the path the elevator takes is irregular and lumpy.
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That would be a design challenge today, let alone a century ago.
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The new elevator was built by the company Lutz from Hamburg.
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You cannot use this elevator the whole year.
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Because in the winter there it's very slippery there on the dome.
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So each spring there are many Hannover people who really cannot wait to see again Hannover from above.
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The various parts and mechanisms of the original lift were replaced over the years.
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And in 2007, what was left was ripped out.
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A few months later,
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this brand new elevator
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was completed.
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And it only just fits, at points there's only 5 millimeters of clearance between the cabin and the wall.
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At other places there's lots more.
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Apparently, during testing and construction, it did bump and scrape the walls sometimes.
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Like I said, the path is lumpy.
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And also, the floor panels of this new lift, they can be transparent.
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Obvious question, how do they keep the cabin vertical as it goes up?
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I assume this would have some kind of clever self-leveling mechanism like a funicular railway or the tram at Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
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Or maybe a floor with hydraulics in it.
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So it would stay level as the cabin moved around it.
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But no, the solution is simple, they don't keep the floor level.
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The whole cabin is just dragged up the side as one.
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I I can't lean on these doors, but I want to.
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I want to lean on this pole.
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We started out on the ground at a slight angle, passed through vertical about halfway up, and we ended up leaning a little bit the other way.
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Because a floor with a tilt of a few degrees isn't really a big problem for a short journey.
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So there you go.
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Germany, you can stop emailing me.
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I have finally taken a trip on your elevator.
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Woo!
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Woo!
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For a video about an elevator ride, that was a lot of steps.
