Maschsee

The Maschsee is an artificial lake situated south of the city centre of Hanover in Germany. Spanning an area of 78 hectares, it is the largest body of water within the capital of Lower Saxony. The lake is a popular recreation area as well as a venue for numerous water sports.NameThe name of the lake stems from the so-called “Leinemasch“, or simply ”Masch“, meaning swamp. This is the historical description for the area in which the lake was built, that was in a deep-lying floodplain of the River Leine.ConstructionDesignIt was first considered to create a lake in the wide river valley of the River Leine near Hanover during the late 19th century. This tied in with the by-then necessary dyking of the River Leine and the River Ihme, which would regularly flood the city after snow melted in the Harz Mountains in spring. The creation of a lake could reduce the threat of high water levels and put the Leine’s river valley area to better use.In the course of the decades there were further, very different designs: Small solutions and larger ones, which envisaged the Schützenplatz (shooting range) as an island in the lake. In September 1925 the newly elected city mayor Arthur Menge commissioned Otto Franzius, a water engineer and professor at the Hanover Technical College (now University of Hanover), to work out the details of the construction of a lake together with the city’s building authorities. Franzius was to be responsible for the designing of the hydro-engineering and hydrological elements of the project, while the city authorities, led by Karl Elkart, would handle the urban development aspects.