What is a graduation tower?
A graduation tower is a high wooden wall, densely packed with blackthorn brushwood, over which brine trickles. As the salt water runs over the twigs, part of it evaporates — the air immediately at the wall is thereby finely enriched with salt particles, similar to the surf air at the sea. Whoever stands in front of it and breathes is inhaling: the graduation tower is an open-air inhalatorium.
From industrial monument to cure architecture
Originally graduation towers were pure industrial plants for salt production: “graduating” — concentrating the brine step by step through evaporation — saved firewood in the boiling that followed. When the saltworks towns turned to the cure in the 19th century, the side effect was discovered: the salty air at the walls did the airways good. Production plants became spa-park monuments — many brine spas maintain their graduation towers to this day as walkable landmarks.
Effect and application
The salty, slightly moist air moistens the mucous membranes and is classically used as an accompaniment for airway concerns — from an irritated voice to chronic bronchitis; allergy sufferers, too, value the almost pollen-free layer of air right at the wall. The application could not be simpler: sit down or walk up and down, breathe calmly through the nose, stay 20 to 30 minutes. No appointment, no preparation — the lowest-threshold inhalation that cure medicine knows.
Graduation towers in the hotel spa
Hotel spas have long been building graduation towers in miniature format too — as a brine trickle wall in the sauna area or as a separate inhalation element of the rest zone. The LindenSpa of the Weimarer Land, for instance, runs a graduation tower of its own alongside a salt sauna and a lime-blossom bath. Whoever seeks the large form finds it in the spa parks of the brine spas — impressive wooden architecture included.
