The inhalatorium at the thermal water gallery is one of the most important points in the cultural history of Badenweiler. The thermal spring, sacred to Celts and Romans alike, was probably dedicated to Diana-Abnoba, the goddess of the Black Forest.
From the point of view of medical history, the pavilion is one of the most remarkable facilities of the spa town in the last century.
As early as 1822, the most important architect of the Grand Duchy of Baden, Friedrich Weinbrenner, had planned the construction of a classicist spring temple with arcades and colonnades at the birthplace of the spa. However, the complex, which was to crown the centre of the town at the time, was not realised. Only with the construction of the neo-baroque "Radium Emanatorium" in 1912/13 did this place receive the recognition it deserved.
The octagonal pavilion, which numerically and mythologically refers to the new beginning of life, stands about three metres above street level and can be reached via a wide, elegant water staircase, which was built after a total renovation completed in 2016. The building has stylish mullioned windows, a curved baroque roof bonnet, an ornate portal with a cartouche topped by gilded volutes with acanthus leaves and a bearded head, probably representing an ancient water deity. Since 1921, the pediment bears the inscription "Inhalatorium".
The original conception of its use as a "radium emanatorium" represents an almost forgotten myth of balneological medical technology of the early 20th century.
As late as 1916, the "Handbuch der Balneologie" (Handbook of Balneology) named carbonic acid and radium in thermal water as the "two most important and disturbing research results" for thermal baths, with radium, discovered 18 years earlier, being recognised as a "new healing factor in the springs". Now it was believed that the mythical "spring spirit", as the misunderstood natural power of thermal springs had been called since the Middle Ages, had been deciphered. The Grand Duchy of Baden endeavoured to equip its unofficial summer residence Badenweiler with the most modern medical treatment methods.
The culmination of this development was the "Radium Emanatorium", on the opening of which the spa newspaper wrote in 1913:
"Thus our health resort also comes to enjoy the quantity of radium effective in the old-famous thermal water, this most wonderful of all earth substances, which was discovered only a few years ago and which today has already attained tremendous importance and promises still undreamed-of possibilities for the future."
For healing purposes, radium was concentrated in water and sprayed with great technical effort. Only in the vague knowledge of the cell-damaging effect of radium did a veritable myth develop at that time about its hidden healing powers, which were supposed to serve for the comprehensive stimulation of the body organs, for the healing of rheumatism, neuralgic complaints, insomnia and general weakness. Physically effective, however, was not the element radium, but its decay product, the gas radon, which has a high-energy alpha radiation and has a cell-damaging effect.
When the plant was put back into operation after the First World War in 1921, the euphoria had faded and it was converted into an "inhalatorium" where thermal water mist was inhaled to cure respiratory diseases. After the Second World War, the facility was renovated several times but became architecturally disfigured in the process. In 1999, the inhalatorium was closed. The plan developed in 2007 to set up a thermal water museum in the building for the spa failed. In 2013, thanks to a generous donation from the Badenweiler citizen Irmfried Brendel, the comprehensive renovation and redesign by the architectural firm Dreiseitl (Stuttgart) could begin.
The Inhalatorium was reopened on 13 January 2016. The exterior façade was restored true to the original, and inside a large fountain bowl with pulsating thermal water now invites visitors to meditative hours and taps of drinking water. Two display boards also provide information about the significance and construction history of the facility.
