Old University (Vienna)
The Old University in Vienna is a spacious, heterogeneous building complex in the inner city , the 1st district of Vienna , which for the most part dates from the 17th and 18th centuries. It was built between 1624 and 1650 on the site of the 14th century Herzogskolleg and housed the University of Vienna and the observatory until the second half of the 19th century . Today the Austrian Academy of Sciences is housed here.
history
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Twenty years after its foundation, in 1385, the University of Vienna moved into its first own building, that of Duke Albrecht III. Donated Collegium ducale ( Herzogskolleg ) opposite the Dominican monastery in today's Postgasse. The area within the Stubentor developed into the university quarter , further university buildings and bursa were added.
In the 16th century, as a result of the first siege of the Turks and other causes, the University of Vienna fell into disrepair. In 1623 Emperor Ferdinand II commissioned the Jesuits with the reorganization. The University of Vienna was merged with the Jesuit College, founded in 1551, and the Jesuits took over the chairs of the humanistic, philosophical and theological disciplines. In 1624 the foundation stone was laid for the new university buildings, which were erected in the old university quarter.
Most of the buildings were erected in the 17th century; in 1756, under Empress Maria Theresa, the New Aula was opened as the new main university building. In 1733 the Jesuits founded an observatory, the first permanent observatory in Vienna. The old university observatory was in operation here from 1753 to 1882 . In 1773 the Jesuit order was abolished by Emperor Joseph II and the university was nationalized.
In the course of the March Revolution in 1848, the New Aula was the starting point for the revolutionary student movement; after the suppression of the revolution, the university district was occupied by the military. As a result, the academic operations migrated more and more, the buildings were used for other purposes: In 1857 the Academy of Sciences , founded ten years earlier, moved into the New Aula, the university church and the Jesuit college were returned to the Jesuits. In 1884 the University of Vienna moved into the new main building on the Ring and finally left the Old University.
The individual buildings
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Jesuit Church (University Church)
The Jesuit Church, also called the University Church, was built by an unknown builder, probably Giovanni Battista Carlone , between 1624 and 1631. It was consecrated to the Jesuit saints Ignatius von Loyola and Franz Xavier .
The simple early baroque church was substantially redesigned in 1703 by the painter and sculptor Andrea Pozzo at the behest of Emperor Leopold I. The facade was extended by two towers and received its current appearance. Pozzo also designed the magnificent interior of the church; best known are the ceiling frescoes in trompe l'oeil technique, which simulate a dome.
Jesuit college with Jesuit observatory
The Jesuit College is a spacious, rectangular four-storey building with a large inner courtyard, which connects to the Jesuit Church to the east. The simple early baroque facade is structured by stone-framed windows with stone window sills.
On the eastern side facing Postgasse there are additions to the left and right: the observatory wing on the left , the library wing on the right .
The Jesuits had set up the Museum mathematicum as early as 1714 , with optical, astronomical, geodetic, geometric equipment and a collection of earth and celestial globes. The Jesuit observatory at the corner of Bäckerstraße / Postgasse was a 45 m high, double tower. It had an open and a covered platform above. The upper floors of this eight-story tower were demolished in the 19th century.
The baroque library wing originally housed the library of the Jesuit college. In the 19th century the library wing received its classical facade. The archive of the University of Vienna has been housed there since 1980 .
Stöckl building
The Stöckl building is a former baroque farm building that was largely redesigned in the 19th century. It is an elongated, two-story building in Postgasse, which is directly in front of the Jesuit wing.
Old assembly hall
The old auditorium is located opposite the observatory wing of the Jesuit college in Bäckerstraße between Postgasse and Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz (formerly Universitätsplatz); The old auditorium and the Jesuit college are connected by two candle arches . The old auditorium was built at the same time as the Jesuit college from 1624 and was primarily used for representational purposes.
New auditorium with university observatory
The Neue Aula is an elongated, rectangular, baroque-classicist monumental building between Bäckerstraße and Sonnenfelsgasse with a magnificent facade facing Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz. Sometimes the term “old university” only refers to the new auditorium. It was built in 1753–55 by Jean Nicolas Jadot de Ville-Issey . There is a “Boy with a Dolphin” fountain on each of the two corner projections .
The university observatory was placed on top of the building. It was originally built in 1753 as a four-story, narrow wooden structure across the main axis. In 1825 the entire observatory was rebuilt, a large observation room was set up, and two towers with movable domed roofs were erected at the western corners of the room, and a third tower was added in 1833. The observatory was in operation until 1882 and then moved to the Währinger Türkenschanze. Today only remnants of the structure can be seen.
Domus Universitatis
The former pedellan's house is located in Sonnenfelsgasse immediately to the left of the Jesuit Church, only separated from it by the narrow Jesuitengasse and connected with a Schwibbogen. The early baroque house was built in 1628 and housed various administrative facilities of the University of Vienna. Memorial plaques on the facade remember Ulrich Zwingli and Konrad Grebel , who studied at the University of Vienna (1498/99 and 1500 and 1515 to 1518), as well as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , who made the first proposal for an Academy of Sciences in Vienna .
literature
- Dehio Vienna. I. District - Inner City . Edited by Günther Buchinger, Gerd Pichler, Sibylle Grün, Ulrike Knall-Brskovsky, Dagmar Redl, Judith Schöbel, Eckart Vancsa, Margareta Vyoral-Tschapka. Contributions by Christa Farka, Martha Fingernagel, Norbert Gauss, Géza Hajós, Elisabeth Oberhaidacher. Berger Verlag, Horn / Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85028-366-6 , pp. 282-290
Web links
- About the Jesuit Church on the side of the Jesuits in Vienna 1
- Overview of the history of the University of Vienna
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The Jesuit observatory. In: Maria G. Firneis, Hermann Haupt, Peter Holl: Observatories in Austria. On the Austrian Academy of Sciences: austriaca.at, 2005 ff.
- ↑ a b The "old" university observatory. In: Observatories in Austria. austriaca.at.
- ↑ See also the Jesuit observatory at the Old University and the Academic College. geschichte.univie.ac.at - this picture, with a simple magnifying glass viewer.
Coordinates: 48 ° 12 '32.2 " N , 16 ° 22' 39.5" E