Square courtyard
The Vierkanthof , also known as Vierkanter (Austria), is a type of farmhouse and estate in Austria and Germany. In Upper and Lower Austria , it is particularly widespread as an estate in the urban quadrangle Linz - Wels - Steyr - Amstetten , in Germany especially in Bavaria . In areas with particularly high agricultural yields, such as the Magdeburger Börde, there are many ordinary farms in the local area, Vierkanthöfe.
Design and system
It can be a single building of uniform material and height, which rectangularly encloses an inner courtyard, or four separate buildings, often of different heights and different materials. It is similar to the four-sided courtyards found in other areas of Germany and Austria, but are explicitly designed as a single structure.
At Austrian and East Bavarian square courtyards, the roof ridge is the same on all four sides. Usually the building has two floors, more rarely only one. Especially in the eastern Traunviertel of Upper Austria and in the Mostviertel in the southwest of Lower Austria, the square can reach a circumference of up to 200 meters.
The building materials used include both stones ( sandstone , limestone or granite, depending on the area ) and baked bricks .
Until the middle of the 19th century, square courtyards in the stone-poor areas were built only from adobe bricks . Later, when Italian guest workers came to the country to build the Western Railway , they also learned about the brick kiln , for which the clay soils of the Alpine foothills were particularly suitable. Opus Romanum is, after the Italians also that design in which each red brick flock with stone and coarse mortar layers alternate, and impregnate the outer walls of the Vierkanter with symbolic patterns. Originally, these facades were not plastered - as a sign of wealth, to afford the expensive fire bricks. Especially in the western part of the Mostviertel, in the area around St. Valentin and Haag , on the border with Upper Austria and beyond, there are still unplastered homesteads made of bricks with whitewashed bottles , the borders of windows and doors. In the direction of the granite and gneiss highlands , the permanent granite stone is also often shown in a representative manner, instead of protecting it from the weather with plaster.
The particularly thick walls of at least half a meter - in exceptional cases up to one meter - offer the advantage of the high storage mass. They offer a pleasantly cool climate on hot summer days and excellent thermal insulation in winter.
The Most- or Traunviertler Vierkanthof is one of the most classic of all functional alpine buildings thanks to its size and its lack of decoration. As clear as it is in terms of its outline, however, in its large lines, it is as much in love with details in part, especially in the fanning out of the facade . Historicist and classicist elements flow into the design as well as baroque elements and art nouveau ornamentation . The builders of the homesteads also took great care in decorating the doors and gates.
Gate of a square with a sun symbol
Gate of a square
Gate of a square with diamonds and diamonds
Historical development
There are several theories about the origin of the square in the Upper Austrian-Lower Austrian Alpine foothills. Most often it is assumed that medieval castle floor plans and building plans for renaissance castles were recreated at the time of the Turkish invasions for reasons of fortification. The second theory argues that the late medieval natural economy led to the mechanization of certain processes that required an adequate structural structure. The third theory, as the theory of evolution, says that the square is a structure that developed organically from the medieval group and heap yard . It is no coincidence that in many respects quadrangles resemble both merged village units and monastery buildings in which the need arose to bring together the most diverse forms of life and work under one roof. A certain - even if only indirect - relationship with the Roman villa rustica seems plausible. It is largely certain that there was continuity of settlement in the area around Lauricum / Lorch during the migration period. In any case, in the Austrian foothills of the Alps in the old Bavarian heartland (Innviertel, Hausruckviertel) the Vierseithof - open at the corners of the courtyard - predominates, the southeastern boundary of the square to the alpine Paarhof (Zwiehof) corresponds roughly to the boundary of the earliest Bavarian settlement names (distribution around the -ham - Places) to the Slavic settlement area, which was only assimilated in the following centuries, and also emerges in the corridor forms .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Here old ruins from the 5th century could also have been taken up again with the Bavarian conquest of the 8th century. The earliest foundations of monasteries in the area ( e.g. Kremsmünster 777) show the defensive, closed form from the beginning.
- ^ Franz Pfeffer: The county in the mountains. On the history of the Upper Austrian Alpine region in the early Middle Ages. In: Yearbook of the Upper Austrian Museum Association. 101, section 1, Traungau and Ulsburggau , p. 175, whole article p. 175–219, PDF, there p. 1 on ZOBODAT Refers to Rudolf Heckl: The house with the “smoke”. Inner-European farming and house building cultures as reflected in the Mondsee smoke house. In: Upper Austrian homeland sheets . Year 7, Linz 1953, p. 282, entire article p. 269–312, online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at.
- ^ Pepper: The county in the mountains. S. 175, refers to Adalbert Klaar: Siedlungsformenkarte. 1942.