Public lavatory on the Graben
The public convenience on digging in the 1st district of Vienna Inner City is the first underground built Bedürfnisanstalt the city and is under monument protection ( list entry ). It is the last remaining public Art Nouveau toilet in Vienna.
history
A contract concluded between Wilhelm Beetz and the City of Vienna enabled him to set up and operate public lavatories in Vienna, but protests by the population prevented them from being set up within the Ringstrasse . From several proposed locations ( Stephansplatz , Graben , Hoher Markt , Neuer Markt , Freyung ) it was only possible to build a public lavatory in 1897 against the resistance of the Schottenstift , the local police commissioner and other house owners, also supported by the press .
Despite the large number of passers-by on Stephansplatz, the Vienna City Council on November 26, 1901, after a heated discussion, approved the construction of an underground lavatory there, but it was not implemented due to objections from the church authorities.
The place in front of house number 22 on Graben near Kohlmarkt , where construction work began in 1904 , was finally found as an alternative location with a sufficiently large respectful distance from the cathedral . For this purpose the Josefsbrunnen first had to be dismantled and later put back up again. On March 14, 1905, the sanitary facility was put into operation.
On February 7, 1984, the responsible municipal council committee for the environment and citizen service decided, at the request of the responsible MA 48 and the Old Town Maintenance Fund, to renovate the blocked public lavatory, which, in the opinion of the City of Vienna's Department of Culture, had been classified as worthy of artistic and cultural history. On this occasion, the Josefsbrunnen located above was also renovated. The renovation work was carried out in 1987 or 1988.
layout
According to the archives of the building company Beetz, construction of the public lavatory according to Franz Krasny's plans began. The Dehio and the contemporary architect Friedrich Achleitner name Viktor Luntz as the architect, but the Architekturzentrum Wien contradicts this statement . According to this, he only planned the unrealized toilet facility on Stephansplatz. Other sources bring Adolf Loos into play.
The dimensions of the subterranean structure with secessionist shapes, which can be reached via two staircases separated by sex, are 14.5 × 7.7 meters with a height of 3 meters. Two gas lanterns with corresponding labels, which also served for ventilation, draw attention to the location.
A small lounge is provided in the center of the facility for the waiting woman. Around this are grouped six toilet cubicles and an additional 12 piss stalls for the men. Exclusive materials were used: the partition walls and sliding doors were made of oak and the toilet seats were made of teak , as well as fittings made of brass and polished glass panes. There were even two aquariums in the women's toilet.
Due to the necessary excavation work, the construction of this institution was much more complex than the construction of the previous toilet facilities and the facility went beyond the usual. The City of Vienna therefore made a grant of 32,000 crowns to the roughly 72,000 crowns that the construction cost. The community contributed 1,800 crowns a year to the maintenance costs of the urinal, which was free to use. For this she secured the takeover right after 25 years.
During the warm season, the bars around the stairs were decorated with flowers to make the entrances to the public facilities as inconspicuous as possible.
Theatrical location
In 1989 the one-act play "Dreckige G'schichten" by Andreas Ceska (based on texts by Charles Bukowski ) was premiered here, from April to the end of June 1999 it was performed again.
literature
- Vienna at the beginning of the XX. Century - A guide in the technical and artistic direction , published by the Austrian Association of Architects, Verlag von Gerlach & Wiedling, Vienna, 1905
- Journal of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects , Vienna, 1905
- Technical guide through Vienna , published by the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects, edited by Ing. Martin Paul (urban planning inspector), Vienna, published by Gerlach & Wiedling, 1910
- Felix Czeike: Der Graben with 17 art print images and 5 text images, Zsolnay-Verlag, Vienna, 1972
- DEHIO Vienna - I. District Inner City . Berger, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85028-366-6
- Alexander Glück: Vienna Underworlds . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle a. S. 2012, ISBN 978-3-89812-856-8 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Felix Czeike: The ditch
- ↑ Vienna City Hall Correspondence of February 7, 1984, sheet 284
- ↑ a b Unter Wien
- ↑ Dehio
- ^ Peter Payer, Indispensable props of the big city, ISBN 3-85409-323-3
- ↑ architektenlexikon.at: Viktor Luntz
- ↑ haben.at: Wilhelm Beetz and the public toilets of Vienna
- ↑ Der Standard (ifs.tuwien.ac.at): Theater Wien DRECKIGE G'SCHICHTEN ( Memento of the original from March 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , April 29, 1999
Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 32.8 " N , 16 ° 22 ′ 8.9" E