Czartoryski Castle

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The Czartoryski Castle, garden side (painting, 1927)

The Czartoryski-Schlössel was a palace in the 18th district of Vienna , Währing , Währinger Straße 175-181, from the early 19th century. The castle was named after the Polish prince Czartoryski , who owned it until it was sold to the City of Vienna in 1912. In 1957 the building was demolished.

history

Das Schlössel, street side, after the renovation, engraving around 1810
The castle chapel was used as a church by the Weinhausers until 1893.
Main wing and courtyard of the Czartoryski Castle
The side wings, photo 1918
Middle part of the garden front

Villa Schwab

The villa of the court jeweler Josef Friedrich Schwab († 1780) had stood on the site since 1748. His granddaughter Theresia Schwab married the banker Jakob Friedrich van der Nüll (whose youngest son was the architect Eduard van der Nüll ) in 1802 . He took over the property in 1807 and had the villa converted to house his collections. An engraving from around 1810 shows the castle in this state of construction.

After van der Nüll's death in 1823, the British ambassador to Austria, Sir Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley (younger brother of the victor of Waterloo Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington ) bought the house in 1824 and expanded and beautified the palace. After he left Vienna in 1831, he sold the property in 1832/1834 to Prince Konstantin Adam Czartoryski (1774–1860).

Czartoryski Castle

Prince Czartoryski was considered a great art collector and "patron of music". He had his collections set up here and released his treasures, especially pictures and miniatures, for public visits. The building with large parks soon to be called the “Czartoryski-Schlössel” by the Viennese housed the princes' valuable art treasures and a picture gallery. As the “Temple of the Muses”, the palace was a meeting place for the aristocracy. Famous musicians of the time such as Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt performed at house concerts . The prince had his own theater in the castle, where works of German and French classics were performed, these in the original language.

The prince bequeathed his love for art to his two sons. The two worked as theater and music critics and as members of the board of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde , where they played an active part in the construction of the Vienna Musikverein building on Karlsplatz. There is also a memorial plaque there. The Czartoryski-Schlössel, however , was hardly maintained by the son Georg (1828–1912), who inherited it.

In the years 1896/97 some of the collections were moved to the family seat, Jaroslau Castle in Galicia . The lavishly decorated inlaid floors as well as the door and window frames were removed in 1912 before the property was sold to the City of Vienna. In the First World War , Jaroslau Castle was located directly on the Eastern Front and suffered severe war damage during Russian attacks. The interior of the Czartoryski family seat in the castle was burned.

People's home, air raid barracks, school

After the sale to the city, the plan existed to subdivide the area, but could not be realized due to the war. After 1918, a people's home was opened under the now social-democratic city administration in 1923 after the property had been renovated by social democrats in Währingen in unpaid work. The premises were adapted for this purpose, the former palace chapel was converted into a ballroom and used for cultural events. The municipality of Vienna rented the remaining rooms to the SDAPÖ district organization.

In 1934 the castle was confiscated by the state federal government. During the Second World War it served as an air raid barracks. In 1945 the building suffered two fires, and the KPÖ temporarily rented it. The Währinger SPÖ got the building back as a tenant in 1951 and was able to repopulate it in 1953. From 1950 to 1955 the Schlössel was used as a theater space, among others by the “Gersthofer Brettl” cabaret.

As the renovation of the building was no longer an option for economic reasons, the Czartoryski Castle was demolished in 1957 and an elementary and special school for physically handicapped children was built on the site by 1959. It was named in 1989 after Hans Radl , who initiated the first day care center for physically handicapped children in 1926.

architecture

The castle had been designed in the Empire style since the renovation around 1810 . It was structured in a horseshoe shape and had two to three storeys. The middle wing was set back from Währinger Straße and with the two side wings formed a courtyard of honor . This was separated from the street by an iron grille. On the garden side of the palace, which was adorned by a gable-topped portico with Doric columns and reliefs, an English landscape garden began, which stretched up the hill to Kreuzgasse.

After the Czartoryski family moved out, the library ceiling with mythological representations and the stucco ceiling in the former picture gallery remained from the former furnishings . A theater hall was later set up in the picture gallery and the chapel was converted into a ballroom.

swell

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Meyers Konversations-Lexikon , 5th edition, 4th volume, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna 1895, p. 458

Web links

Commons : Czartoryski locks  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 13 ′ 44 ″  N , 16 ° 19 ′ 51 ″  E