Czermak's spectatorium
Czermaks Spektatorium was a research and teaching facility that existed from 1872 to 1900 and was built by the Austrian physiologist Johann Nepomuk Czermak in his garden in eastern Leipzig . The spectatorium, later moved to another location, existed for a total of twenty-eight years.
history
In 1869 Johann Nepomuk Czermak became a full honorary professor for physiology at the Medical Faculty of the University of Leipzig . His aim was to design lectures not only for listening, but also to visually demonstrate objects. Since the University of Leipzig could not provide him with a suitable lecture hall, he decided to build one at his own expense.
After studying appropriate facilities in England, he had the Leipzig architect Gustav Müller build a laboratory and lecture hall building on a site acquired for this purpose in the east suburb of Leipzig between 1870 and 1872, which he, in contrast to the auditorium (for listening) Called spectatorium (to look at). The construction costs amounted to 65,700 marks . A garden was laid out on the rest of the property.
In December 1872, Czermak began his demonstration lectures, which were open “to students of all faculties and educated people of all classes, as well as to the female audience”. Particularly impressive was the demonstration of the pumping movement of a dissected living frog heart by means of projection to a height of two meters until it came to a standstill.
Czermak died in September 1873. His widow, Marie von Lämel-Czermak, a daughter of the wealthy Prague banker Leopold von Lämel , bequeathed the house to the university. One of her conditions was to rebuild the house true to the original in a different location, bearing the brunt of the financial burden herself. Under the direction of the architect Arwed Roßbach , the spectatorium was moved to Brüderstraße, in the courtyard area of the zoological institute also built by Gustav Müller. (Location) It was mainly used by Felix Klein's mathematics seminar , but was torn down as early as 1900 for the construction of a boiler house.
The area in the Ostvorstadt was parceled out and built on in 1890. A new street in it was called Czermak's garden by local residents. Later the name became official and is still valid today.
The spectatorium
The two-story building consisted of two parts, one with a rectangular and one slightly wider with a polygonal floor plan. The first was the laboratory, storage and lecture preparation wing, which also contained the assistant's apartment on the first floor, and the second was the lecture hall. Both had separate entrances.
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The lecture hall had a clear width of about 17 meters and contained eight rows of seats in a horseshoe-shaped arrangement, arranged in an ascending manner. Among these were the cloakrooms in the basement. The rows of seats offered space for 400 listeners, and 100 standing places were possible on the top step. This arrangement ensured good listening and viewing conditions from all places to the central lecture and experiment area. The hall had no side windows, only a large skylight provided the lighting. For the evening hours, a lighting crown with a large gas burner and 96 oil lamps according to Aimé Argand with appropriate reflectors could be swiveled in above this .
On the top step, in the middle, was a small room with projection devices that could throw pictures and experimental arrangements, such as the beating frog heart, onto the large lecture hall wall above the audience. Drummond's lime light served as the light source . A black felt cloth could be pulled over the ceiling window to darken the room during projections.
A contemporary article states that "there has hardly been any university so far as a meeting room that better fulfills its demonstrative purposes in every respect."
literature
- Holger Steinberg: Where Czermak's garden got its name from . In: Leipziger Blätter , Heft 37, 2006. pp. 46–48
- Association of Leipzig Architects and Engineers (ed.): Leipzig and its buildings . Leipzig 1892, pp. 182-184 (digitized version )
- Czermak's physiological private laboratory and amphitheater in Leipzig . In: Illustrirte Zeitung , Volume 60, 1873, p. 307 (digitized version)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Prof. Dr. med. Johann Nepomuk Czermak. In: Professor catalog of the University of Leipzig. Retrieved October 6, 2019 .
- ↑ Leipzig and its buildings , p. 184
- ↑ Where Czermak's garden got its name from , p. 47
- ↑ 125 years of the Mathematical Institute. Retrieved October 6, 2019 .
- ↑ Illustrirte Zeitung, Volume 70, 1873, p. 307
Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 31.4 " N , 12 ° 23 ′ 12.2" E