Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz
Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz | |
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Place in Vienna | |
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Basic data | |
place | Vienna |
District | Inner city |
Created | 1623 |
Confluent streets | Bäckerstraße , Sonnenfelsgasse |
Buildings | Jesuit Church , Old University |
use | |
User groups | Car traffic , bicycle traffic , pedestrian traffic |
Technical specifications | |
Square area | 146 m² |
The Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz is located in Vienna's 1st district, Innere Stadt . It is one of the most historically and architecturally remarkable squares in the historic old town, which is characterized by the buildings of the Old University and has an almost closed baroque structure. It was named in 1949 after the prelate and Austrian Chancellor Ignaz Seipel .
history
The area of today's square was built up in the Middle Ages. The block of houses between Bäckerstraße and Sonnenfelsgasse continued across the square and only ended at a street opposite the Hohen Schul , which no longer exists today and which stretched from the confluence of Schönlaterngasse into Postgasse to Wollzeile between No. 27 and 29. The University of Vienna , founded in 1385, was located opposite the Dominican monastery and has been expanded over the years to include other buildings in this area.
When Emperor Ferdinand II handed the college over to the Jesuit order for reorganization in 1623, the Jesuit order bought several houses and had them demolished in order to create space in their place. The adjacent buildings of the university and the Jesuit church were built by 1631 . This new square, which was accordingly the center of university life in the capital, was called Jesuiterplatz in 1701 , and in 1766 it was called Unteres Jesuitenplätzl (as opposed to the Upper Jesuit Am Hof ). The name Universitätsplatz has been used since 1786, and was created after the Jesuit order was abolished in 1773. In 1862 this historical name was officially adopted.
Since there was already another street name after the University of Vienna at the new university building ( Universitätsstraße ), the name was changed to Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz in 1949 . Seipel was one of the leading figures in the Christian Social Party in the First Republic . However, since he pursued a confrontational policy towards social democracy , promoted the Heimwehr and strived for an authoritarian presidential system, Seipel was one of those protagonists who became a particular enemy of the contemporary left and who bore particular responsibility for the increasing weakening of party democracy in the First Republic, which ultimately led to the establishment of the authoritarian corporate state in the 1930s. In a review of all Viennese street names in 2013 by a historian's commission, the latter classified Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz as a case in need of discussion, based on the criteria that people were grouped together “who in their work forms of anti-Semitism and racism have picked up and communicated selectively or bear indirect responsibility for the use of violence or have been aggressively anti-democratic after 1918. "
Location and characteristics
The rectangular square, which has remained almost unchanged since its redesign in the 18th century, is located north of the Wollzeile. Only the Bäckerstraße and the Sonnenfelsgasse flow into it, creating a hall-like, closed impression of the square.
Since there is no through traffic, there is little car traffic on site, but the entire square is used as a parking lot, which significantly affects the impression and atmosphere of the historic square ensemble. There is no public transport here. There is also a cycle path across the square.
The buildings on Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz are baroque, monumental buildings that belonged to the Old University. To the north is the Jesuit Church, to the east of it the Jesuit College and on the other side of Bäckerstraße the Alte Aula, while on the western side of the square is the particularly magnificent building of the Academy of Sciences, once the New Aula, with two fountains in front of it. On the south side there was originally the Baroque Albrecht Palace , which was replaced by a rental house in 1903. Here is the only street bar on the square, a restaurant. In addition to tourists, most of the people come to Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz to visit the scientific institutions or the church, where church concerts take place regularly.
Buildings
No. 1: Jesuit College and Jesuit Church
The western side of the square from Bäckerstraße to the north and the Jesuit Church on the north side of the square jointly bear No. 1.
The Jesuit College is the monastery of the order. The building extends around a large inner courtyard between Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz, the Jesuit Church, Schönlaterngasse, Postgasse and Bäckerstraße. The observatory wing, library wing and Stöckl building are in front of Postgasse. It was built from 1624 in the early baroque style by an unknown architect. The Jesuits were the sponsors of the University of Vienna and they also maintained the Academic Gymnasium .
The facade to Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz is four-story and simply structured by stone-framed windows with stone sills and straight roofs as well as cordon cornices. Under the roof with small attic houses and early baroque chimneys lies a grooved eaves cornice. There is a clock from 1855 on the top of the roof gable. The rectangular portal has a triangular gable roof with a foundation inscription for the town convict from 1802. The two-winged wooden door shows carved fruit hangings and mascarons and has richly forged fittings and bars from the second half of the 17th century on the skylights. To the right of the portal, a plaque from 1952 commemorates the Croatian Jesuit and scholar Rudjer Boskovic , who lived here from 1756–1760 and 1763 and wrote his work Theory of Natural Philosophy (Vienna 1758). To the left of the portal hangs a commemorative plaque from 1924 for Franz Schubert , who attended the academic high school at Konvikt as a pensioner and court choir boy from 1808 to 1813. The vestibule has two aisles over pillars with triumphal arched arcade openings. A four-pillar staircase leads to the first floor, above which the staircase built in 1934 is located.
The Jesuit Church is the former university church. It was probably built by Giovanni Battista Carlone between 1624 and 1631 . It is dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin and to the Jesuit saints Ignatius von Loyola and Franz Xaver . Andrea Pozzo expanded them splendidly inside from 1703–1709 and also formed the spiers. Through his redesign of the architectural structure and the picturesque furnishings, he changed the simple long room to a central room with a false dome and thus created one of the most magnificent baroque church rooms in Vienna. After the abolition of the Jesuit order, the church was handed over to the Black Spaniards in 1773 and was later a garrison church before it was returned to the Jesuits in 1857.
The facade facing Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz is five-axis with twin towers. It is structured by plastic cornices with consecration and building inscriptions, as well as giant pilasters placed on top of each other , between which there are rows of windows and niches. The portal is raised above a staircase base and shows the imperial coat of arms in the aedicule attachment of the blown gable. The two side portals were only formed from former windows in 1892. The niches show Saints Catherine of Alexandria , Joseph , Leopold and Barbara from the circle of Paul Strudel in the upper row, and Saints Ignatius von Loyola and Franz Xavier in the lower row. The volute gable top, framed by a pilaster, bears the letters IHS in a halo.
No. 2: New auditorium
The former New Aula of the Old University was built from 1753–1755 according to plans by Jean Nicolas Jadot and with the assistance of Johann Enzenhofer, Daniel Christoph Dietrich and Johann Adam Münzer in a baroque-classicist style. It is one of the most important buildings from the reign of Maria Theresa , who opened it personally in 1756. It became trend-setting with regard to its cubic blocking of the building structure and its reduction of the plastic surface volume in favor of an abstract layered structure. The auditorium provided space for all four faculties . Since 1857 it has been the seat of the Austrian Academy of Sciences .
The building stands completely free between Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz, Sonnenfelsgasse, Windhaaggasse and Bäckerstraße. The splendid main facade facing Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz has five axes and three storeys. The two gabled corner projections enclose the central axis, which is set back like a loggia on the first and second floors. The base zone is grooved throughout and includes deeply cut arched openings, which are crowned by mascarons; in the center the main portal with a carved wooden gate. Elaborate wall fountains with protruding bulging basins and fully plastic putto-dolphin groups, probably by Franz Joseph Lenzbauer, were created around 1755 on the two corner projections . The bel étage is characterized by Corinthian double pilasters on the risalits and columns in the middle. The windows there, with a balustrade in front of them, are suspected to vary. Above the entablature on the first floor there are two heraldic cartouches (left: Old Austria, right: New Austria) and reclining female acroter figures , which are supposed to represent the allegories of the faculties: medicine on the left and law on the right, with putti in between. At the attic floor , the imperial coat of arms with trophies and inscription is mounted centrally.
No. 3,4: old auditorium
The former old auditorium of the old university is located on the southwest corner up to Bäckerstraße. It is connected to the Jesuit college, with which it was built, by two candle arches above Bäckerstraße. It was mainly used for representation purposes and had a large assembly room on the ground floor, lecture halls and classrooms of the academic high school on the first floor and a baroque theater hall on the second floor. Today the building is also used by the Academy of Sciences.
Former Palais Albrecht
The south side of the square was closed off by the baroque Palais Albrecht, which was built by an unknown architect at the beginning of the 18th century. It had been owned by the kk-privileged mutual fire damage insurance company since 1872 and was replaced in 1904 by a six-storey rental building with a secessionist facade by Georg Demski . This building, which is also under monument protection, is the only non-baroque building on the square. Although it is mostly located on Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz, it has the address Bäckerstraße 18.
literature
- Richard Perger: streets, towers and bastions. The road network of the Vienna City in its development and its name . Franz Deuticke, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-7005-4628-9 , pp. 35-36
- Felix Czeike (Ed.): Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz. In: Historisches Lexikon Wien . Volume 2, Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-218-00544-2 , p. 102 ( digitized version ).
- Bundesdenkmalamt (Ed.): Dehio-Handbuch Wien. I. District - Inner City . Verlag Berger, Horn 2003, ISBN 3-85028-366-6 , p. 671
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Oliver Rathkolb, Peter Autengruber, Birgit Nemec, Florian Wenninger: Historians report on Vienna's street names. City of Vienna , accessed on March 9, 2019 . ( PDF pages 185-188 ).
Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 31.9 ″ N , 16 ° 22 ′ 38.4 ″ E