Hermes Villa

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South side of the Hermesvilla
North side of the Hermesvilla seen from the inner courtyard
The Hermes statue
Fountain in the courtyard of the villa

The Hermesvilla is a castle in the Lainzer Tiergarten , a fenced hunting area and now a nature reserve in Vienna's 13th district . The name of the villa refers to a Hermes statue made of white marble, which is located in the garden in front of the villa. Emperor Franz Joseph I gave the castle to his wife, Empress Elisabeth , as the "castle of dreams". Today the Hermesvilla is used for exhibitions at the Wien Museum .

history

Emperor Franz Joseph decided to build the "Villa Waldruh" - the original project name - in the summer of 1881. He had the complex built for his wife from 1882–1886 according to the plans of the architect Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer , who are often far removed from courtly ceremonies wanted to. At that time the Lainzer Tiergarten was outside Vienna.

In 1885 at the latest, the decision was made to name the castle "Villa Hermes". The empress herself commissioned the Berlin sculptor Ernst Herter to design the sculpture "Hermes the Guardian", which was to be set up in the garden. In 1886 the building, including all auxiliary buildings, such as the empress's riding school, was completed. From 1887 to 1898 the imperial couple regularly stayed here in late spring for at least a few days, but mostly a few weeks. Elisabeth was murdered on September 10, 1898.

In the course of the further construction work, the emperor ordered the leveling of all meadows within the parforce plank and the removal of the molehills , because otherwise Her Majesty would not be able to ride here . A bathing cabin was built for the Empress on the bank of the nearest pond in the Lainzer Tiergarten, which is no longer preserved today. The street to the Hermesvilla (today's Hermesstrasse ) was one of the first in Vienna to have electric lighting; in 1896 the very tallest villa was connected to the central telephone station in Vienna .

In 1855, the Lainzer Tiergarten was transferred from imperial private property to the so-called Hofärar , state property administered by the imperial family. The Hofärar therefore fell to the Republic in 1918. In the corporate state dictatorship , the zoo with the Hermes villa was transferred to the ownership of the City of Vienna. During the Nazi era , the zoo was declared a nature reserve in 1941.

During the occupation period 1945–1955 , the zoo was part of the Soviet occupation zone of Lower Austria , since it was only part of the 25th district, Liesing , in 1938 . The Hermesvilla was badly damaged by soldiers. With the redimensioning of Vienna, the Lainzer Tiergarten was located in the new 23rd district from 1954, and in 1956 it was added to the 13th district.

Awoke 1963 - after the Walt Disney -Filmproduktion Miracle of the White Stallions , which was filmed here in part - again interest in the building, but the city authorities initially showed little initiative. The villa was extensively renovated a quarter of a century after the end of the war, 1968–1974, through the private initiative of well-known personalities, including Bruno Marek , former mayor from 1970 ( Association of Friends of the Hermes Villa).

The first exhibition in 1971 was opened as Austria's contribution to the World Hunting Exhibition in Budapest . Since then, exhibitions have been held in the Hermesvilla, which has been used for a long time by the Vienna Museum . Foreign visitors are mainly interested in the rooms inhabited by Empress Elisabeth, which have largely been restored to their original state.

Interior

The interior furnishings include paintings by Hans Makart , Gustav Klimt and Viktor Tilgner .

The Empress's private apartments are on the first floor of the villa. The body-conscious Sisi completed her gymnastic exercises in the gym. This was once equipped with a balance beam, various struts and rings. The wall painting in the Pompeian style shows various sports and was carried out by August Eisenmenger , Hugo Charlemont and Adolf Falkenstein .

The bedroom is behind the toilet room. In contrast to other rooms, numerous original objects have been preserved in the Empress’s bedroom. The huge baroque bed came from the time of Maria Theresa and once stood in the imperial room of the Strengberg post office near Amstetten. The wall paintings based on motifs from Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream” were executed according to designs by Hans Makart . A spiral staircase leads from the bedroom to the ground floor and the garden. In the salon you will find the reconstructed ceiling painting "The Spring" by Franz Matsch , Gustav Klimt and Georg Klimt .

Sculpture "Elisabeth"

In the expansion of Vienna fund numerous stone deliveries are documented Sterzinger marble Laas marble and Wöllersdorfer stone for stairways in the main building, härtester Mannersdorf stone Almaser Stone , Linda Brunner conglomerate , St. Margarethen stone and Kaiserstein from Kaisersteinbruch were used in outbuildings.

The sculpture "Elisabeth" by Ulrike Truger has stood near the palace since 2001 . With this statue, the artist thematizes the tension between “compulsion - flight - freedom” to which the empress was exposed. The sculpture made of Carrara marble is around 2.5 meters high and weighs 6.5 tons. With her work, Truger wanted to create a counter-image to the common Sisi cliché. The three sides of the sculpture stand for the ambivalence of her personality, the fan for compulsion, the cloak for escape and the wing for freedom.

stables

The stables of the empress's horses were housed in the left wing of the court wing. The original stable equipment, such as the dividing walls of the boxes and (then common) stalls, are still largely present today. There is a so-called “Rondeau” between the box and tying barn. A circular building with a diameter of 20 meters, in which the horses could be lunged in bad weather.

From the 1950s until 2005, these stables were used as summer stables for the Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School . The stallions were ridden in the zoo for seven weeks. Walt Disney filmed here in 1962 (see above).

literature

Web links

Commons : Hermesvilla  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 10 ′ 15 ″  N , 16 ° 14 ′ 42 ″  E