Court stables (Vienna)
Until the end of the Danube Monarchy, the extensive building complex that was later referred to as the Messepalast and in which the Vienna MuseumsQuartier is located was referred to as court stables , formerly also the Spanish stable , court stables or campaign riding school .
history
Emperor Charles VI. commissioned Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656–1723) in 1713 to erect a large building for the imperial stables in the area of the glacis in front of the castle gate . 600 horses and 200 bodies were to be accommodated here. The building was completed in 1725 by the builder's son, Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach . The stone carvings got the Hofsteinmetzmeister Elias hill from the Imperial quarry , for Stieg season hard was and other components, as was customary, Kaiserstein used.
However, the original ideal plan was not fully implemented. Fischer senior also planned a monumental horse pond and an amphitheater for carousel games . Nevertheless, the court stables were one of the largest and most magnificent stables in Europe. In Joseph Richter's well-known Eipeldauer letters from the end of the 18th century, for example, there is a passage in which the “residence where the emperor's horses live” is mentioned with admiration ( “Mr. Vetter, they are more beautiful than the emperor himself”) ).
During the Napoleonic Wars, there was significant destruction - the attacking French had set up their command post in the court stables and were shot at from the city. As a result, there were plans for a further expansion of the court stables, which took shape in 1829. Even at the time of the revolution of 1848 there was destruction and subsequent modifications to the facility, so after 1850 the large riding hall was built in the neo-baroque style by the court architect Leopold Mayer . Already in the time of the Danube Monarchy there were considerations to remove the central but low and comparatively modest functional building and to erect more monumental architecture in its place. Gottfried Semper's plans for an imperial forum were not fully implemented.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Martin Haller: Horses under the double-headed eagle , p. 60
literature
- Martin Haller : Horses under the double-headed eagle. The horse as a carrier of culture in the Habsburg Empire. Georg Olms-Verlag et al., Hildesheim et al. 2002, ISBN 3-7020-0951-5 ( Documenta Hippologica ).