Casemates Wiener Neustadt

Casemates Wiener Neustadt (2019)

Stone portal from 1557

Walled deep courtyard, probably formerly vaulted, on the right in the background the Capuchin Church

The Wiener Neustadt casemates at the southwest corner of the south wall of the Wiener Neustadt city fortifications are located at Bahngasse 27 in the city of Wiener Neustadt in Lower Austria . The casemates - a unique facility in Austria - are under monument protection .

history

At the Brüderturm in the south-west corner of the city fortifications of Wiener Neustadt begun at the end of the 12th century, casemates for the storage of weapons were expanded in the south wall with vaulted cellars with the master builder Johann Tscherte. The cellar, as an additional arsenal of the armory, was deepened and expanded in later centuries as a result of larger weapons. From 1936 to 1938 the cellars were converted for civil use and the casemates were partially destroyed during the Second World War.

The casemates were closed to the public for many years. They were set up as exhibition and visitor centers for the Lower Austrian Provincial Exhibition in 2019 .

In March 2020, Anna Maria Krassnigg moved with her theater concept "wortwiege" from the Thalhof Kurhaus in Reichenau an der Rax to the casemates.

architecture

In the Bahngasse there is a rusticated round arched stone portal with the year 1557. The portal stone wedge shows the Roman Empire, Austria and the city arms with 1557 in the heraldic cartouche. Inside there are more than 20 rooms with quarry stone masonry, ashlar masonry and brick masonry with vaults with Bohemian Caps, truss ceilings, brick cap vaults, barrel vaults, half-barrel vaults. The ventilation was regulated with characteristic round walled shafts in the crown of the vault.

Revitalization and redesign

Since the Wiener Neustädter Casemates are an important part of the Lower Austrian State Exhibition 2019 , the building, which is valuable in terms of building history, was subjected to a revitalization and general renovation. On November 9th, 2016, the result of the international architectural competition for the project “Casemates and New Gallery Wiener Neustadt” was presented. The architectural concept provides for a link between history and the present, which is to be implemented with a "Welcome Center", the "Casemate Path", the "Casemate Halls", the "New Gallery" and a Belvedere / Lapidarium. The construction work, in which the state of Lower Austria is investing 25 million euros, was completed by the end of 2018. In the course of the restoration of the casemates for the state exhibition, parts of a kennel wall were exposed.