Grassalkovich Palace
The Grassalkovich Palace ( Grasalkovičov palác in Slovak ), also known as the Presidential Palace (Prezidentský palác) , is a building in Bratislava . It is the seat of the President of the Slovak Republic , north of the old town on the north side of the Hodžovo námestie near the former Archbishop's Summer Palace , the seat of the government of Slovakia .
history
The Grassalkovich Palace, an impressive rococo - late Baroque palace with a baroque garden was in 1760 for Count I. Antal Grassalkovich , president of the Royal Hungarian Court Chamber , built by the architect Andreas Mayer Hoffer, who already for him Gödöllő Castle in Budapest had built, architecturally one Model for the palace in Pressburg. This building has numerous beautiful rooms, especially the so-called Spanish Hall and the magnificent staircase, richly decorated with sculptures. The stairs are made of the hard white Kaiserstein from Kaisersteinbruch in Burgenland .
After its completion, the Grassalkovich Palace became the center of social life in Pressburg, today's Bratislava , the then capital of Hungary . Some works by the composer Joseph Haydn were premiered there, as Count Grassalkovich had his own orchestra. He and his relative Nikolaus I. Joseph Prince Esterházy promoted Joseph Haydn as a composer and conductor. Since the economically successful Count Grassalkovich wanted to maintain the benevolence of Empress Maria Theresa , the palace changed hands in around 1765. Balls and festivities for the Imperial Austrian court of the Habsburgs were held in the Grassalkovich Palace . Joseph Haydn conducted the orchestra when Marie Christine of Austria , a daughter of Maria Theresa, gave her marriage promise to Duke Albert von Sachsen-Teschen in the chapel of Hof Palace near Pressburg in 1766 . The philologist Ľudovít Štúr is said to have expressed his love for Adela Ostrolúcka for the first time at a ball in the palace organized by Archduke Stefan Franz Viktor of Austria . The last owners of the property before the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918 were Archduke Friedrich von Österreich-Teschen and his wife Isabella von Croy-Dülmen , who bought the palace in 1897 for 480 thousand guilders. Isabella's lady-in-waiting Sophie Chotek von Chotkowa met the Austrian heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand von Österreich-Este in this palace, who married her in a morganatic marriage and with whom she was shot together in the assassination attempt in Sarajevo on June 18, 1914.
From 1939 to 1945, at the time of National Socialism , the palace in the First Slovak State under Jozef Tiso was the seat of a Slovak President for the first time. After the end of the Second World War in May 1945, it became the seat of the “Commissioner Council”, the executive body of Slovakia within Czechoslovakia . In 1950 it became the “House of Pioneers and Youth Klement Gottwald ” ( Dom pionierov a mládeže Klementa Gottwalda ), a leisure center for young people during the period of real socialism . The resulting neglect of the building caused damage that required renovation at the end of the communist regime in 1989.
After this renovation in the 1990s, the Grassalkovich Palace became the seat of the President of Slovakia in 1996. The associated large garden is a publicly accessible park; The statue of the composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel , born in 1778 in Preßburg, today's Bratislava, used to stand here .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Photo Habsburg, Corvina Budapest 1988 ISBN 963-13-2660-8 , p. 13
- ↑ The monument was relocated in front of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany ( Palais Nester ) on Hviezdoslav Square .
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 8 ′ 58 ″ N , 17 ° 6 ′ 28 ″ E