Kaunitz Palace
As Palais Kaunitz (but also Palais Albrechtsburg and Palais Esterházy ), a former garden palace in the Viennese district of Mariahilf , which was rebuilt several times, was demolished in 1970 in favor of a new building for the Mariahilfer Gymnasium ("Amerlinggymnasium", Amerlingstrasse 6).
history
Towards the end of the 17th century, Johann Ignaz Albrecht von Albrechtsburg had a suburban palace built here - probably by Christian Alexander Oedtl from recent sources - in the style of a "pleasure building" by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach . In 1753, shortly after his return from his successful diplomatic mission in Paris, Count Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg acquired the palace from Anna Rosina von Albrecht-Albrechtsburg and had it remodeled by court architect Johann Adam Münzer according to contemporary tastes. Around 1780, the building was significantly enlarged from five to 21 window axes - according to several sources by the Alsatian architect Jean-Baptiste Kléber (1753–1800), whereby the courtyard facing today's Amerlingstrasse was closed. From 1814 , the interior was largely redesigned by the new owner, Prince Nikolaus IV. Esterházy de Galantha (1765–1833). To top off this work, Esterházy commissioned the Prato-born Florentine painter Antonio Marini (1788–1861) to create the ceiling painting Mount Olympus in the nine-meter-high octagonal ballroom of the building in 1819 .
In 1868, the municipality of Vienna acquired the building, which was extensively adapted by the city's chief engineer Georg Haussmann to accommodate the Mariahilfer grammar school after adding a second floor . The building was presented as an exemplary modern school building in plans and views at the Vienna World Exhibition in 1873.
During the occupation after the Second World War, the Lycée Français was housed on the main floor of the building. After the French school moved out, between 1955 and 1960, under the direction of Dr. Friedrich Wotke from the Federal Building Administration carried out renovation work on and in the building, whereby the ceiling fresco in the baroque octagonal ballroom was also restored by the Federal Monuments Office . In 1964 the 100th anniversary of the grammar school was celebrated in a series of events.
In 1967, at the instigation of the new school management and the federal building administration, the revocation of the monument protection was enforced, which the public did not find out until autumn 1970 when the school moved into a "transitional building" (7th, Westbahnstrasse). Violent protests in the media, including from well-known personalities, could not prevent the demolition work. In place of the building at that time, today's school building was built according to plans by Richard Gach in Amerlingstrasse.
Apart from only a few structural elements, the ceiling fresco in the ballroom was saved at the instigation of the “Action Committee SOS for Vienna”. In 1982 it was reapplied to the ceiling of the newly created auction room of the “Kunstpalais Dorotheum” in the former Palais Eskeles . The Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna has been located in the Palais Eskeles since 1993 . Since then, the Marini fresco has been hidden from the public by hanging the ceiling.
literature
- Edgard Haider: Lost Vienna - noble palaces of days gone by . Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-205-07220-0 .
- Heinz P. Adamek : History of a Viennese palace - palace of European history . In: Annual report Mariahilfer Gymnasium . Vienna 1989, p. 53 ff.
- Dieter Klein , Martin Kupf , Robert Schediwy : Stadtbildverluste Wien - A look back at five decades . Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7754-X .
- Jiří Kroupa: Wenzel Anton, Prince Kaunitz-Rietberg: From “Curiosité” to Criticism of Art . Masarykova Univerzita v Brně 1997, p. 7 ff.
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 11 ′ 50 ″ N , 16 ° 21 ′ 5 ″ E