Palm House (Vienna Schönbrunn)

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The Schönbrunn Palm House

Opened in 1882, the Palm House is the most prominent of the four plant houses in the Schönbrunn Palace Park and, together with the Kew Gardens and the Frankfurt Palm House , one of the three largest of its kind in the world. It houses around 4500 species of plants. It has been administered since 1918 by the Federal Gardens , an office of the current Ministry of Life.

history

prehistory

Emperor Franz I , husband and co-regent of Maria Theresa , bought an area on the west side of the palace park from the Hietzing community in 1753 , on which he had a Dutch garden laid out. Adrian van Steckhoven and his assistant Richard van der Schot built a large greenhouse in the north and four glass houses in the west of the area, which was divided into three areas:

The “flower garden” with exotic plants in the north, to the south the vegetable garden (in which also espalier fruit was grown), and in the far south an orchard .

The basic stock of the exotic collection, including the original "Maria Theresien-Palme", ​​a fan palm , was bought in 1754 in Holland. Because of the Habsburgs' passion for collecting (in particular, Jacquin's expeditions to the West Indies and Franz Boos and Georg Scholl's expeditions to the Cape of Good Hope ), the expansion of the greenhouse by two wings and the construction of three additional glasshouses was necessary under Joseph II later two more objects followed. In 1828 the old palm house was built nearby. Although the only east-facing glass front of this masonry building was detrimental to the proper cultivation of plants in need of light, it was clear at the latest with the Vienna World Exhibition that only a fully glazed iron structure could create optimal conditions. With the exception of the remote Old Palm House , all glass houses southwest of the palace were demolished in the course of the new building.

monarchy

After only two years of construction, on June 19, 1882 , Emperor Franz Joseph I opened the Palm House, built by the court locksmith and iron designer Ignaz Gridl according to plans by the court architect and bridge building expert Franz-Xaver von Segenschmid . Sigmund Wagner was responsible for the statics.

Side view

The structure was received differently by the press. In addition to exuberant anthemic reports, for example

How I love you roofs, O glass shell
you hold the earth's diversity and abundance ...

there was also criticism of the Habsburgs' 100,000 guilders' glass palace ' . The Wiener Illustrierte Gartenblatt noted:

The whole structure, composed of excellent local iron and glass, seems to have turned out somewhat too massive only in some parts. With its three domes, it is reminiscent of a station hall that has turned out a little too beautiful.

The kuk Hofgarten inspector Adolf Vetter was responsible for the horticultural design, which he completed in March 1883. The biggest problem was the relocation of the tallest Schönbrunn palm , a Livistona chinensis , from the old palm house to the new one. This later, probably named Maria-Theresien-Palme out of sentimentality , formed the center of the new house until it became too big in 1909 and had to be replaced. Before that, she had been put at an angle by steel cables for some time to give her a hangover. Her three successors were also known as Maria-Theresien-Palme .

During the First World War, the palm house was mostly open after it had been used as a glass house for vegetables from 1914 to 1915 and could therefore not be visited. Income was partly transferred to the “Support Fund for Needy Gardeners and Their Widows”. Because of the shortage of male workers, female assistants were taken on from 1915 for the gardening work, as well as a secretary for the office.

  • Palm House from NW

  • Detail outside

  • Entrance (W), central hall

  • Rainwater collector

First republic

With the end of the Danube monarchy , the imperial and royal court gardens became the federal gardens . During the winter of 1923 school classes were not allowed to visit the palm house in order to “prevent damage to the plants by opening the doors” or, in other words, to save heating costs. For the same reason, the entrance for the public was initially on the north side, i.e. at the Kalthaus.

1939-1945

In a bombing raid on February 21, 1945, more than 200 bombs fell on the area of ​​Schönbrunn Palace. The glazing of the palm house was almost completely broken. A few valuable plants were saved because they could be housed in the neighboring sundial house, others (some large palm trees and tree ferns) survived the temperatures of at times as low as −7 ° C. Much, including the central palm, perished.

Second republic

In 1948 the reconstruction of the palm house began. Five car loads (about 55 tons) of window putty were used to insert the 45,000 double panes of glass . Because of the generally poor supply situation, known corrosion damage could not be treated.

The horticultural design began in October 1952, and the opening ceremony took place on January 14, 1953 (for two days) as an exclusive ballroom with a specially constructed dance floor. Only then was the earth for most of the planting raised. At that time, the later called the Sisi palm was also placed in the center of the house.

After the Reichsbrücke collapsed on August 1, 1976, all bridges and steel structures in Vienna were checked and, among other things, serious defects were found in the Palm House. The building was closed to the public in November of this year and gardeners were only allowed to work with protective helmets.

After almost ten years of technical and political debate about the optimal renovation measures for the listed building, work began on May 12, 1986. One reason for the cumbersome preparation was that work could only be carried out during the warm season because the building was indispensable as winter quarters for many of Schönbrunn's plants.

The work, in which the company Waagner Biro , which dates back to the structural engineer from 1880, played a leading role, had to be carried out in sections and in stages. They started on the north wing. The palm, which was erected under the northern dome, could be moved from the Kalthaus to the central hall with the support of the federal army , where even larger palm trees were so firmly rooted that they had to remain on site during the entire construction work. The Canary Island date palm , which weighs around eight tons , was moved to the sundial house for the time of the renovation work.

architecture

The palm house, built from around 600 tons of wrought iron and 120 tons of cast iron , is 111 meters long, 29 meters wide and 25 meters high. It is covered with 45,000 panes of glass.

To the north and south of the rectangular central building there is a square extension, which is run as a "cold house" and a "tropical house". Originally, these three departments were separated by movable glass walls, but later by built-in ones.

The curved, mainly external, wrought iron construction rests on cast iron columns inside the building.

  • Roof of the main hall

  • Roof of the main hall

  • Detail of the main hall as seen from SW

  • Tree-like branched cast iron column.

  • Kalthaus, N-side: rhododendrons.

  • Main hall, seen from N

  • Spiral staircase, NW, with Jasminum azoricum.

  • Staircase and gallery (closed to visitors).

technology

In terms of heating, the Schönbrunn Palm House was initially connected to the heating system of the Schönbrunn Zoo , but this could also lead to problems because higher temperatures, such as those often required for enclosures, overheated the Palm House to the detriment of the plants. A separate boiler house, whose exhaust fumes, however, the prevailing westerly wind in Vienna carried exactly to the Palm House, was built in 1904 at the same time as the sundial house. Cadets from the Austrian navy were assigned to clean the heavily soiled glass panes and also to shade (i.e. for work at great heights) .

In the course of the major restoration from 1986 to 1990, the wishes of the gardeners were taken into account as far as possible.

  • Shading is now done at the push of a button (previously by hand by applying mats).
  • A basement area for the building services was created under the middle section, where there is also an irrigation water treatment system. Rainwater is collected from the glass roof in two cisterns (each 120,000 liters) and used for watering. Otherwise drinking water is used.
  • A mist spray system was installed to control the humidity.
  • Particularly sensitive plants such as the coconut palm received additional vegetation heating (similar to underfloor heating ) so that their roots, which were freely planted in the ground, are spared the winter cold of the ground.

Sensational plants

  • The oldest plant in the house in years is an olive tree with an estimated age of 350 years, which was presented by Spain at the Vienna International Garden Show in 1974 and then given to the Federal Gardens as a gift.
  • A rarity that is rarely cultivated outside of Australia is the “living fossil” Wollemia nobilis , which was only discovered in 1994 . The Austrian plant, which the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna received in 2004 for its 250th anniversary, was the first ever sold abroad. It has been available on permanent loan to the Palm House since 2005 .
  • The house also has a Seychelles palm that was grown from one of the nuts that the Republic of the Seychelles gave as a gift when it reopened in 1990. It took about nine months for the seed to germinate, and it is expected that it will take 50 to 100 years for the palm to flower for the first time.
  • In August 2001 a water lily of the species Victoria regia, discovered by the “Austrian Humboldt” Thaddäus Haenke , bloomed in the Palm House for the first time in more than 40 years . It had been grown from seeds provided by the Botanical Garden in Munich . More than 1,600 visitors came at night to watch the flower opening, which only lasts for two nights. The well-known discoloration into purple during the withering (i.e. on the second night) did not show up. So far it has never been successful in the Palm House to bring a perennial V. regia over the winter, since its light requirements cannot be met with reasonable effort. The species has to be re-cultivated every year and is only released back into the water lily basin in early summer.

  • The largest palm tree is traditionally placed in the center of the house - or, for the time being, the largest palm tree was usually placed.
    Their growth becomes a problem as soon as it threatens to reach the glass roof. In 1909 the “Maria-Theresien-Palme” came to this level for the first time . It was pulled diagonally by steel cables for a while, but ultimately had to be cut down. Considerations of adding to the already listed building with the personal approval of the emperor were out of the question, also for reasons of cost. As of February 18, 2008, one of her successors has the same fate, namely the possibly 170-year-old Sisi palm. Although this was originally planted in a wooden barrel, it had broken through and then rooted so deep into the ground that it could no longer be transported during the general renovation. In 2007 its top reached the lantern of the glass house.     Another Livistonia chinensis was designated as
    the successor . The approximately 50-year-old potted plant from the federal gardens was christened “Mirna Palm” in honor of the swimmer     Mirna Jukić and was firmly planted on April 22, 2008.
  • Particularly noteworthy are the azaleas collection with several specimens that are more than a hundred years old, as well as the collection of tree ferns .

  • The approximately 350-year-old olive tree.

  • Wollemia nobilis, a living fossil.

  • Amorphophallus konjac (devil's tongue).

  • Rhododendrons and camellias in the 'cold house'.

  • Palm house 1883, with "Maria-Theresien-Palme".

  • The "Sisi Palm" 2008.

  • "Sisi-Palme" 2008:
    "Rien ne va plus."

  • Mirna Jukić planting the “Mirna palm”.

See also

literature

  • Gerhard Deimel, Kurt Vogl, Ingrid Gregor: " Palace of Blossoms - The Schönbrunn Palm House ", Holzhausen Verlag, Vienna, 2002, ISBN 3-85493-052-6

Web links

Commons : Palmenhaus (Vienna-Schönbrunn)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ It came from the possession of William of Orange , who is said to have obtained it from India as a 30-year-old plant in 1684. In 1702 it was received by Friedrich I of Prussia , from whose successor Friedrich Wilhelm the botanist Steckhoven acquired it on behalf of his emperor. In 1765 it flourished in Vienna and began to bear fruit, which sealed its end. Lit. Deiml et al. Pp. 68 and 70.
  2. ↑ A steel and glass construction presented there made this evident.
  3. ↑ Lit. Deimel et al. P. 33
  4. ↑ p. Above.
  5. ↑ see above. Only the last “Sissi” boom brought a late name change for the specimen, which was placed in the center of attention in 1953 (also Lit. Deimel et al., 2002, calls this plant [under quotation marks and with reference to the original, which died in 1765] “Maria Theresien-Palme” how apparently the audience did this (p. 53)).
  6. ↑ Lit. Deimel et al. Pp. 154 ff .; The reason for the unusual behavior is assumed to be irritation of the plant either from the constant drafts caused by the onrush of visitors or the temperature suddenly increased by the headlights.
  7. ↑ See above.
  8. ↑ In the absence of annual rings, the age of palm trees, the emergence of which has not been recorded, can only be estimated. In previous estimates, she was judged to be up to 30 years younger.
  9. ↑ To reduce further growth by means of hormones or to force the palm, like the very first, to grow obliquely, would have delayed the ultimately inevitable solution only a little.

Coordinates: 48 ° 11 ′ 5 ″  N , 16 ° 18 ′ 10 ″  E