Retz town hall
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The town hall of Retz in Lower Austria is based on a Gothic chapel, the renovation of which stalled for financial reasons and was later completed by the city administration as a building that housed a town hall and a chapel.
history
chapel
The Gothic chapel built on the main square of Retz was badly damaged after the city was conquered by the Hussites . The actual owner of the chapel was the parish of Sankt Stephan, but this was economically burdened with the restoration of the parish church and the associated rectory. Only the most necessary building measures for maintenance were taken. In 1437 the chapel and its three altars were consecrated again by Passau Auxiliary Bishop Matthias.
Between 1515 and 1520 the chapel was rebuilt and expanded. In 1520 the priestly choir and the four altars were consecrated. With the increasing number of supporters of Protestantism , the number of donations for the continuation of the renovation work fell.
As early as 1512 the city had acquired the noble house next to the castle and used it as a beneficiary house from 1519. Since from around 1544 and 1545 the vacant spaces were no longer filled, a council chamber was set up here and the house was called the town hall.
The new building of the Marienkapelle on the main square, which was still unfinished around 1560, was already showing signs of deterioration. In 1560 a contract was signed between the city of Retz and Leopold Hagen, the provost of St. Pölten , according to which the chapel and the future town hall were to be housed in a common building. However, the ownership structure was not clarified in this contract. This legal uncertainty later led to protracted disputes that were not resolved until 1640.
modification
During the construction work carried out between 1568 and 1569, the high Gothic chapel was divided into two floors by a flat vault . The room on the ground floor continued to function as a chapel, while the upper floor was expanded with a citizens' hall, a council hall and other rooms. The Gothic windows, which were divided by the insertion of the false ceiling, were replaced by short windows in the Renaissance style . The high Gothic roof was replaced by a so-called trench roof. The upper floor was accessed by an outside staircase. The previous entrance to the chapel on the west side was walled up and replaced by an entrance on the south side.
The construction work was carried out by “ Welschen ” bricklayers, who were probably German masters who had learned to build in the Renaissance style in Italy. The stone carvings led from Eggenburg Dating Steinmetz by Linhardt Aigmann.
town hall
Like the town hall chapel, the council chamber was rebuilt in 1740 and received a new vaulted ceiling. Gottlieb Starmayr and his student Martin Johann Schmidt created the ceiling painting and pictures of German kings and emperors from the Habsburg family in single and double medallions on the walls.
In 1749, the work on the town hall , which had been interrupted by the Silesian War in 1742, was resumed with the renewal of the roof. In 1753 the floors in the citizens 'hall, the citizens' parlor and the vestibule were paved. The following year (1754) the stucco work was carried out in the Bürgersaal and the facade of the town hall was newly plastered.
Town hall chapel
As a result of the reconstruction of the previous chapel, a relatively low “town hall chapel” was created. It is not known whether the ecclesiastical authorities were in agreement with this type of redesign, as the church believes that there should not be any secular spaces above the sanctuary.
It is not known when the town hall chapel was consecrated again and used for church services.
The town hall chapel, which had been neglected for a long time, was given more attention from around 1718 and various foundations made it possible to design it. Renovation work began in 1740. The front part of the chapel was given a new, higher vault and columns were removed. In addition, the chapel was enlarged by parts of the adjoining weighing house. Because of the higher vaulted ceiling, the floor in the council chamber also had to be raised, which is noticeable through the steps on the connecting door to the citizens' hall.
In 1752, the renovation work in the town hall chapel was finally continued and completed. In the same year a new wooden pulpit was purchased (it was erected in 1765). Then the Retz carpenter Barth also created the new pews. The painter Daysinger from Znojmo created the wall and ceiling paintings as well as the altarpiece of the new high altar completed in 1760 in 1756 . By adding wood carvings in Rococo style in 1774, the organ and the organ stage were brought into line with the rest of the chapel's furnishings.
Like many other chapels, the town hall chapel was threatened with closure due to the Josephine reforms . An imperial permit from 1786 still made it possible to hold silent holy masses.
tower
The Gothic tower, which is square at its base and probably hexagonal or octagonal from the fourth floor, was preserved and was redesigned into a square structure in 1572, heightened and received a sheet metal roof in the Renaissance style. The Renaissance windows presumably also date from this period. The current town hall tower received a clock made by the Znojmo clockmaker Hanns Preckl and the four clock panels were also painted by a painter from Znojmo.
Between 1615 and 1618 the tower was raised by around seven meters to a wall height of 33.7 meters and the walkway was rebuilt, with the main work being carried out in 1615 and only minor things being done until 1618. The watch received new dials and gold-plated hands. With the double renaissance cupola with copper roof, the total height of the town hall tower is 57.3 meters.
In 1614 a two-bell chime is mentioned, which was extended by a third bell in 1625. The fourth bell was donated in 1714. Another bell was purchased in 1758 and one of the previous bells was cast by a bell caster from Znaim. In 1778 another bell was cast in Znojmo. In 1892 four bells were cast again.
In 1768 the town hall tower was freshly plastered and various work was carried out. 1774/1775 the tower roof was renewed.
In 1833, Mayor Vinzenz Würth had the municipal armory, which had previously been housed in the Nalberturm, moved to the room with the bay window on the third floor. Since the logist Geissler also housed, organized, described and cataloged the museum inventory of weapons, pictures, documents and the like, the first Lower Austrian local history museum was established here.
As a replacement for the old clockwork, a new clockwork was purchased for the tower clock from the Resch brothers in Vienna . This also had a minute hand and struck the quarter of an hour. In addition, the dome roof had to be renewed. In 1878 a lightning rod was installed. In 1924, the clock face on the east side of the tower clock was replaced by a translucent one and this was illuminated with electric light.
A damaged bell was used in 1892 as an opportunity to purchase four new bells. The new bells were cast in Wiener Neustadt by bell founder Peter Hilzer from the material of the old bells and were a little heavier than the old one. The new bells were raised on June 28th of the same year. During the First World War , they were confiscated for armaments purposes.
description
The town hall with the Marienkapelle was built like a Graetzel on the higher west side of the main square. The originally Gothic building was later changed in the early modern and baroque periods.
The tall, hull-like building has a slightly indented, polygonal closed choir with flat and stepped buttresses on its east side . On the north side there are two arched cellar gates and a door to the tower staircase. The south side has the round arched chapel portal from the 16th century with a baroque cartouche and the external staircase to the upper floor. The rectangular portal there also dates from the 16th century and bears two coats of arms as a relief in the lintel.
The protruding tower on the north side is divided into four zones by cordon cornices and closed by a mighty, tied-off hood from the beginning of the 17th century over a corridor supported by consoles .
- The design of the Marienkapelle comes from Josef M. Daysinger (wall paintings, altar sheet of the main altar), Jakob Barth (carvings on the pulpit and the pews) and Johann Caspar Waitzel (organ).
- The design of the town hall hall comes from Johann Gottlieb Starmayr and Martin Johann Schmidt (Kremser Schmidt) (wall paintings)
Location
The town hall of Retz was also a filming location for the television series Julia - An Unusual Woman . The citizens' hall served as the backdrop for the court hearings, while the municipal council meetings were recorded in the council hall. This courtroom was entered through the gate of the city office.
literature
- Rudolf Resch: Retz Heimatbuch, Volume I, From primeval times to the end of the Middle Ages (1526), Verlag der Stadtgemeinde Retz, 1936
- Rudolf Resch: Retz Homeland Book, Volume II, From the Beginning of Modern Times to the Present , Verlag der Stadtgemeinde Retz, 1951
- DEHIO Lower Austria - north of the Danube ISBN 3-7031-0652-2 (1990)
Web links
Footnotes
Coordinates: 48 ° 45 ′ 25.5 ″ N , 15 ° 57 ′ 2.5 ″ E