Atonement House

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The Atonement House after 1885

The Atonement House or KK Stiftungshaus was an apartment building (rental house) built in the neo-Gothic style at Schottenring 7 in Vienna's 1st district, Innere Stadt , which was built in its place after the fire of the Ringtheater in 1881. The property is located on the site of the Elendbastei demolished in 1860 (from the original name "Im Elend"), which was built in the years 1558–1561 by the German imperial estates .

history

Ring theater fire

On December 8, 1881 a fire broke out in the stage area of ​​the Ringtheater before the performance of Jacques Offenbach's opera “ Hoffmanns Erzählungen ” when lighting the stage. Due to the chain of unfortunate circumstances and technical negligence, the fire spread to the auditorium at breakneck speed. 386 people were killed. Especially the visitors in the upper tiers fell victim to the architectural deficiencies of the 1700-seat auditorium. The ashes of the dead, which were no longer individually identifiable, were buried in a grave of honor with the names of the victims in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 30 A at the main gate 2). The sculptor Rudolf Weyr (1847–1914) created one of the most impressive allegories of his creative period with the mourning Vindobona, the allegory of the city of Vienna. Since the artillery bombardment during the conquest of Vienna in World War II , only one torso of the grave monument has remained at the burial site. The balustrade, the steps and the palmette-decorated wall with the names of the victims were destroyed. The memorial in the cemetery was preserved by the municipality of Vienna in 1981 and provided with a commemorative plaque.

The fire in the Ringtheater caused general horror and consternation among the public at the time. However, one of the leading figures in German high culture, the composer Richard Wagner , commented critically:

“What sits together in such a theater is the most useless people. When workers are buried in a coal mine, I am seized and indignant. Then I feel horror at a society that gets heating in such a way. But if so and so many from this society perish while attending an Offenbach operetta, which does not show a trait of moral greatness, that leaves me indifferent. "

On December 15, 1882, a new theater law was passed in response to the fire disaster, the Vienna fire brigade was reorganized and the rescue company was founded. Theater director Heinrich Laube and Mayor von Newald were prosecuted. On December 15, 1882, the theater building on Ringstrasse was torn down.

Foundation of the Atonement House

Emperor Franz Joseph I explained in his handwriting to the fund director of December 24, 1882, his idea of ​​the conception of the atonement house as a mixture between a profane tenement house and a sacred place of remembrance:

“To my participation in the sad fate of the fire of the Ringtheater on December 8th. J. In order to give the casualties a permanent expression, I have decided to have a building with an appropriately designed memorial chapel built on the property of the Ring Theater belonging to the city expansion fund. A special foundation linked to the construction of this chapel will ensure that a funeral service is held every year for the victims of the devastating catastrophe. For the establishment of the chapel and the associated foundation, you have to agree what is necessary with the Prince-Archbishop. As far as the foundation building to be built is concerned, the proceeds of this should flow to Viennese charities and institutions for everlasting times. "

Planning and construction

Under the supervision of the fund director, Friedrich von Schmidt built the neo-Gothic atonement house until 1886 by combining a memorial chapel and an apartment building . For the architect from Württemberg , this order was of particular importance in two respects. The order of the emperor meant the highest reputation and at the same time the possibility to place his personally preferred architectural style, the neo-Gothic, after the construction of the New Vienna City Hall (planning and construction time 1868-1883) in a further secular building in the area of ​​the Ringstrasse. The direct award of the contract to Schmidt meant that the architect could decide for himself regarding the style. In his first draft, Schmidt designed the atonement house to be built asymmetrically and emphasized the sacred character of the foundation building through a special design. When the plan was presented, however, the draft did not receive His Majesty's approval. In the final draft, Schmidt had to correct the central elevation in favor of a more intensive integration of the chapel into the facade on the Ringstrasse side, so that the profane character of a residential building came to the fore at the expense of a more sacred effect.

Schmidt also had to reorganize the interior room layout of the atonement house in favor of an expansion of the available living space in order to enable higher rental income. The foundation stone was finally laid in 1882. In order to accelerate the progress of construction, work was also carried out on Sundays and public holidays, contrary to the legal requirements. According to newspaper reports, several workers were killed during the rapid construction work. 370 pylons were driven into the ground to secure the foundation. The foundation of the Atonement House integrated the existing foundations of the demolished Ring Theater. Bricks from the burned-out theater were also reused for the construction of the building. The master builder and stonemason Paul Wasserburger acted as the construction manager of the atonement house. The topping-out ceremony was celebrated in 1884. On January 26, 1886, in the presence of Emperor Franz Josef I and Crown Prince Rudolf, the keystone was ceremoniously laid and an office of soul was read for the victims of the fire disaster of 1882. For the opening ceremony, the KK Hauptmünzamt minted silver commemorative medals. The Latin inscription on the medal reads: “Hominum trecentorum septuaginta sex qui anno MDCCCLXXXI die VIII decembris theatri incendio perierunt. Memorie piusque causis Franciscus Josephus I MDCCCLXXXV “(German translation: Dedicated to the 376 people who died in the theater fire on December 8, 1881. In memory of Franz Joseph I., 1885.)

Fire and demolition of the Atonement House

In 1945 the atonement house was badly damaged in a fire that had spread from the neighboring police headquarters at Schottenring 11 to the building at Schottenring 9 and the atonement house. The police headquarters were set on fire shortly before the city of Vienna was conquered in 1945 for the purpose of destroying incriminating files. The structure of the atonement was burned out, but the iron roof structure and the masonry parts had withstood. Despite the possibility of reconstruction, the atonement house was not restored, left to decay for several years and finally demolished in 1951 together with the neighboring house Schottenring 9. Some of the stained glass windows of the memorial chapel of the Atonement House, which were preserved during the fire, were reused a little later in the wooden church of the parish of the Assumption of Mary in the north of Vienna and can still be seen there today. At the location of the atonement house, the seat of the then Federal Police Directorate Vienna and today's State Police Directorate Vienna was built in 1974 by the architect Alfred Dreier (1910–1987) as a simple, white grid facade building made of concave frame elements with large, lattice-free window panes, with the addition of the neighboring property Schottenring 9 . Today a plaque on the police building commemorates the fire.

Architectural design

The atonement house was a four-storey built-in house with a richly structured roof structure. The facade of the Atonement House facing the Ringstrasse was built symmetrically. Tower-like risalits set striking accents on the sides . The center was emphasized by the entrance projections. A statue of an angel with a Habsburg coat of arms rose above the pointed arched entrance portal, which was intended to draw the visitor's attention to the imperial donor. The design of the angel came from Johann Dorer. In addition, the emperor's initials were placed in laurel wreaths to the left and right of the portal. The high-gothic form of the bel étage , in which the entrance to the memorial chapel was located, was accentuated by the particularly rich use of decorative elements: balconies on the side projections, six-part tracery galleries like those on Schmidt's Ringstrasse town hall and the tracery rose of the chapel spanning the fourth floor with a rich program of figures . The tracery gallery on the first floor is likely to have its sources of inspiration in palaces in Venice , such as the Ca 'd'Oro from the early 15th century on the Grand Canal . The architectural design of the chapel area of ​​the central risalit, with the buttresses , the crab-adorned pointed gable, the tracery gallery, the flanking pinnacle structures and the pointed roof turret, cites the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris from the middle of the 13th century. The top floor, with its two rectangular ribbon windows, which are divided into two rows of nine-part arcades, again took up forms of the early Gothic. The eaves of the atonement house was adorned with a surrounding tracery railing made of four-passports. The corner towers with their tabernacle-like balconies had pointed four-sided roofs, the tips of which were again highlighted with four side towers.

The polygonal chapel with galleries was designed as a pillarless central building and extended over the two upper floors. The inner walls were structured with blind arcades. While the lower area had a one-part arcade structure, the upper area was multi-part. The blind arcades were filled with paintings of saints. The Passion of Christ was also discussed. A large rose window in the high Gothic style with the head of Christ crowned with thorns in a wreath of angels formed part of the altar wall, the altar of which was designed as a simple stone table altar on three Stipes columns. The lamb of God could be seen in the pointed gusset of the altar window . An arch with the round medallions of the twelve apostles adorned the immediate rear wall of the altar table. The blind arcades under the rose window were decorated on the outside of the building with the Habsburg saints Sophia , Joseph , Franziskus and Elisabeth . The entire painting of the chapel was done by Franz Jobst (1840–1890). The chapel bore the patronage of the Immaculate Conception . On December 8th, the anniversary of the fire, which is also the day of the ecclesiastical feast of the Conception of Mary, a mass was held for the redemption of the souls of the victims of the fire from purgatory .

Famous tenants

Despite cheap rents, not all apartments were initially rented, as the tragic event associated with this place had not been long ago. On October 1, 1886, one of the first tenants was Sigmund Freud , a lecturer in nervous diseases at the University of Vienna , who had recently married. When Freud's daughter Mathilde was born in Apartment XII (back of the Atonement House, Maria-Theresienstrasse 8) in the Atonement House in 1887, Emperor Franz Josef I is said to have sent a vase to congratulate the first newborn at the site of the accident. On May 14, 1891, 19-year-old Pauline Silberstein from Brăila (1871-1891, née Theiler), a patient of Sigmund Freud and wife of his childhood friend Eduard Silberstein (1856-1925), fell to her death in the stairwell of the Atonement House. The following autumn, Freud moved to the nearby Berggasse 19.

From November 1, 1886, the architect of the atonement house Schmidt rented apartment II. He paid a reduced rent because he agreed to monitor the state of the house. On the occasion of the completion of the Atonement House, Schmidt was raised to the baron status. Schmidt died on October 23, 1891 in his apartment in the Atonement House at Schottenring 7 and was laid out in the Atonement Chapel from January 24 to 25, 1891 with the permission of Emperor Franz Joseph.

Cinematic adaptations

  • With the building of the Sühnhauses and the subsequent history of the address Schottenring 7, which deals Documentary Sühnhaus Maya McKechneay. The film premiered at the Viennale in 2016 .

literature

  • Felix Czeike : Historisches Lexikon Wien, Volume 1: A – Da, Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-218-00543-4 .
  • Gustav Gugitz: Bibliography on the history and urban history of Vienna, ed. from the Association for Regional Studies of Lower Austria and Vienna, Volume 3: General and Special Topography of Vienna, Vienna: 1956, p. 431.
  • Kaiserliches Stiftungshaus (Sühnhaus), Vienna 1, Schottenring 7, in: Peter Haiko, Renata Kassal-Mikula: Friedrich von Schmidt (1825–1891), A Gothic Rationalist (= Historical Museum of the City of Vienna, special exhibition 148), Museums of the City of Vienna , Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-85202-102-2 , pp. 144-147.
  • Franz Neumann: The kk foundation house (atonement house) in Vienna by Friedrich Freiherr von Schmidt, Vienna 1891.
  • Justus Schmidt and Hans Tietze: Dehio Wien, Vienna: A. Schroll 1954 (Bundesdenkmalamt: Die Kunstdenkmäler Österreichs), p. 80 f.
  • Technical guide through Vienna, ed. by the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects, edited by Martin Paul, Vienna 1910, p. 500.
  • Karl Wache: Farewell to the Atonement House. In: Wiener Zeitung, May 30, 1951
  • Renate Wagner-Rieger [Ed.]: The Ringstrasse, picture of an epoch, The expansion of the inner city of Vienna under Emperor Franz Joseph, 11 volumes, Wiesbaden 1969–1981, p. 146, p. 185 ff.
  • Renate Wagner-Rieger: Vienna's Architecture in the 19th Century, Vienna: 1970, p. 191.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gustav Gugitz: Bibliography on the history and urban history of Vienna, ed. from the Association for Regional Studies of Lower Austria and Vienna, Volume 3: General and Special Topography of Vienna, Vienna 1956, p. 451.
  2. ^ Walter Hummelberger: The fortifications of Vienna (Wiener Geschichtsbücher, 14), Vienna 1974, p. 37.
  3. ^ Richard Perger: Streets, Towers and Basteien, The street network of the Vienna City in its development and its name (research and contributions to Viennese city history, 22), Vienna 1991.
  4. ^ Ferdinand Opll: Old Borders in the Vienna Area, (Commentaries on the Historical Atlas of Vienna, 4), Vienna 1986, p. 71.
  5. ↑ http://www.viennatouristguide.at/Friedhoefe/Zentralfriedhof/Opfergraeber/o_02_1881ring.htm , accessed on December 29, 2018.
  6. ↑ https://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/sendung/kalenderblatt/0812-Ringtheater100.html , accessed on December 26, 2018.
  7. ↑ a b c d e Friedrich von Schmidt (1825–1891), A Gothic Rationalist, ed. from the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna, catalog for the 148th special exhibition from September 12 to October 27, 1991, Town Hall, Volkshalle, Vienna 1991, pp. 144–147.
  8. ^ Alfred Dreier in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  9. ↑ Lukas Wieselberg: Freud's roots in the Unglückshaus In: ORF.at , December 8, 2016.
  10. ^ Friedrich von Schmidt (1825-1891), A Gothic Rationalist, ed. from the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna, catalog for the 148th special exhibition from September 12 to October 27, 1991, City Hall, Volkshalle, Vienna 1991, pp. 78–79.
  11. ↑ Margarete Affenzeller: Read in the Ashes of History In: Der Standard , October 25, 2016.
  12. ↑ Alexandra Seibel: Those who sat in the cheap seats paid with their lives In: Kurier , October 24, 2016.
  13. ↑ Christine Imlinger: Searching for traces in the ashes of the Ringtheater In: Die Presse , December 3, 2016.
  14. ↑ [1] , on viennale.at. Retrieved November 29, 2017

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 53 "  N , 16 ° 21 ′ 48"  E