Altmannsdorf Castle

Altmannsdorf Castle

Niche figure of St. Anna

Altmannsdorf Castle Garden

Plastic of a Bacchus with a faun in the castle park

The Altmannsdorf Castle is a former Biedermeier country house in the center of Altmannsdorf . The building is located at Khleslplatz 12 in Vienna's 12th district of Meidling and housed the Renner Institute and the Altmannsdorf Garden Hotel until 2017 .

history

At the site of the later castle building in the center of Altmannsdorf, there was originally an estate known as the Oswaldhof. The estate comprised 2 fiefs, 14 farmsteads and associated fields "below the Wienerberg" and formed a unit in the 15th century with the St. Oswald chapel (see Altmannsdorf Church ), the Oswaldhof and a keeper's house. The owner, the Viennese citizen and councilor Erhart Griesser , inherited the property in 1444 to the Order of the Augustinians with Shoe on Landstrasse . The Augustinians immediately set up their administrative headquarters (Augustinerhof) and from then on exercised the lordship over Altmannsdorf, but did not manage the land belonging to the farm. The fighting during the first Turkish siege of Vienna in 1529 destroyed the building. The building, which was only poorly rebuilt in 1539, was lent to a Lower Austrian chamberlain as a treasure trove in 1570. After a few other feudal owners, the Augustinians took it over again in 1652. During the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683, the farm yard was destroyed again and then rebuilt with changes.

The Napoleonic troops set up a field hospital in Augustinerhof in 1809. After the Augustinian order was dissolved in 1812, the manor and with it the building came to the Lower Austrian State Goods Directorate of the Lower Austrian Religious Fund. In 1818 or 1819 Johann Baptist Hoffmann bought the estate for 52,300 guilders and had the farm converted into a Biedermeier country house, which was now called Altmannsdorf Castle . After Hoffmann's death, the castle belonged to his daughter Anna and her husband Johann von Hoffinger from 1856 and in 1866 was used for billeting of Saxon troops. In 1899 she sold the building for 400,000 guilders to Julius Frankl, whose son Robert had numerous changes made. At that time the art historian Dagobert Frey lived as a tenant in the castle; the family friends of the brewery owner Moriz von Kuffner stayed here in the summer. In 1926 Frankl signed over the property to his wife Maria, who in 1953 sold part of the property to a housing association that built a residential complex here. In 1967 the castle, which was already in a very poor and dilapidated condition, including the castle park, was listed as a historical monument .

In 1973 the Renner Institute, an educational institution and the political academy of the Socialist Party of Austria , acquired the property for 8.55 million schillings. Together with the Federal Monuments Office and municipal authorities, the Renner Institute had the old Altmannsdorf Castle renovated by 1978 for 38.36 million schillings. In 1980, the Altmannsdorf Garden Hotel was also built on the site and connected to the castle, so that seminars could begin. Since then, numerous prominent international politicians and politically active people have been guests here for lectures and discussion events. The Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Renner Institute's political book was also awarded here. The institute has a specialist social science library.

In June 2017, the SPÖ's Federal Party Presidium and Federal Party Executive Board decided to sell the Altmannsdorf Garden Hotel. At the beginning of January 2018, the hotel was sold to an Austrian group and had its last day of operation.

Building description

The building, originally from the Renaissance , has been changed several times over the course of time through renovations and new constructions. The core dates from around 1700 and consists of a two-storey complex that was originally designed with four wings and is now characterized by a protruding east wing. The facade to the Khleslplatz is simple and has a wide arched gate with a rustic frame and stone walls. Next to it, to the west to Oswaldgasse, is a wing that was newly built in the 19th century and is decorated with a niche figure of St. Anna is adorned with the Child Mary from the middle of the century. On the courtyard side there is a formerly open groin-vaulted arcade .

In the east wing there are two rooms facing the garden on the ground floor, which have groin vaults and a needle cap barrel, probably from the beginning of the 18th century. The whole wing was rebuilt in a Biedermeier style around 1820 and has a facade accented by a gabled mezzanine and a flight of stairs. The side axes are also gabled and framed by flat colossal pilasters . The interior was largely redesigned for the Renner Institute. In the staircase and in some of the halls there are still stucco-framed ceilings from around 1820. The new garden hotel was added to the north.

In the castle park there is a greenhouse from the first half of the 19th century, which was heavily changed during the last renovation and now serves as a restaurant. Here are the cast iron sculptures of Marsyas playing the flute and a Bacchus with a faun, as well as two sandstone lions. A pyramid poplar and a copper beech are listed as natural monuments, and there are two fig trees on the southern front.

literature

• Erika Appel: From Oswaldhof to Dr. Karl Renner Institute ; in: sheets of the district museum Meidling 27/1991
• Dehio-Handbuch Wien X. to XIX. and XXI. to XXIII. District . Verlag Anton Schroll, Vienna 1996.
• Felix Czeike: Historical Lexicon Vienna Vol. 1 . Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1992

Web links

Commons : Schloss Altmannsdorf  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Renner Institute website, history of the house

Individual evidence

1. ↑ diepresse.com: SPÖ parted ways with Gartenhotel Altmannsdorf . Article dated June 14, 2017, accessed June 16, 2017.
2. ↑ SPÖ sells hotel for debt repayment orf.at, January 17, 2018, accessed January 17, 2018.

Coordinates: 48 ° 9 ′ 47.6 "  N , 16 ° 19 ′ 19.7"  E