Theophil von Hansen

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Theophil Hansen, lithograph by Josef Bauer, 1880

Theophil Edvard Hansen , in Austria from 1867 Ritter von Hansen, from 1884 Baron von Hansen (born July 13, 1813 in Copenhagen , †  February 17, 1891 in Vienna ) was a Danish - Austrian master builder and architect of classicism and historicism .

Life

A column capital of the Lysikrates monument , drawing by Hansen

Theophil Hansen was one of six children of the violinist and insurance clerk Rasmus Hansen Braathen (1774-1824) from Eiker ( Viken , Norway ) and of Sophie Elisabeth Jensen from Nyboder near Copenhagen. His brother was the architect Hans Christian Hansen (1803-1883). They were not related to the rather Roman-inspired Danish classicism pioneer Christian Frederik Hansen , who was born in 1756, but based on his work with their strong reference to Greece: Both brothers built in Athens , i.e. in the vicinity of the original models on the Acropolis .

After an apprenticeship with Karl Friedrich Schinkel and his studies in Vienna, Theophil Hansen moved to Athens in 1837 , where he mainly studied Greek and Hellenistic architecture. Hansen began to draw classicist building designs, which convinced the Athens city planner Eduard Schaubert (a business partner of his brother Hans Christian Hansen ) to recommend him for building projects. The Athens observatory was his first building contract, and other buildings followed. Hansen stayed in Athens for eight years. From the 1860s onwards, Hansen's site manager in Athens was the Saxon architect Ernst Ziller , a student of Hansen.

The Greek-Austrian banker Georg Simon von Sina , who valued Hansen's buildings in Athens, brought him to Vienna (according to another source, Hansen was brought to Vienna by Förster) so that he could implement his Viennese building projects in the “Greek style”. Hansen also worked in Vienna as an assistant to Ludwig Förster . He married his daughter Sophie (1830-1851), but she died after only six months of marriage. She was buried in the Sankt Marxer Friedhof , at that time still outside the city gates.

In its beginnings, for example at the kk Hof-Waffenmuseum in the arsenal in Vienna, Hansen was more oriented towards a romantic style, later Hansen became the most outstanding representative of the strict Renaissance- oriented historicism ( neo-renaissance ), which he also called the Viennese style . This style extended down to the smallest details of the interior design and sometimes took on the traits of a total work of art .

The kk Hof-Waffenmuseum (today's Army History Museum ) was the first museum building planned as such in Vienna and was built under the direction of Hansen from 1850 to 1856, but was not open to the public for the first time until 1869. Hansen used a historical building as a model: the arsenal in Venice, built from 1104 onwards . He took over the Byzantine style elements and added gothic elements. The brick construction method was also adopted for this plant .

In 1858 the demolition of the Vienna city walls and the construction of the Vienna Ringstrasse began . Hansen became one of its most important architects. During the construction of the two Viennese court museums, the Art History Museum and the Natural History Museum opposite the Hofburg , his design was not used in the 1860s. Instead of the two buildings requested on the sides of Maria-Theresien-Platz , he proposed a massive, central building block, which the Emperor rejected.

From 1869 to 1873 the building (unhistorically) called Palais Hansen (hotel, later an official building, now a hotel again) was built on the Schottenring according to Hansen's plans. From 1873 to 1877 the building of the Vienna Stock Exchange was built according to his plans, also on Schottenring .

His best-known work was the Reichsratsgebäude (Parliament), which opened in 1883 and was built in the style of an Attic temple and thus refers to the Greek beginnings of democracy .

The building of the Wiener Musikverein , built by him and opened in 1870, has one of the best concert halls in the world, the so-called Golden Hall . Its much-admired acoustics are still often imitated in concert buildings today.

Hansen preferred to work with the sculptor Vincenz Pilz and the painter Carl Rahl , and the young Otto Wagner and Hans Wilhelm Auer were among his collaborators.

Honors, commemorations

Hansen's honorary grave in Vienna's central cemetery

In 1863 Hansen was made an honorary citizen of the city of Vienna. In 1867 Emperor Franz Joseph I raised him to the knighthood. In 1868 he was appointed professor at the academy (until 1883) and in 1884 he was elevated to the status of Austrian baron by the emperor . Hansen was an important and valued teacher. During his lifetime , the "Hansen Club" was founded in 1886 by his admiring students and disciples, including Otto Wagner and Louis von Giacomelli , which existed until 1917.

After his death in 1891 he was buried in the Matzleinsdorf Evangelical Cemetery and in 1895 reburied in a grave of honor in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 14A, number 20). The tombstone comes from George Niemann and was modeled on that of Franz Schubert . (The grave monument of Schubert comes from Hansen.)

In 1894 the Viennese city administration in the 1st district renamed the street immediately behind the Palais Epstein, built by Hansen next to the parliament, to Hansenstrasse ; Hansen had died in 1891 in house number 3 on this street.

In 1905 a bronze bust by Hansen by Hugo Haerdtl was unveiled at the portico of Parliament .

The then still independent municipality of Mauer bei Wien , today part of the 23rd district , named Theophil-Hansen-Gasse in 1928 , which is still called that today.

Works

Hansen's draft for the Athens observatory
Ballroom of the Wiener Musikverein (1864–1870)
Hernstein Castle in the English Gothic style (1856–1880), drawing by Hansen

(sorted by year of completion; today's addresses)

Without construction data:

literature

Web links

Commons : Theophil von Hansen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolf Seidl: Bavaria in Greece. P. 237 (via Google Books)
  2. ↑ books.google.de
  3. ↑ (obituary):  Marie Hansen. In:  Der Architekt , born 1895, p. 20, below. (Online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / arc
  4. ^ Resignation , Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , January 27, 1883, p. 38, accessed on December 16, 2012.
  5. ^ Theophil Hansen's grave monument in the Central Cemetery. In:  The Architect , born in 1895, p. 39, top left. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / arc.
  6. ^ Ro Raftl: Wilhelminian style villa: Who owns ... In: trend.at. October 22, 2007, accessed December 29, 2015 .
  7. ^ Message on the website of the district gazette of February 2, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Hansen, Theophil von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hansen, Theophil Edvard Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish-Austrian architect of historicism
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1813
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH February 17, 1891
Place of death Vienna