Palais Caprara-Geymüller

The Palais Caprara - Geymüller is a finished in 1698 palace in the first district of Vienna. It is located in the Wallnerstraße 8 and one of the oldest Baroque buildings in Vienna.

History

17th to 18th century

1687 bought originally from a Bolognese family Field Marshal Enea Silvio Count of Caprara a house on the Wallnerstraße, but he had it torn very soon. Eleven years later, on behalf of the Count of Caprara, built of which also came from Bologna architect Domenico Egidio Rossi Palais Caprara. He based his design on the then common in Italy palace architecture. For the main portal, cornices, steps and other components of hard Kaiserstein from the Imperial quarry was used.

Beginning of the 18th century, structural changes were made, the two statues of Atlas Eggenburger stone have been added at the front gate, for example. Then remained the Palais nearly 100 years in the possession of the Caprara family until it was purchased in 1796 by Carl Prince of Liechtenstein. A year later it became the property of Baron Wimmer, before 1798 the French ambassador Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, later King of Sweden, the Palais rented. But as he hoisted the tricolor on April 13, at a party, he had to leave the country in the same year as there were riots among the people.

End of 1798 bought Johann Heinrich and Johann Jakob Geymüller the building that meant from now on Palais Caprara - Geymüller. Johann Jakob Geymüller was a wealthy industrialist and banker, and he owned, among other things, the so-called Geymüllerschlössel in Pötzleinsdorf. The brothers Geymüller left the interiors of the palace in the Empire style redesign.

19th century to today

After the financial ruin of the bank Geymüller the building was sold in 1897, among other Barons to the Pouthon and 1905 in the province of Lower Austria, which took it from the beginning of 1912 as a national museum. In addition to private owners in the Palais Caprara - Geymüller had their headquarters after a general renovation from 1986 to 1988 by the current owner, a real estate company, the house was used until 2000 as the residence of the Syrian Embassy and the Consular Section of the British Embassy. Since 2001, the Vienna Stock Exchange and related companies, among others, since April 2007 have their headquarters here, the Bronner Online AG. In October 2007, the Austrian subsidiary of Thomson Financial moved into the building.

Architecture

Since the Palais Caprara - Geymüller has a rather unusual design for the baroque Vienna, the Vienna initially found little pleasure in it, but they were soon impressed by the massive construction of the inserted itself into the urban landscape without problems. The facade consists of a five-axis and the central projection a two-axle side projection. The horizontal panel layout is done by cornices on the floors. In addition, the windows of the piano nobile are alternately decorated with triangular gables and arches. Representative of the Italian palace architecture is the strict division of floors. The entrance gate is bounded by two atlases, which support the balcony above it. The entrance hall is a cross-laid wide portico, from which you access via a three-arm staircase to the first floor. The walls of the now divided the ballroom used to extend over the entire length of the building, were almost completely covered with architectural paintings after a restoration appeared. From the high-quality equipment Empire survived only two rooms: The Geymüller salon and the Pompeian room, but today in the Vienna Museum is located.