Südbahnhotel – Wikipedia
The Südbahnhotel is a former Grand Hotel on the Semmering Pass in Austria that has existed since 1882. It is within sight of the Semmeringbahn (Austrian Südbahn) passing the passport. The Südbahnhotel was the first hotel on Semmering and contributed significantly to its promotion to an important climatic health resort. However, it has been empty for decades.
After the Südbahngesellschaft had completed its work on the establishment of its rail network in the 1870s, it turned to the construction of buildings along the areas developed by the train. The town of Semmering on the pass height was easy to reach in about two hours from Vienna due to the pioneering performance of the Semmeringbahn, a section of the southern railway line and should now be expanded into a holiday and climatic health resort. In this context, the first of a whole series of railway hotels in the Südbahn was built here at exactly 1000 m above sea level. The style of the Hotels of the Südbahngesellschaft followed a uniform scheme initially, they were planned by railway engineers. As a result, these buildings, the stylistic main feature of which is the visual levy facade, act very soberly and show hardly any decorative accessories. This sober appearance of the hotels only changed when independent, state -authored architects were commissioned. As a result, the buildings were shaped by the new style of late historism, which was also provided with a large extension for the Südbahnhotel am Semmering (1901–1903).
The Hotel am Semmering’s Hotel began in 1880 on the initiative of Friedrich Julius Schüler, the general director of the Südbahngesellschaft. The hotel, similar to the Grand Hotel-Tobblach and the structure of the spa town of Abbazia (now Opatija), which started in the 1880s, should be the center of the k.u.k-Riviera, additional sources of income for the Südbahngesellschaft are opened up. In 1881 the reason for the Hotel am Semmering was acquired, whereby the situation was supposed to provide a unique panorama. The hotel should offer guests any comfort and, by the establishment of further infrastructure and sports facilities, should meet the amenities of today’s all-inclusive resort.
Within 14 months [Note 1] If the hotel was built according to a design by the house architect of the Südbahngesellschaft, Wilhelm von Flattich (1826–1900), which had already planned the Vienna Südbahnhof in 1873 and the Südbahnhotel in Toblach in 1878. There were three floors with 60 foreign rooms as well as bathing facilities, play, smoke and women’s salons, a postal and telegraphbureau and a restoration building that contained a large dining room and the economic space. In addition, there should be an associated Meierhof near the hotel, stables for the horses, draws for the carriages and cars as well as a washing facility. The Südbahngesellschaft built a road from Semmering station to the hotel and the necessary water pipe. On July 15, 1882, the house was openly opened. Vinzenz Panhans (1841–1905) was won as the first restaurant tenant. He had started his professional career as a cook in the Vienna Hotel Lamm and later became the sharpest competitor of the Südbahnhotel with his own house, the Hotel Panhans.
At the beginning, the Semmering, similar to Reichenau on the Rax, lived from the myth of the Habsburg. Immediately after the opening of the first Semmeringhotel in 1882 and the associated villas, the highest circles of the Viennese society, Archduke and Minister, even Empress Elisabeth enjoyed the Alpine Sommerfischen in the high air near Vienna. Visiting such significant members of high -aristocracy was an important factor for the development of the Semmering. But from the beginning, however, prominent hotels were financially dependent on an audience from the new high finance from the beginning, because this social class was much more generous than the traditional nobility. In the mainaisons, all houses on Semmering were fully booked and numerous shops subsequently opened along the Hochstraße.
The Semmering developed: After the construction of the Südbahnhotel, not only the villas (such as the Semmering villa colony according to the guidelines of the Cottage movement) shot out of the ground, but also other hotels were built. Vinzenz Panhans opened his own Hotel Panhans in 1888, and the Kurhaus Semmering was completed in 1909.
The Südbahngesellschaft was therefore prompted around 1900 to increase its hotel area on Wolfsbergkogel according to the then most modern guidelines of the international hotel business. Also because of the rivalry between the Panhans and the Südbahnhotel, it remained even more popular with the hometown of the castle and castle romance, which was particularly popular with increased emphasis on the home, which was particularly popular in conservative circles.
Architecture and interior design [ Edit | Edit the source text ]
The Grand Hotel was visible from afar and soon became the symbol of Semmering. When he was completed in 1903, the appearance of Alfred Wildhack was the appearance [first] Together with Robert Guido Elio, Freiherr v. Morpurgo planned new Südbahnhotels in all areas the ideas of a “palace hotel”, the most luxurious form of the upscale hotel category. A dominant tower, which was staggered towards the middle, in which the main climbing house was housed and under which there is a wooden change, was part of the architectural language of this wing, such as the two lined onion turrets, the careful smoke catches and the complex roof landscape covered with beaver tail. Above all, the middle risalite, the main roof pulled down and the richly decorated wooden balconies shaped the image of this construction phase. The impression of a representative altitude residence is well intended. Rural flair, on the other hand, is mainly achieved by rustic details, such as base made of humpback blocks, wood -controlled windows and half -timbered. This design language of the home style, inspired by traditional, alpine architecture, can also be found in the simpler side buildings, such as the dairy.
In addition to these external characteristics, the presence of a highly positioned, partly aristocratic audience was the most important sensitors of a “palace hotel”. In addition to the guests from the old, aristocratic circles, the new Südbahnhotel am Semmering also offered the new wealthy clientele a corresponding setting for self -expression. This took place in and around the hotel and continued on the promenade. This was almost for Exterior social space of the house. What rank and names strolled on her in the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy, but above all to see, but above all to be seen.
In the house itself, the salons, such as the “red” salon, play and smoke room, offered the opportunity to self-present and who entered the red sisall runners of the Bel floor, was, as it was so beautiful at the time, “either attributable the cream of society- Or room waiter … “. The Hotel Director Seibt from Prussia hovered above the two groups: Always accompanied by a small three -legged dog, referred to by contemporary witnesses as “real dog”, he not only led the command of an army of employees, he also cleverly led social direction among his guests. In omnipresent in Halle and Bel floor, he kept the luxury entertainment machine going for over a quarter of a century, avoided or promoted the meeting of guests, arranged appearances and exits in the never-ending chain of fine actors.
The equipment of the rooms was not inferior to the guests’ noblesse. For the most part of the art furniture studio Bothe and Ehrmann, K. u. K. Court supplier, Vienna I/Agram designed and manufactured, the interior was hardly suitable for the other. Nevertheless, a certain uniformity was intended in the light, oak veneered and cherry -colored furniture. The fine differences resulted from the detail, the pattern of the Intarsia, the strips and shapes. There were, for example, glass -covered mirror tables with angular or oval mirrors, wider or narrower, real desks etc. Noble carpets covered the parquet. Luxurious washrooms and bathrooms were already taken for granted in 1903.
After smaller attachments and conversions in 1908 in 1912/13 a restoration tract, which was also planned by the two architects Wildhack and Morpurgo, added the “tract of the Great Halls” (dining room, green salon, yellow salon, library, forest courtyard, beerstüberl and cinema) with its wood -rust -placed terrace decks should remind a little of ship architecture. This went so far that the movable awning the terrace upstream of the Waldhofsaal embodied stylized ship davits.
On the ground floor there was a vestibule into the dining room, which was decorated with stucco, which, as an eye -catcher, had an alcove with a stage on the front, on which a concert wing made specially made for this hall. In addition to the three huge main lusters designed with ancient Egyptian motifs, countless ceiling shell lamps with polished lead crystal lens and gilded brass sheet frames on wooden plate provided on wooden plate.
Afterwards, the green salon is located on the side of the dining room, through which one reached the much smaller yellow salon. Both rooms are only partially in its original condition, in the green salon, which has been modernized several times, the missing rear -ventilated brass rosettes are particularly noticeable for the luster. They were replaced by stucco elements. A large outdoor terrace can also be reached via the green salon, which at the same time forms the roof of the post and telegraph office, which is now integrated into the staircase.
Above the dining room – and from the vestibule via an adjoining staircase, called “Waldhofstegen” – is a breakfast room, which was also used as a ballroom, the Waldhofsaal, from which one over a bridge arch, which is overcovered, and a subsequent Part of the underground passage in the “Waldhof” branch built in 1901. It was also possible to access the Waldhofsaal and the associated terrace from the room wing via a large staircase, which ran from the post wing to the top terrace, the “Promenadendek” above the Waldhofsaal. Next to it and separated from the hall by a glass door, the library is located, which, in addition to tense fabric wallpapers, also had an interesting radiator cladding. It consisted of interlocking square brass plates, which countered strictly geometrically and objectively carried out a modern detail to the historic atmosphere of the room.
In general, although still clearly arrested in historicism, there are always motifs of floral and occasionally also ornamental Art Nouveau in the tract of 1912. Rarely, however, there are strictly geometric details that already point in the direction of modernity. In the design of the outer skin, however, this construction phase has remained true to the historical concept except for the striking roof terraces. It is precisely this mixture of the styles that makes the ensemble so unique and has entered art history as a “semiering style”.
Also in the tract of 1912 there was also the largely gutted servant tract with the 12 meter high cuisine and its adjoining rooms. Like the halls, it had a fresh air, which was not unlike the turn of the theater at the turn of the century brought or the used air removed.
Below the kitchen is the so -called beer stem, a area equipped with plenty of painted shine, columns and a pseudorustic wood -paneled area, which had its own entrance and its own small kitchen. There was also a large hall at this level, which was used as a light theater. The tract of 1912/13 embodied the wasteful luxury of the time with natural ease and thus finally made the Südbahnhotel one, if not the leading house of Central and Eastern Europe. [Note 2] An appealing Art Nouveau advertising poster for the house was designed by the artist Gustav Jahn. [2]
Franz Panhans, the son of Panhan’s Vinzenz, who died in 1905, now commissioned the architecture firm Ferdinand Fellner & Hermann Helmer to enlarge his Hotel Panhans by a 128 -meter -long extension. After completing the new Grandhotel tract in 1913, the Panhans with 400 rooms belonged to one of the largest hotels in Central Europe. One spoke at least of the largest house on the continent.
Parks [ Edit | Edit the source text ]
In the garden design, the Südbahngesellschaft was based on English ideals by summarizing the landscape all around to a monumental park and enriching with additional buildings, such as a “dairy”. This park was mainly built to look at, although a romantic mood should also be created. The appearance of this garden at that time is difficult to reconstruct. It is only certain that the park was symmetrically designed with flower beds and an oval emphasis on the middle of the garden was formed. Before the “Waldhof” branch, a small alpine garden completed this special place.
In winter, the entire park of the Südbahnhotel was converted into a huge sports paradise with hotel -owned skiing and ice skating spaces, which were accessible by sled flexorization. There was also a bobsleigh and skeleton tracks, as well as a 2,000 m long toboggan run. This led from the Pinkel to the hotel. The Südbahnhotel also had its own ski jump on the Schiwiese of the hotel’s Golf area. This spacious sports plant construction and the favorable snow conditions made Semmering the most important winter sports resort in Austria. Especially in the interwar period, the FIS competitions attracted thousands of sports enthusiasts to Semmering.
As soon as the winter and motorsport at Semmering and around the Südbahnhotel developed, the summer sport also appeared. If the meadows were used for skiing in winter, they turned into a unique golf course in summer. The fact that a golf discount going down into the valley down into the valley was converted into a ski jump is curious.
In the interwar period, almost all existing hotels occurred at Semmering many conversion and extension buildings. The hotels were continuously modernized and their infrastructure was adapted to the last state of the art. One of the most important construction projects in the Südbahnhotel was the autogarage designed by Emil Hoppe and Otto Schönthal in 1929 with 46 boxing, some of which are heated, as well as a workshop, heatable washroom, gas station and comfortable chauffeur room. However, the finished first part of the garage was demolished in 1982 and replaced by a residential complex.
After the garage was built, a widening and redesign of the old hotel entrance area were planned from 1932. The new entrance area, which was also designed by the Otto-Wagner students Hoppe and Schönthal, which was made one of the former small hotel entrance from 1903 in 1934, since then, the striking tower foot. The dominant tower of the main house, the foot of which is now covered by the masonry of the entrance area, significantly changed its effect. This new, modern impression is reinforced by an upstream chief canopy. The foyer is now to be entered by a revolving door, at the highest point of which a square nickel -compressed watch is attached in the middle. Afterwards there are two telephone houses integrated in the rosewood shallow wooden structure, as well as the reception and concierge. Also integrated, albeit in the back of the foyer, and only recognizable for the visitor at second glance, was a second elevator, which was destroyed in the course of the renovation work in the early 1990s. The foyer is illuminated by three nickel-made frosted glass lighting lanes embedded in the ceiling. The room is divided by square pillars, the two linole -rehearsed desks of the reception and the revolving door with the two secondary doors. At that time, the revolving door established itself as an essential equipment detail of a Grand Hotel. It is a connecting element between the inside and outside also a control point that could be operated by a livraded pages. In the case of the Südbahnhotel, this page was easily recognized by its trademark, the Tellkäppi with the inscription “Südbahnhotel”, which, was held by a light brown leather strap, was worn on the head at an angle.
The original facility of the bar from the 1930s is still available for the most part today, although also due to the effects of time in a changed state. The details of the café, which are falling on the café, are a glass dome and a multi -colored glass window. But the cool elegance of this era, which was mixed with its dark wooden jugs, and the quadratical table, which was mixed with its dark wooden jugs and the quadratical table, is still shown.
The most important work of modernity is the indoor pool of the Südbahnhotel built in 1932 by the Wagner students and leading architects of the Austrian new objectivity, Emil Hoppe and Otto Schönthal. The then highly topical simplicity of the indoor swimming pool is particularly evident on the outer fronts, which consist of movable glass-sprout windows. These lie between the load -bearing pillars, which were covered inside with yellow marble plates. The bathroom itself was also equipped with a two-colored marble cladding. In the main color it was white with narrower, orange -red stripes. The partially preserved original seating also linked to this color concept. It was designed by the architects themselves clearly and functionally, made from orange -red lacquered tubular tube with wooden slat support and fabric back. Nickel-plated lighting bodies with four approx. 50 cm long electrical candles made on three levels made of square tube, completed the factual-modern ambience. The two architects, which are part of the innermost circle of students Otto Wagner next to Marcel Kammerer, placed their names in 5 cm high and 5 mm sublime nickel rifts in the passage from the main house to the bathroom. They also used the same letters two years later to label the pillars in the foyer, who served as an eye -catcher to the person who was in the way and should inform him about the possible activities during the stay.
Famous guests of the hotel in the interwar period were Oskar Kokoschka, Alma Mahler-Werfel, Adolf Loos, Koloman Moser and Gerhart Hauptmann. [3]
With the connection of Austria to the German Reich in March 1938, a time of steady decline began. Above all, the previously published, upper middle -class Jewish guests now failed to materialize. [4]
In April 1945, towards the end of the Second World War, the area around the hotel was the scene of violent fights between the later German 9th mountain division (East) and the Red Army, which tried to penetrate into Styria via the Semmering Pass. The Südbahnhotel was temporarily used by the German Wehrmacht as a battle stand. Particularly lossy fights raged for the laundry and the dairy of the hotel. Both building complexes were occupied by the advancing Soviet soldiers at the beginning of April and then recaptured in several counterattacks in which numerous soldiers on both sides were killed by alarm units, which were summarized in the German 9th mountain division in early May. [5]
After the end of the war, the company was resumed, but large business success failed in the following years. The Südbahnhotel had crossed its zenith and no longer met the changed requirements in tourism, the Semmering had become uninteresting as a travel destination. From the 1960s, the company was gradually decommissioned.
At the end of the 1960s, the Austrian property developer Siegfried Alexander Petritz took over the Südbahnhotel with all the associated properties. After the first hotel building was converted into a condominium in 1974, almost nothing has been preserved from the original facility of the Semmeringhotel from 1882. Only the facade, the ornamental mosaic floor in the vestibule and the wooden staircase lying in the axial building with the floral cast iron railing and the wooden handrail are largely maintained and go back to the time of 1882. As part of this division, the “Waldhof” branch, which was created in 1901, was converted into an apartment house according to the zeitgeist at the time. The hotel operations ended in 1976. [6]
Gradually, the golf course with the dairy, the branch next to the Kurhaus, the reason of the former garage and the old laundry were also separated. From 1994 to 2021, the properties of the hotel and thus the building itself were owned by the Bavaria Clinic, which operates rehabilitation clinics. [7] The hotel building is not used intensively. After a partial renovation in the early 1990s, the main house and the restoration tract of 1912/13 were empty by the German owner, which primarily affected the roof landscape and parts of the house technology. From 2000 to 2010, the Reichenau Festival played the building in the summer months, which, with its comparatively few rooms remaining in the main tract, actually resembles a theater building than a hotel. [8]
In the summer of 2006 the Südbahnhotel was to be sold to a Liechtenstein group of investors, but this failed. [9] The doors of the Südbahnhotel remained closed by summer 2017. From this season the Culture.sommer.semmering Under director Florian Krumpöck, the Südbahnhotel as a venue. [ten] [11]
On November 5, 2021, by selling the Südbahnhotel Semmering from the Bavaria Rudolf Presl GmbH Clinic, a 100% of the Christian Zeller private foundation, SBH Immobilienbesitz GmbH [7] , reports, which intends to revitalize as a hotel with use for culture. [twelfth] Governor and the State Tourism Council are confident. [13] The artistic director became Ingrid Skovhus who Culture.sommer.semmering moved to the Hotel Panhans. [11] In 2023, Paulus Manker will be performed the legendary simultaneous drama “Alma” in the Südbahnhotel.
-
The first hotel of the Südbahngesellschaft am Semmering (around 1890)
-
The extended hotel in 1908, on the left on the mountain the Silvererschlössl
-
The empty hotel ensemble 2017
-
-
Mixing of different construction styles on the part of the building at the hotel access
-
Guests on the high road in front of Hotel and Rax (1939)
-
Entrance area with staircase tower
-
The picturesque roof landscape with a view against the Rax
-
Empty swimming pool from 1932 in Art Deco
-
Former entrance hall of the hotel
-
-
-
-
Medium wing of the hotel over the former swimming pool
-
-
Hotel dairy, terrain of the golf course (2017)
-
The hotel from the air with a view of Polleroswand, Adlitzgraben and Rax
-
Former telegraph office in the hotel
-
Oldest part of the hotel complex
-
The Südbahnhotel with its large halls and salons, which has been enthroned on a mountain for decades, is said to have significantly inspired the American director Wes Anderson for his film Grand Budapest Hotel. [3]
- Desiree Vasko-Juhasz: The Südbahn. Your health resorts and hotels . Böhlau, Vienna u. 2006, ISBN 3-205-77404-3, ( Semmering architecture first).
- Guido Friedl: The architect Wilhelm von Flattich (1826-1900) . Association of the scientific societies of Austria VwGÖ, Vienna 1979, ISBN 3-85369-396-2, ( Dissertations of the University of Vienna 141), (at the same time: Vienna, Univ., Diss., 1973).
- Südbahnhotel. On the magic mountain of absence. Photographs by Yvonne Oswald. Jewish Museum Vienna, 2014
- ↑ Architecturlexicon Alfred Wildhack
- ↑ Von: Bernhard Distors: Gustav Jahn (1879–1919). In: Austrian Posters. 10. August 2019, accessed on August 19, 2021 (German).
- ↑ a b 28 11 2015 One 00:28: Semmering: A journey through time to the Südbahnhotel. 28. November 2015, accessed on August 19, 2021 .
- ↑ A woman. A hotel. A story. – Lower Austria Magazin. Accessed on August 19, 2021 .
- ↑ Journal of the Austrian Federal Army Edition 5/2003: Semmering, April 1945-The fights for the Südbahn vineyard , Author Friedrich Brettner
- ↑ 28 11 2015 One 00:28: Semmering: A journey through time to the Südbahnhotel. 28. November 2015, accessed on August 19, 2021 .
- ↑ a b Official land register of the catastral community 23124 Kurort Semmering, district court in Neunkirchen, number 629: Bavaria Rudolf Presl GmbH clinic. (accessed November 6, 2021). From October 2021 SBH Immobilienbesitz GmbH (FN 566256F) (accessed June 15, 2022).
- ↑ Festival program Südbahnhotel Semmering
- ↑ Report on the sale of the hotel.
- ↑ Kultur.sommer.Semmering: History of the Festival. In: Kultursommer-Semmering.at. Accessed on June 10, 2022 .
- ↑ a b In June, an opening weekend was announced for the 140th anniversary of the construction in June. Südbahnhotel starts new cultural era. In: ORF.AT. 10. June 2022, accessed on June 10, 2022 .
- ↑ Hannes Steindl, noe.ORF.at: Südbahnhotel: Hotel operation planned from 2025. January 12, 2022, accessed on July 24, 2022 .
- ↑ Südbahnhotel is said to be a hotel again orf.at, November 5, 2021, accessed November 5, 2021.
- ↑ The foundation stone was laid on May 29, 1881. – Please refer: From the area. (…) Semmering-Hotel. In: Badener district leaf , No. 23/1881 (1st year), June 4, 1881, p. 5, top right (online at Anno).
- ↑ The hotel itself applies in 1914 with 300 rooms. – Please refer: Südbahnhotel Semmering. In: Wiener Zeitung , No. 28/1914, February 5, 1914, p. 12. (Online at Anno).
Recent Comments