Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Greisenasyl
Ingenieur-Etzel-Straße 59
Worth knowing
"Wie der Bürgermeister in einer der letzten Gemeinderatssitzungen berichtete, trägt sich Herr von Sieberer mit dem Plan, hier ein großes, schönes Armenhaus zu errichten … Der Bau soll auf einer jetzt freistehenden Parzelle hinter dem Claudiaplatz, neben dem Südbahnviadukt errichtet werden und zwei gesonderte Trakte (einen für Frauen und einen für Männer) erhalten. Zwischen den Trakten ist die Erbauung einer Kapelle projektiert."
Das konnte man am 1. Juni 1907 als Innsbrucker der Presse rund um die Pläne des Gönners entnehmen, der die Wohnstätte für Innsbrucks Senioren plante. 1908 stiftete Johann von Sieberer das Innsbrucker Greisenasyl zur Ehre des 60jährigen Thronjubiläums von Kaiser Franz Josef I. Am 29. August 1909, zum 100. Jubiläum der Berg-Isel Schlacht the building was personally inaugurated by Franz Josef I in the presence of the Bishop of Brixen.
Alongside the ÖBB administration building and the orphanage, the old people's asylum is the third impressive secular building in Saggen. The building's own chapel is characterised by a bell tower. You can see the statues of St Peter and St Paul as well as Christ as a symbol of kindness towards all people. The magnificent 86 metre-long façade has been preserved to this day. It is not only remotely reminiscent of a palace, but was deliberately designed to provide a suitable architectural framework for the dignity of the age. This was also reflected in the modern furnishings of the old people's asylum at the time of its opening. The kitchen was equipped to cater for up to 300 people.
Eine staatlich geregelte Pensionsversicherung wie wir sie heute kennen, gab es vor der Gründung der Republik Österreich nach 1918 nicht. Ältere Untertanen, die nicht mehr arbeiten konnten, wurden zu Hause von Verwandten oder Angestellten versorgt. Bei Bauern wurde dies mit dem sogenannten Ausgedinge was regulated as part of the transfer of the farm. Anyone who did not belong to one of these privileged classes quickly fell through the cracks. Labourers, journeymen, day labourers, farmhands and menial staff had to beg or were dependent on the care of the poor and elderly by patrons or the church. From the 16th century onwards, care in Tyrol was the responsibility of the community to which a subject belonged. In times of need, however, the communities were often overwhelmed. Even the church was unable to take on this problem permanently and reliably.
Due to the influx of people to Innsbruck as a result of industrialisation and urbanisation and the sale of two poorhouses in St. Nikolaus, the situation in Innsbruck was particularly tense around 1900. Johann von Sieberer, who was already of an advanced age at the time, decided to support the city of Innsbruck by planning the project and financing a large part of it to establish an asylum for the elderly. The city under Mayor Wilhelm Greil had to commit to providing a building site, taking over the development of the sewage system and electrification and the costs for legal matters, architects and construction management. The city's poor relief office was to run the retirement home. The care was left to the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent and Paul.
The idea Freiherr Johann von Sieberers was to give older couples the opportunity to spend their twilight years together. By the standards of the time, the rooms were well equipped with iron beds, bedside cabinets, wardrobes and spittoons. The unadorned room was intended to make it easier to maintain the accommodation and keep it free of vermin and pests. Residents who were difficult to socialise, such as alcoholics, were accepted but housed separately. Facilities such as the old people's asylum and orphanage were very important for the development of the town.
The retirement home still exists to this day, although it has of course been modernised several times. The moderate lettering on the east side of the building commemorates the builder "Gespendet von einem Patrioten".
Johann von Sieberer: Innsbruck's good spirit
Whereas in the Middle Ages and early modern times it was primarily the church and the aristocracy who were responsible for the development of infrastructure and buildings in public spaces, in the 18th and 19th centuries members of the wealthy middle classes set out to shape the cityscape with their projects. The best-known member of this new class of successful entrepreneurs in Innsbruck was Baron Johann von Sieberer.
Johann Sieberer was born in Going near Kitzbühel in 1830 as an illegitimate child. The Bishop of Salzburg liked to spend his days off in the Tyrolean mountains. The school system in the Tyrolean lowlands was also administered by the diocese of Salzburg at the time. During a visit to the local primary school, he noticed a particularly bright boy.
In 1840, at the behest of the bishop, Sieberer was appointed to the Borromeo in Salzburg as a choirboy. The Archbishop of Salzburg recognised the boy's outstanding talent early on and allowed him to attend the Franciscan grammar school in Hall in Tyrol.
After leaving school, he studied law in Vienna before entering the service of the family of the Bishop of Salzburg, the Princes of Schwarzenberg. This family was one of the most influential in the Austrian aristocracy. Archduke Albrecht, in whose service Sieberer was, was the founder of the Viennese art collection Albertina. Sieberer worked in the administration of the family's industrial plants and got to know many members of the aristocracy and moneyed gentry of the K&K monarchy while travelling through the monarchy. When, through Albrecht's mediation, he worked from 1860 for the Insurance company Österreichischer Phönix he was able to turn these contacts into money. He amassed a large fortune by selling high policies to members of the Habsburg family and other aristocrats. He acquired his private villa in Meidling near Vienna and invested his money in apartment blocks in the capital.
Johann von Sieberer is best known for his generous foundations in Innsbruck. With the social changes of the 19th century, the traditional extended family began to lose its role as the first port of call in times of need in urban areas. Although the state had increasingly taken over welfare from the church since Maria Theresa and outsourced it to the local authorities, there was often a lack of funds. Sieberer, a devout Catholic in Innsbruck, filled this gap as a kind of patriotic patron in the spirit of Christian charity.
From 1885 until his death in 1914, Sieberer was a benefactor to the Tyrolean capital. The orphanage and a fund to run it, as well as the Franz Joseph Jubilee Travellers' Asylum, can be traced back to the philanthropist Sieberer's donations. He also contributed to the remodelling of the Jesuit church. Unfortunately, only archive photos show the magnificent Unification fountainwhich was erected in 1906 on the then still ostentatious station square in the style of historicism and had to make way for the new transport concept in 1940.
The orphanage and the Emperor Franz Josef travellers' asylum were infrastructure that could not be financed by the city due to the tight financial situation. The aristocracy and the church also ceased to be sponsors after the reforms of 1848. Sieberer felt he belonged to what Max Weber called the Protestant work ethic, but imitated the conservative aristocratic circles in which he had been socialised. The individual, virtuous citizen was to serve as an example to the collective. His two building projects were statements and expressions of a new bourgeois self-image. It is interesting to note that Sieberer, unlike monarchs and princes of the past, did not allow himself to be staged by name on his projects.
In 1909, Sieberer was made an honorary citizen of Innsbruck by Mayor Wilhelm Greil, and in 1910 he was made a baron by the Emperor. In Innsbruck, Siebererstraße in the Saggen district commemorates this great Innsbrucker. A memorial in honour of Sieberer was planned during his lifetime. The First World War and the political and financial problems that followed prevented its erection.
Wilhelm Greil: DER Bürgermeister Innsbrucks
Einer der wichtigsten Akteure der Stadtgeschichte war Wilhelm Greil (1850 – 1923). Von 1896 bis 1923 bekleidete der Unternehmer das Amt des Bürgermeisters, nachdem er vorher bereits als Vizebürgermeister die Geschicke der Stadt mitgestaltet hatte. Es war die Zeit des Wachstums, der Eingemeindung ganzer Stadtviertel, technischer Innovationen, neuer Medien und bis dahin unvorstellbarer gesellschaftlicher, sozialer und politischer Umwälzungen.
Die zweite Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts war in der Politik vom Kampf liberaler und konservativer Kräfte geprägt. Die Konservativen hatten es, anders als im restlichen Tirol, schwer in Innsbruck, dessen Bevölkerung seit der Zeit Napoleons liberale Morgenluft geschnuppert hatte. Jede Seite hatte nicht nur Politiker, sondern auch Vereine und eigene Zeitungen. Steuern, Gesellschaftspolitik, Bildungswesen, Wohnbau und die Gestaltung des öffentlichen Raumes wurden mit Leidenschaft und Eifer diskutiert. Bedingt durch eine Wahlordnung, die auf das Stimmrecht über Vermögensklassen aufgebaut war, konnten nur etwa 10% der gesamten Innsbrucker Bevölkerung zur Wahlurne schreiten. Dabei galt das relative Wahlrecht innerhalb der drei Wahlkörper, was so viel heißt wie: The winner takes it all. Mass parties such as the Social Democrats were unable to assert themselves until the electoral law reform of the First Republic. Mayors like Greil could rely on 100% support in the municipal council, which naturally made decision-making and steering much easier.
Greil belonged to the "Deutschen Volkspartei", a liberal and national-Great German party. What appears to us today as a contradiction, liberal and national, was a politically common and well-functioning pair of ideas in the 19th century. Pan-Germanism was not a political peculiarity of a radical right-wing minority, but rather a centrist trend, particularly in German-speaking cities of the Reich, which was important in varying forms through almost all parties until after the Second World War. Whoever issues the liberal Innsbrucker Nachrichten of the period around the turn of the century, you will find countless articles in which the common ground between the German Reich and the German-speaking countries was made the topic of the day.
Greil war ein geschickter Politiker, der sich innerhalb der vorgegebenen Machtstrukturen seiner Zeit bewegte. Er wusste sich um die traditionellen Kräfte, die Monarchie und den Klerus geschickt zu manövrieren und sich mit ihnen zu arrangieren. Die Zeit bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg war von einer allgemeinen wirtschaftlichen Boomzeit charakterisiert. Das verschaffte ihm viel Gestaltungsspielraum. Unter ihm wurde von der Stadt ganz im Stil eines Kaufmanns vorausschauend Grund angekauft, um Projekte zu ermöglichen. Unter Wilhelm Greil erweiterte sich Innsbruck im Eiltempo. Der Politiker Greil konnte sich bei den großen Bauprojekten der Zeit auf die Beamten und Stadtplaner Eduard Klingler, Jakob Albert und Theodor Prachensky stützen. Infrastrukturprojekte wie das neue Rathaus in der Maria-Theresienstraße 1897, die Hungerburgbahn 1906 und die Karwendelbahn wurden umgesetzt. Weitere Meilensteine waren die Erneuerung des Marktplatzes und der Bau der Markthalle.
Much of what was pioneered in the second half of the 19th century is part of everyday life today. For the people of that time, however, these things were a real sensation and life-changing. The four decades between the economic crisis of 1873 and the First World War were characterised by unprecedented economic growth and rapid modernisation. The city's economy boomed. Businesses were founded in Pradl and Wilten and attracted workers. Tourism also brought fresh capital into the city. At the same time, however, the concentration of people in a confined space under sometimes precarious hygiene conditions also brought problems. The outskirts of the city in particular were repeatedly plagued by typhus.
His predecessor, Mayor Heinrich Falk (1840 - 1917), had already contributed significantly to the modernisation of the town and the settlement of Saggen. Since 1859, the lighting of the city with gas pipelines had progressed steadily. Between 1887 and 1891, Innsbruck was equipped with a modern high-pressure water pipeline, which could also be used to supply flats on higher floors with fresh water. Wilhelm Greil arranged for the gas works in Pradl and the electricity works in Mühlau to be taken over into municipal ownership. The street lighting was converted to electric light.
Greil was able to secure Innsbrucker Renaissance on patrons from the town's middle classes. Baron Johann von Sieberer donated the old people's asylum and the orphanage in Saggen. Leonhard Lang donated the building, previously used as a hotel, to which the town hall moved from the old town in 1897, in return for the town's promise to build a home for apprentices.
Noch vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg kam es zu Veränderungen im politischen Alltag. Die ersten freien Wahlen innerhalb der k.u.k. Monarchie zum Reichsrat für alle männlichen Bürger im Jahr 1907 veränderten die sozialen Spielregeln. In seinen letzten Amtsjahren begleitete Greil Innsbruck am Übergang von der Habsburgermonarchie zur Republik durch Jahre, die vor allem durch Hunger, Elend, Mittelknappheit und Unsicherheit geprägt waren. Er war 68 Jahre alt, als italienische Truppen nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg die Stadt besetzten und Tirol am Brenner geteilt wurde, was für ihn als Vertreter des Deutschnationalismus besonders bitter war.
In 1928, former mayor Greil died as an honorary citizen of the city of Innsbruck at the age of 78. Wilhelm-Greil-Straße was named after him during his lifetime.