Orphanage & Siebererschule
Siebererstraße 7-9
Worth knowing
Als am 1. Oktober 1889 das Sieberer Waisenhaus eröffnet wurde, überschlugen sich die Innsbrucker Nachrichten in ihrem Lob für den Gönner Johann von Sieberer, dessen Spende das Projekt erst ermöglicht hatte.
"Rarely does a municipality have a more just and justified reason to rejoice and festively decorate itself than the city of Innsbruck today, as a foundation is being handed over to it, such as a city can rarely enjoy. This joy and festive mood is heightened by the presence of the illustrious brother of our beloved monarch, His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Karl Ludwig, who has come here to prove how highly the noble prince appreciates a work of the purest philanthropy and to pay tribute to it. The Tyrolean heart beats faster at the mere sound of the imperial prince's name...."
Sieberer made the decision to build the orphanage back in 1885 after the province of Salzburg turned down his offer on the grounds that there were already enough such institutions there. It was pure luck that Sieberer remembered his Tyrolean roots and chose the capital city of Innsbruck for his endeavours. The city itself had already considered a venture in this direction, but lacked the financial means. Sieberer gave the city part of his assets in the form of a deposit on his Viennese property to pay for the land and building.
The dedication was linked to the condition that the orphanage would be run by the Order of the Sisters of Mercy and that a maximum of 200 Catholic children of Innsbruck parents between the ages of 6 and 15 could be admitted. The building was constructed between 1886 and 1889 and was elaborately realised in the neo-Renaissance style. The two statues above the entrance represent the "Lessons" and the "Love of humanity", two things that were very important to the Catholic humanist Sieberer. At the behest of the founder, the architect Eugen Sehnal was required to anchor his ideas of morality and virtue in the city's architecture.
The Enlightenment also brought about a change in the way illegitimate children were treated. While it had previously been a criminal offence and sometimes punished with the pillory or worse if a woman gave birth to an illegitimate child, this was no longer a criminal offence. Unmarried servants and maids in particular were often unable to keep their children. If there was no possibility of placement within the family, the children were handed over to Catholic foster parents or an orphanage. The Christian morals of the people did not follow suit with the law for a long time. Although a significant proportion of the children were illegitimate, the women concerned remained marginalised until well into the 20th century. Goethe's drama Fist gives a good insight into the mores of the time about the fate of Gretchen, who takes her own life because of an illegitimate pregnancy.
State orphanages often prepared boys for a career in the military. Drills were part of the daily routine from an early age. Orphanages were a source for the military to satisfy the increasing demand for human material in the 18th century. At the same time, the military provided orphans with a career path that had previously been denied to the socially disadvantaged. However, the pious Sieberer did not want the children to receive a military but a Christian education. A chaplain organised masses and religious instruction, while the nuns of the Sisters of Mercy took care of the food and other education.
The daily lives of the orphanage's pupils were organised strictly according to Catholic standards, in keeping with Sieberer's philosophy. The founder was personally in constant contact with the staff to monitor health, nutrition, discipline and school success. The daily routine was strictly regulated and disorder was not tolerated among either the staff or the children.
The writer Josef Leitgeb (1897 - 1952), who, together with his brother, was a pupil at the orphanage between 1906 and 1910 after the death of his mother, described the atmosphere of the home in his autobiographical novel The intact year like this:
„...the geometric rectangularity of the building was reflected in the house rules, which now covered our lives like a network of fine wires. We had gone from a warm, blossoming approximation to a cool grey regularity.“
Mit dem Ersten Weltkrieg und den Problemen der Folgezeit mit Geldentwertung und Wirtschaftskrise kam das Waisenhaus nach dem Tod des Stifters in finanzielle Bedrängnis. Damit einher ging der Verlust der Qualität der Versorgung und Erziehung. Das Waisenhaus ist heute eine Volksschule mit Kindergarten. Im Untergeschoss ließ sich Freiherr Johann von Sieberer seine Gruft samt einer letzten Ruhestätte aus Marmor errichten.
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.
Klingler, Huter, Retter & Co: master builders of expansion
The last decades of the 19th century were characterised Wilhelminian style in the history of Austria. After an economic crisis in 1873, the city began to expand during the economic upswing. From 1880 to 1900, Innsbruck's population grew from 20,000 to 26,000. Wilten, which was incorporated in 1904, tripled from 4,000 to 12,000. The infrastructure also changed as a result of technical innovations. Gas, water and electricity became part of everyday life for more and more people. The old town hospital gave way to the new hospital. The orphanage and the Sieberers asylum for the elderly were built in Saggen.
The buildings that were constructed in the young neighbourhoods were a reflection of a new society. Entrepreneurs, freelancers, employees and workers with political voting rights developed different needs than subjects without this right. Unlike in rural Tyrol, where farming families lived in farmhouses together with farmhands and maidservants as a clan, life in the city came close to the family life we know today. The living space had to correspond to this. The lifestyle of city dwellers demanded multi-room flats and open spaces for relaxation after work. The wealthy middle classes, consisting of entrepreneurs and freelancers, had not yet overtaken the aristocracy, but they had narrowed the gap. They were the ones who not only commissioned private building projects, but also decided on public buildings through their position on the local council.
The 40 years before the First World War were a kind of gold-rush period for construction companies, craftsmen, master builders and architects. The buildings reflected the world view of their clients. Master builders combined several roles and often replaced the architect. Most clients had very clear ideas about what they wanted. They were not to be breathtaking new creations, but copies and references to existing buildings. In keeping with the spirit of the times, the Innsbruck master builders designed buildings in the styles of historicism, classicism and Tyrolean Heimatstil in accordance with the wishes of their financially strong clients. Clear forms, statues and columns were style-defining elements in the construction of new buildings. The ideas that people had of classical Greece and ancient Rome were realised in a sometimes wild mix of styles. Not only railway stations and public buildings, but also large apartment blocks and entire streets, even churches and cemeteries were built along the old corridors in this design. The upper middle classes showed their penchant for antiquity with neoclassical façades. Catholic traditionalists had images of saints and depictions of Tyrol's regional history painted on the walls of their Heimatstil houses. While neoclassicism dominates in Saggen and Wilten, most of the buildings in Pradl are in the conservative Heimatstil style.
The era of large villas, which imitated the aristocratic residences of days gone by with a bourgeois touch, came to an end after a few wild decades due to a lack of space. Further development of the urban area with individual houses was no longer possible, the space had become too narrow. In 1898, the municipal council decided to authorise only blocks of flats east of Claudiastrasse instead of the villas in the spacious cottage style. The Falkstrasse / Gänsbachstrasse / Bienerstrasse area is still regarded as the Villensaggenthe areas to the east as Blocksaggen. In Wilten and Pradl, this type of development did not even occur. Nevertheless, master builders sealed more and more ground in the gold rush. Albert Gruber gave a cautionary speech on this growth in 1907, in which he warned against uncontrolled growth in urban planning and land speculation.
"It is the most difficult and responsible task facing our city fathers. Up until the 1980s (note: 1880), let's say in view of our circumstances, a certain slow pace was maintained in urban expansion. Since the last 10 years, however, it can be said that cityscapes have been expanding at a tremendous pace. Old houses are being torn down and new ones erected in their place. Of course, if this demolition and construction is carried out haphazardly, without any thought, only for the benefit of the individual, then disasters, so-called architectural crimes, usually occur. In order to prevent such haphazard building, which does not benefit the general public, every city must ensure that individuals cannot do as they please: the city must set a limit to unrestricted speculation in the area of urban expansion. This includes above all land speculation."
A handful of master builders and the Innsbruck building authority accompanied this development in Innsbruck. If Wilhelm Greil is described as the mayor of the expansion, the Viennese-born Eduard Klingler (1861 - 1916) probably deserves the title of its architect. Klingler played a key role in shaping Innsbruck's cityscape in his role as a civil servant and master builder. He began working for the state of Tyrol in 1883. In 1889, he joined the municipal building department, which he headed from 1902. In Innsbruck, the commercial academy, the Leitgebule school, the Pradl cemetery, the dermatological clinic in the hospital area, the municipal kindergarten in Michael-Gaismair-Straße, the Trainkaserne (note: today a residential building), the market hall and the Tyrolean State Conservatory are all attributable to Klingler as head of the building department. The Ulrichhaus on Mount Isel, which is now home to the Alt-Kaiserjäger-Club, is a building worth seeing in the Heimatstil style based on his design.
Perhaps the most important construction office in Innsbruck was Johann Huter & Sons. Johann Huter took over his father's small construction business. In 1856, he acquired the first company premises, the Hutergründeon the Innrain. Three years later, the first prestigious headquarters were built in Meranerstraße. The company registration together with his sons Josef and Peter in 1860 marked the official start of the company that still exists today. Huter & Söhne like many of its competitors, saw itself as a complete service provider. The company had its own brickworks, a cement factory, a joinery and a locksmith's shop as well as a planning office and the actual construction company. In 1906/07, the Huters built their own company headquarters at Kaiser-Josef-Straße 15 in the typical style of the last pre-war years. The stately house combines the Tyrolean Heimatstil surrounded by gardens and nature with neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque elements. Famous from Huter & Söhne buildings in Innsbruck include the Monastery of Perpetual Adoration, the parish church of St Nicholas and several buildings on Claudiaplatz.
The second big player was Josef Retter. Born in Tyrol, he grew up in the Wachau region. In his early youth, he completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer before he left the k.k. State Trade School in Vienna and attended the foreman's school in the building trade department. After gaining professional experience in Vienna, Croatia and Bolzano throughout the Danube Monarchy, he was able to open his own construction company in Innsbruck at the age of 29 thanks to his wife's dowry. Like Huter, his company also included a sawmill, a sand and gravel works and a workshop for stonemasonry work. In 1904, he opened his residential and office building at Schöpfstraße 23a, which is still used today as a Rescuer's house is well known. With a new building for the Academic Grammar School and the castle-like school building for the Commercial Academy and the Evangelical Church of Christ in Saggen, the stately Sonnenburg in Wilten and the neo-Gothic Mentlberg Castle on Sieglanger, he realised some of Innsbruck's most outstanding buildings of the period to this day.
Late in life but with a similarly practice-orientated background that was typical of 19th century master builders, Anton Fritz started his construction company in 1888. He grew up remotely in Graun in the Vinschgau Valley. After working as a foreman, plasterer and bricklayer, he decided to attend the trade school in Innsbruck at the age of 36. Talent and luck brought him his breakthrough as a planner with the country-style villa at Karmelitergasse 12. In its heyday, his construction company employed 150 people. In 1912, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War and the resulting slump in the construction industry, he handed over his company to his son Adalbert. Anton Fritz's legacy includes his own home at Müllerstraße 4 as well as houses on Claudiaplatz and Sonnenburgplatz.
With Carl Kohnle, Carl Albert, Karl Lubomirski and Simon Tommasi, Innsbruck had other master builders who immortalised themselves in the cityscape with buildings typical of the late 19th century. They all made Innsbruck's new streets shine in the prevailing architectural zeitgeist of the last 30 years of the Danube Monarchy. Residential buildings, railway stations, official buildings and churches in the vast empire between the Ukraine and Tyrol looked similar across the board. New trends such as Art Nouveau emerged only hesitantly. In Innsbruck, it was the Munich architect Josef Bachmann who set a new accent in civic design with the redesign of the façade of the Winklerhaus. Building activity came to a halt at the beginning of the First World War. After the war, the era of neoclassical historicism and Heimatstil was finally history. Walks in Saggen and parts of Wilten and Pradl take you back to the Wilhelminian era. Claudiaplatz and Sonnenburgplatz are among the most impressive examples. The building company Huter and Sons still exists today. The company is now located in Sieglanger in Josef-Franz-Huter-Straße, named after the company founder.
Wilhelm Greil: DER Bürgermeister Innsbrucks
One of the most important figures in the town's history was Wilhelm Greil (1850 - 1923). From 1896 to 1923, the entrepreneur held the office of mayor, having previously helped to shape the city's fortunes as deputy mayor. It was a time of growth, the incorporation of entire neighbourhoods, technical innovations, new media and previously unimaginable social and political upheavals.
The second half of the 19th century was characterised by a political struggle between liberal and conservative forces. Unlike in the rest of the Tyrol, the conservatives had a hard time in Innsbruck, whose population had been in favour of liberal ideas since the Napoleonic era. Each side not only had politicians, but also associations and their own newspapers. Taxes, social policy, education, housing and the organisation of public space were discussed with passion and zeal. Due to an electoral system based on voting rights via property classes, only around 10% of the entire population of Innsbruck could go to the ballot box. Relative suffrage applied within the three electoral bodies, which means as much as: 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 was a skilful politician who operated within the predetermined power structures of his time. He knew how to skilfully manoeuvre around the traditional powers, the monarchy and the clergy, and how to come to terms with them. The period leading up to the First World War was characterised by a general economic boom. This gave him a great deal of room for manoeuvre. Under him, the city purchased land with foresight in the style of a merchant in order to make projects possible. Under Wilhelm Greil, Innsbruck expanded at a rapid pace. The politician Greil was able to rely on the civil servants and town planners Eduard Klingler, Jakob Albert and Theodor Prachensky for the major building projects of the time. Infrastructure projects such as the new town hall in Maria-Theresienstraße in 1897, the Hungerburg railway in 1906 and the Karwendelbahn were realised. Other milestones included the renovation of the market square and the construction of the market hall.
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.
Even before the First World War, there were changes in everyday politics. The first free elections within the k.u.k. Monarchy to the Imperial Council for all male citizens in 1907 changed the social rules of the game. In his final years in office, Greil accompanied Innsbruck through the transition from the Habsburg Monarchy to the Republic, through years characterised above all by hunger, misery, scarcity of resources and insecurity. He was 68 years old when Italian troops occupied the city after the First World War and Tyrol was divided at the Brenner Pass, which was particularly bitter for him as a representative of German nationalism.
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.