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In the guest blog, geologist and librarian Thomas Hofmann looks at the "princely era" in the history of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences and the former Federal Geological Institute.
"Fridericus Carolus S.R.I. Comes de Schönborn Buchheim et Reichelsberg & c. Sacrae Caesarae ....", the complete and correct naming of all titles of Friedrich Karl von Schönborn-Buchheim (1674 to 1746), Prince-Bishop of Würzburg and Bamberg and Imperial Vice-Chancellor in Vienna from 1705 to 1731, is as big a challenge as that Mention of all his possessions and castles.
The Baroque prince was friends with Prince Eugen, had a brilliant builder in Lukas von Hildebrandt and sufficient funds for large building projects. Only the Schönborn Palace in Vienna Josefstadt (Laudongasse 15 to 19) is singled out. Commissioned in 1706, it was completed as a summer residence in 1714. The elongated building and its gardens were owned by the family until 1862, before the municipality of Vienna acquired it. Today the one-story building is known as the address of the Folklore Museum. The topic is the period from 1872 to 1897, when the “University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences”, today’s Boku (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences), was located here.
The first agricultural congress in Vienna took place in November 1868 and was attended by 31 participants. The topic was, among other things, agricultural training, combined with the following demand: "An agricultural college (a real university of agriculture and forestry) should be established, using imperial funds, so that the curriculum strives for the greatest possible perfection." ("Die Presse", November 17, 1868) After countless discussions, the law establishing the company was passed on April 3, 1872, and the statutes were approved on June 6, 1872. On October 15, 1872, Agriculture Minister Johann von Chlumecký opened the University of Soil Culture in the former Schönborn Palace.
This compromise solution in Vienna-Josefstadt had become necessary because, despite all the "memorandums and debates", no new building could be built. Instead, the palace was rented from the city of Vienna for 4,500 guilders per year. Everything there was too small from the start. A solution came in 1875 by renting two houses with a large garden (5,000 m²) in Reitergasse (today: Skodagasse 14 to 16), where the foresters found their home. In 1888 the district expressed its interest in the palace in order to set up “community district offices” there. That was too early, you had to stay, because the new building on the Türkenschanze (Gregor-Mendel-Straße 33) could only be moved into in 1896. Even in 1913, there were still words in a commemorative publication about the former lack of space: "What amount of complaints, requests, petitions, memoranda would have been saved and what a large amount of scientific work could have been carried out by the members of the university if a worthy home had been made available to the university right from the start."
Today, the Boku ("alma mater viridis") not only has several buildings at the Türkenschanze location in Vienna-Währing, but also has locations in Vienna-Döbling (Muthgasse) and in Tulln (Lower Austria) for the more than 10,000 students.
But despite all the hardships, teaching and the number of students are developing well at the princely location; From 51 listeners in 1872, there were already 420 listeners (164 farmers, 256 foresters) in the winter semester of 1879/80. The first semester in Laudongasse already offered a wide range of lectures and exercises, even though the initial professorship consisted of three men. In addition to Rector Martin Wilckens, a Hamburg native who held the professorship for animal anatomy and physiology, Friedrich Haberlandt was full professor of plant production. Franz Schwackhöfer was an associate professor of chemical analysis.
All other lectures were held by external people, including Julius Hann, Adjunct at the k.k. Central Institute for Meteorology (today: Geosphere Austria), who read climatology, and Ferdinand v. Hochstetter from the Technical University (today: TU Vienna), who read mineralogy. Professor Wilhelm von Doderer from the Technical University was hired for “Agricultural Building Science”; he was the father of the writer Heimito von Doderer. Not to be forgotten are the popular lectures that took place on Friday evenings at six o'clock from the winter semester of 1873 onwards. The series started on December 5th with Franz X. Neumann's "The Price of Food" - a topic that couldn't be more topical.
The question as to whether the Prince-Bishop would have liked the use of his palace as a training center for farmers can probably be answered with “yes”. Fridericus Carolus was known for the tulips grown in the Schönborn Garden. "Finally I have to tell Your Elector Grace how beautiful and copio the tulipians are; I think I have already sent 2,000 of them to the court," he wrote in 1714 to his uncle, the Elector of Mainz, Count Lothar Franz v. Schönborn.
Andrei Kirillovich Rasumofsky (1752 to 1836), Russian diplomat, generous patron of Beethoven (Rasumofsky Quartets, Op. 59), art collector, envoy to the Viennese court and Russian delegate to the Congress of Vienna, found a respected architect for his palace in Ludwig Montoyer. The turn of the year 1814/15 was devastating for the magnificent building on Rauchfangkehrergasse (from 1862: Rasumofskygasse) in Vienna-Landstrasse. "The living rooms of the noble count, decorated with taste and splendor, the library hall, which is the only one of its kind, and all the adjoining rooms have been destroyed by flames." (Wiener Zeitung, January 1, 1815). Rasumofsky bore the title of prince from 1815, when he had the classicist palace, which had extensive gardens, rebuilt. In 1838 his widow sold it to the princely Liechtenstein family (Alois II), who lived there until 1851 before the state bought it for the k.k., founded in 1849. Geological Reichsanstalt (today: Geosphere Austria) rented and acquired it in 1873.
Thanks to the industriousness of founding director Wilhelm Haidinger and his successor from 1866, Franz von Hauer, the address became the pivotal point for geology in the monarchy. Not only was research carried out in the noble rooms, people also enjoyed coming and going. Lectures were held and large parts were open to the general public as a museum.
On October 1, 1854, two years after geology moved into the palace, there were highly appreciative words in the natural history section of the "Illustrierte Zeitung": "One of the most outstanding sights that the imperial city offers in recent years has been the Imperial Geological Institute, whose rooms and collections are constantly diligently visited by scientific and generally educated travelers as well as residents of the city. One of the more beautiful buildings, the princely Lichtenstein's Palace on the Landstrasse, is dedicated to it. In addition to a magnificent meeting room in which the public meetings of the Geological Institute are held, the reports of which appear printed in the institution's yearbook, fourteen other rooms contain the collections and a fifteenth contains the library and the map collection.
While the farmers and foresters in Josefstadt always suffered from a lack of space, the geologists were doing better in this regard. They had "a sufficient number of rooms and halls" and also "well-equipped laboratories" that were "staffed by working chemists". Further in the original sound from 1854: "The geological maps are executed in other rooms. This is one of the institute's main achievements."
The call for spatial expansion became louder as the workforce increased at the end of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the gradual relocation of geologists to the Neuergasse 38 location began. First, the former large animal surgery of the University of Veterinary Medicine was adapted for the library and the former Jasper print shop for laboratories, before the new building - designed by architect Stefan Hübner - could be moved into in February 2005.
The former stables of the palace, on the other side of Rasumofskygasse (number 20), did not come into the hands of geology; The poet Robert Musil lived here from 1921 to 1938. The venerable palace is now privately owned and houses a unique art collection. Michael Hausenblas visited her and titled his report “Where the wow lives”, the photos by Stefan Olah impressively confirm this. The prince would certainly have been delighted with this top-class collection. (Thomas Hofmann, February 3, 2023)