Hofburg: The Palace of the Hapsburg Dynasty

this video is brought to you by squarespace from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business you can check out squarespace through the link in the description below more on them in just a bit [Music] when it comes to discussing massive buildings castles almost feel like cheating every country has a castle even america has a castle located underneath the statue of liberty all right fair enough that's a fort not a castle but still but what's so special about castles they're made of stone and they have some soldiers standing on top of them telling you to go away or they shall taunt you a second time are you sick of the intro yet but let's get to business what's so special about a castle well how about a castle that was the siege of power for one of the most prolific families in european history which was continuously expanded over the course of centuries until it was one of the largest royal residences on the continent sounds special enough well the von habsburgs would have hoped so so let's talk about the hofburg palace the royal residence of the archdukes of austria and today the residents of the austrian government before we begin we need to give a bit of a disclaimer the hofburg palace is an enormous complex stretching for more than 240 000 square meters of space with 18 separate wings 19 courtyards and 2 600 rooms it's also an old complex with the original buildings dating back as far as the mid 13th century we obviously can't cover everything but we will give you an overview of the most interesting information like most of the different wings and what important functions were held within the buildings with that note about the palace out of the way here's a little bit of history the born habsburgs the later rulers of austria originally came from a small county in switzerland specifically from a fort named hapsburg castle it's a quaint little structure at least compared to what would come later but we do have to start somewhere fast forward a few hundred years when in 1273 a man named rudolph the first von habsburg is elected emperor of the holy roman empire he used his powers as emperor to liberate a bunch of lands in the east from the king of bohemia ottakar ii one of those lands was the duchy of austria including the city of vienna and rudolph proceeded to take it for himself moseying right in and making the hofburg castle his new home it was at this point just a castle with four sides and four towers on the corners like you might expect the original building was called the alteberg or the old fort but since the 18th century it has been referred to as the schweizer tract or swiss wing supposedly after the swiss guards who served as the watch the original castle was probably built at least partially by that same bohemian king otaka ii who probably wasn't very happy about all rudolph moving into his castle probably justifiably so if someone ruined your kingdom that you'd spent your entire life conquering and then stole your house for good measure you'd probably be just a little bit annoyed as well it would also explain why ottakar invaded austria a few years later resulting in his death in battle from this point on austria would be firmly under the control of the one habsburg family ruling from this castle hofberg or castle of the court for the most part they actually had a second summer residence in vienna but well that's not what this video is about interesting the castle itself would remain largely unchanged for the next few hundred years this is the rather intriguing history of the hofburg it's something of a window into the rise of austria and the von habsburg family as the latitude grew more powerful the royal residence itself grew larger and more opulent for now though it remains a castle various buildings would go up around it including the augustinian church in 1327 and the stalberg built over seven years in 1558 as a residence for emperor maximilian ii this residence would later hold a massive art gallery of more than 1 400 paintings which would be later transferred to the cuntistor reaches museum maybe on the pronunciation for there i mean probably not but maybe other early additions to the castle grounds included the ammalienburg constructed in the late 16th century and named after allman called amelie no surprises there as well as the leopoldine wing which connected the amelienberg to the main castle was named after a man called guess what leopold of note in the leopoldine wing is the privy council room where boring government stuff would happen as well as the enormous wine cellar in the basement a lot more interesting supplying the entire grounds with all the vintages that they could drink unfortunately it's not there anymore it was auctioned off after world war one if you're hoping to take a tipsy tour around this castle we're sorry to disappoint you the leopoldine wing was built in the 1660s but then had to be rebuilt after the siege of vienna in 1683. if you want to know more about that by the way recently covered it on my newest channel wara graphics check it out if you feel like it after of course you've finished this video because i need the watch time anyway shore version the siege of vienna is when the ottoman empire attempted to capture the city and basically just leveled whole parts of it after this however austria would steadily rise into being a significant european power and the von habsburgs at the head the hofburg would mirror this ascendancy turning from royal castle to royal palace all right we'll get back to today's video in just a second but first a quick word from today's might i say it glorious sponsor squarespace now more than ever people are getting creative with their time they're reaching into a savings account perhaps to start a new crafts business maybe launching a blog where they'll annoy people with their 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the court library which is today the austrian national library which looks more like a giant painting than it actually does a library the second architect was johan's son joseph emanuel who proceeded to dedicate his life to finishing most of his father's in-progress works the third architect johann lucas von hildebrand proceeded to design the imperial chancery building another government-focused wing before he was sidelined due to core politics and his design was given to joseph emanuel to finish instead apparently even in architecture austrian politics was absolutely ruthless with that said let's take a detour because the hofburg was continuously expanded upon over the course of centuries it's rather unique in having several different styles of architecture on display for its various wings the earliest constructions were built in the renaissance style which involved greco-roman inspired arches domes and pillars the old chapel of the swiss wing was built in a gothic star which was prevalent in the middle ages and is visible in a lot of old church buildings by the way if you don't know the difference between these styles don't worry it's not that complicated just wanting to sound smart but when the hofburg started undergoing a construction boom i mean relatively speaking it's taught a couple of hundred years many of the new additions went up in the hottest new architectural style baroque which is what the three aforementioned architects designed their new projects around if you had to summarize baroque architecture in one word well the best word to use would be ostentatious these guys were looking to show off baroque architecture is a highly decorative and detailed style which was and this is true originally thought up by the catholic church to try and counter the popularity of the protestant reformation an interesting strategy to be sure i mean how did this conversation go all your holiness we're losing converts to protestantism and then the pope said i know let's make the churches look much prettier problem solved surprisingly though it didn't work and the problem wasn't all served but they did end up with a lot of really nice looking buildings the aforementioned imperial chancery wing went up as well as the old augustinian church which was fully rebuilt in a baroque style but perhaps the best display of the new architecture was the winter riding school an interior horse riding grounds constructed between 1729 and 1735 where displays of horsemanship would be held from the spanish riding school it actually still serves its original purpose holding regular performances by the riders in contrast one wing that doesn't still serve its original purpose is one commissioned by empress maria theresa one of the most famous rulers of austria she took power in 1740 and ruled the austrian lands for an entire 40 years reforming huge sections of the government in the process not content with just leaving a mark on the empire she had an old opera house next to the hofburg converted into a dancehall and then expanded upon to form a new wing the redout wing also known as the most stereotypically austrian wing of the entire residence the term redoubt is a french word referring to an elegant master ball the red out wing obviously had plenty of mass balls but also everything from banquets to concerts and more entertaining both the national and international nobility and parties that were the envy of the european continent and with austrian ladies and opulent parties by out-of-touch aristocrats i can't think of a better transition than us to now talk about the french revolution france at the start of the 19th century beat the austrians in wars no less than four times which was just a little bit of a humiliation as the author ernst hemingway wrote in a farewell to arms the austrian army was created to give napoleon victories any napoleon algie during the napoleonic wars napoleon bonaparte dissolved the holy roman empire one of the primary titles held by the von habsburgs this resulted in some imperial functions being moved around the hofburg with new apartments for the emperor in the imperial chancery along with interestingly enough napoleon's son who spent the rest of his life in vienna after his father's defeat on the battlefield following napoleon's defeat the various european empires came together at the congress of vienna drawing out the european borders and spheres of influence to try and prevent another catastrophic conflict on the scale of the napoleonic wars from taking place unfortunately for europe that didn't work and unfortunately for austria it's all rather downhill from here the 19th century was a turbulent time for austria as we said before napoleon had dissolved the holy roman empire largely controlled by austria this caused problems of a legalistic sort but there would soon be problems of an existential sort as well those problems were liberalism and nationalism austria was a monarchy which liberals didn't like and austria's territories had a bunch of ethnic minorities which didn't like austria this coalesced in the revolutions of 1848 when a wave of liberal and national agitation swept the european continent including austria the monarchy under conservative france joseph the first was forced to accept some new reforms first was the advent of a new austrian national parliament which was seated in the starburgh section of the palace second in 1867 the empire undertook the austro-hungarian compromise formally establishing the austro-hungarian empire this created a number of new constitutional changes such as an austro-hungarian delegation to the hofburg which france joseph received in the leopoldine wing but the hofburg had one more set of construction to go in the 1860s the old city walls of vienna were demolished to allow the city to expand more easily and coinciding with this demolition were plans to expand the palace further this resulted in perhaps the most recognizable part of the entire structure the new berg or new castle placing the heldenplatz or heroes square the curved building was constructed between 1881 and 1913 and was originally intended to serve as a building yeah there wasn't really much of a plan for what this building was going to be other than just an expansion of the palace the lack of a clear direction along with budgetary problems would probably explain why the original extensive construction plans were scaled back to just the arched building in terms of a prestige statement the newberg unfortunately wasn't fooling anyone since austria had been on the decline for decades and would finally have its death now in world war one following the end of the war the austro-hungarian empire broke up into several smaller states including austria the republic was declared on the monarchy was abolished ending hundreds of years of von habsburg rule in favor of a new democratic government following this the hofburg palace fell into a period of relative disuse as the democrats and government tried to keep their distance from the old monarchical structures but austria in the interwar period was still a tumultuous place especially with the rise of a new force in neighboring germany the nazi party austria was not insulated from the far-right shift in german politics and a sizable number of austrians bought into the world view espoused by hitler and his close associates austrian nazis proceeded to undermine the democratic government even going so far is to assassinate the austrian chancellor in 1934. this period culminated with the annexation of austria into germany in 1938 with hitler announcing the annexation from the balcony of the newburgh building to a massive crowd in the heldenplatz austria would then suffer bombardment during world war ii leaving the city of vienna devastated the country was set up to be a neutral ground between east and west and democracy was restored with the old republic chance rebuilding damage from the war the new government needed new buildings from which to govern one building turned out was largely untouched the old hofburg palace the building was made the primary residence of the austrian president in 1946 and in 2017 the austrian parliament moved in as well and that today is the function of the hofberg from the seat of government for the monarchy to the seat of government for the republic in that sense the old palace again mirrors its country no longer habsburg but austrian [Music] now this was by no means an exhaustive list of the hofburg palace there are some parts that we didn't even mention including museums such as the albertina and the ephesus as well as other wings like the montoya wing known as the hall of ceremonies or some michael's wing which was yet another church tacked onto the complex the palace is a convention center for hosting events or meetings and even still hosts the occasional ball in a nod to its old aristocratic history also in a nod to its aristocratic history you have to pay 15 euros to get into the main building typical if you enjoyed this video i'd recommend right now checking out another video that we've put together this one about a much more modern palace over in turkey it's a pretty wild one i'll link to it on the screen now and i'll see you there [Music] you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 99,877

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Id: vTj5NiE46yE

Length: 16min 57sec (1017 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 15 2022