Ruralni turizam: kvaliteta, održivost, uključivost. Zbornik radova / Rural tourism: quality, sustainability, inclusiveness. Congress proceedings, 2022
Vallis aurea, Mons aureus or Mother of Wine are some of the historical names used for the wine-gr... more Vallis aurea, Mons aureus or Mother of Wine are some of the historical names used for the wine-growing areas in the eastern Croatian regions of Slavonia, Baranja and Syrmia. Today, some of the largest wineries in this area boast their wine heritage dating back to the first half of the 18th century when the wine growing and production first began on manorial estates. Aristocracy from different parts of Europe (prince Eugene of Savoy, the Odescalchi, the Eltz, etc.) were rewarded with the Slavonian estates for war merits after centuries-long Austro-Turkish wars and the annexation of Slavonia to the Habsburg Monarchy. The estates comprised of manor houses or castles with various utility buildings including those for winemaking. Although the vaulted basements of the castles were often used for this purpose, wine cellars were also constructed as detached buildings, the history of which is very little known in Croatia. The aim of this paper is to explore the contribution of the nobility in the development of winemaking, to map the wine cellars of the Slavonian feudal estates in the 18th century (today's wine subregion of Croatian Danube), as well as to determine their architectural characteristics.
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Books by Petar Puhmajer
The palatial houses built in the 17th and 18th centuries in Varaždin form a high-quality group of Baroque secular buildings in continental Croatia. This book examines the process and circumstances surrounding the palaces’ construction, as well as their development, design and stylistic features in the context of Croatian and Central European architecture. The focus is also on the formal analysis aiming to create a typology on the basis of their floor-plan organization and design.
In the early modern age Varaždin was one of major Croatian cities, and it underwent transformations typical of a Central European urban settlement. The 15th and 16th centuries saw the construction of the fortress and the city walls, due to the nearing Ottoman threats. It was the period of the formation of the urban fabric with the layout of streets and blocks. In the 17th century, Varaždin developed into a strong regional centre, although life and building activities remained concentrated in the area within the city walls. Finally came the peaceful 18th century, when the city opened up to its surroundings, the walls were gradually demolished to make room for new streets, houses and palaces in the suburbs. Although urban development was in many respects determined by church orders which instigated the contruction of churches and monasteries (Jesuits, Franciscans, Capuchins, Ursulines), it was the accumulation of political power in the city that crucially impacted secular construction. The county and state officials started moving into the city especially between 1767 and 1776 when Varaždin became the seat of the Croatian government, i.e. the capital of Croatia, so many aristocrats also came to build their own private houses. The quality of upscale housing reflected the financial potential of owners and investors. At first, the investors were prominent noble families (Erdödy, Drašković, Patačić), but over time, bourgeois merchants, craftsmen and officials (Czindery, Petković, Herzer) acquired wealth and wanted to show off their status by building houses modelled on aristocratic homes. The term palace, therefore, means a town mansion built for a prominent client, which in spatial organisation and appearance stands out from the standard urban housing. Designed for comfortable and elegant living, in size, position and articulation, a palace excelled in the urban image of the city.
In determining the typology of the palace architecture in Varaždin, the book references the postulates made by Carlo Giulio Argan, according to whom an architectural type is based on the fact that groups of buildings are related in form and function, and the standard derives from variations of a shared basic form. Respectively, in the floor-plan organization of the Varaždin palaces, two basic principles can be discerned based on the distribution of rooms in relation to the main corridor: ‘sequencing’ and grouping’. The sequencing, which is of earlier origin, occurs in one-wing buildings where rooms were sequenced along both sides of a coach gateway (portes-cochère), which connects the street entrance with the back yard, while on the first floor, correspondingly, there is a central hallway with a series of rooms on either side. This type of plan was a result of the elongated and narrow plots with shorter side fronting the street, common in the Middle Ages and sometimes persisting until the 18th century. Several such structures dated to the 17th century were preserved in Varaždin, including the Patačić Palace (1669) and the Wassermann-Kreuz Palace.
In multi-wing buildings, rooms were sequenced in rows alined with a longitudinal corridor facing the inner yard, which makes another type of a floor plan, also predefined by the shape of the plot. In the 16th and 17th centuries, small plots were often merged into bigger ones which resulted in the longer side of the plot lining with the street. This enabled buildings with a wide façade of the main wing fronting the street, and the lateral wings stretching towards the back yard. This type of floor plan dates back to 15th-century Florence, and it is believed to have been transfered to Central Europe with the arrival of the Italian master builders in the 16th century. The prototype of this floor plan has four wings enclosing an inner square courtyard and within each wing there is single row of rooms accessed from an arcaded corridor. In smaller urban settlements such as Varaždin, this type was often reduced to two or three wings. However, it marked the beginning of the new palatial architecture. It continued to be used throughout the 17th and 18th centuries until the beginning of the 19th century, and can be found in the Prašinski Sermage Palace (late 17th century), Patačić-Puttar Palace (18th century), Drašković Palace (17th century, redesigned in mid-18th century), Erdödy Palace (ca 1762) and the Erdödy-Oršić Palace (1805).
An important novelty in palace architecture brought by the Baroque era stemmed from the need for a more functional and comfortable living space. It was the formation of groups of rooms organized as apartments. It first appeared in France in the 17th century in Parisian city mansions, the so-called hotel particulier. In Vienna it appeared in the eighties and nineties of the 17th century, and in other Austrian cities somewhat later. We have no record of it in Varaždin until the second half of the 18th century, but was then used in a number of palaces: Pauline mansion (1760), Zagreb Kaptol Palace (1760-63), Petković Palace (around 1767), Varaždin County Palace (1769), Keglević Palace (1774-75), Hinterholzer (1771-72), Janković (c. 1775, upgraded in the 19th century), Herzer (1791-95) and Eggersdorfer (c. 1807).
The occurences of the older and the newer floor-plan types intertwined over the course of centuries, but in general, the sequencing concept originated from the Renaissance, while grouping appeared in the Baroque era. These floor-plan types were not only used in residential housing, but also in public buildings and generally in secular architecture. Administrative buildings could also include the living area of the executive who held office, so their apartment was integrated into the floor plan as its most important part, as shown by the example of the Varaždin County Palace.
In addition to spatial organization, the building frontages had particular typological patterns as well, which were mostly inventions of the Baroque period. The façades were articulated by projecting blocks. According to Christian Norberg-Schulz, this principle was based on dominant and subordinate elements, which was evident at the level of the entire building, its individual parts, and in decoration. The front was regularly grand and decorated giving the visual identity to the building, but also to the street or square. It could have one or three projecting blocks, symmetrically positioned on the central and corner sides of the building, as had most of the palaces in Varaždin. As a form of a projection, two corner houses had bay windows as angular protrusion, the Patačić Palace and the Patačić-Puttar Palace. There is also a case where the projection is formed as a tower, like in the Varaždin Town Hall, a 15th-century building upgraded into a palace in the 18th century, with an axial tower rising above the façade as the most prominent element.
Although accomplished in what was then the largest city of continental Croatia, the concepts of spatial and design solutions of Varaždin palaces did not originate locally but were a sum of different architectural experiences found elsewhere in Croatia and beyond. Under Habsburg rule, the north-western Croatia was politically, economically and culturaly influenced by the nearby Austrian province of Styria. The Styrian masters - architects, builders and artists, played a crucial role in the dissemination of architectural trends in the region. The arrival of military engineers in the 16th century, at first for the construction and renovation of fortresses, and later in the 17th and 18th century, civil architects from large workshops in Graz and Maribor, hired by the Church, as well as by private investors, - influenced the domestic builders and prompted the transfer and exchange of ideas, marking the architecture of Varaždin with Central-European baroque features.
Papers by Petar Puhmajer
The article provides an overview of the conservation research conducted on eight public buildings in Zagreb's Upper Town from 2019 to 2022, both before and after the 2020 earthquakes. This research marked the initial extensive step towards their forthcoming restoration due to damages of varying degrees. All the considered structures were originally private palaces and houses dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries. However, over time, they were repurposed into public buildings. The Vojković Palace (Matoševa 9), Zagreb's most significant secular Baroque building, now houses the Croatian History Museum. It suffered the most damage and underwent a comprehensive conservation analysis. Similar research was undertaken on the Banski dvori block (1-2, St. Mark’s Square), which comprises two Baroque palaces, Rauch and Kulmer. These were combined into one ensemble to serve as the seat of the Croatian Government. The Bužan Palace (Opatička 8), currently the Government Office for General Affairs, is an 18th-century structure. Its present “neo-Baroque” appearance stems from renovations carried out between 1941 and 1943. The Pongratz Palace (Visoka 22), now the State Residence for foreign official visits, is a structure with a rich history, incorporating a medieval city tower. Its appearance is owed to 19th-century renovations by the Pongratz industrial family and later alterations for the Karađorđević family in the 1920s. The Amadeo Palace (Demetrova 1), which houses the Croatian Museum of Natural History, was initially built in the late 18th century as a private residence that later accommodated Zagreb's first theater. Its current appearance was shaped during 19th-century renovations for government offices. The State Hydrometeorological Institute (Grič 3), located in the former palace of Ludovik Jelačić, which was expanded for a high school (Gymnasium) in the 1860s, also suffered significant damage. Probing its walls revealed medieval stone structures and an exceptional 19th-century stucco design in a first-floor room. The Lovrenčić House (Demetrova 18), a notable mid-19th-century residential building, has been unused since the early 2000s and sustained considerable damage in the 2020 earthquake. Lastly, the palace that once housed the Department of Religious Affairs and Education (Opatička 10), now the Croatian Institute of History, is an extraordinary late 19th-century “Gesamtkunstwerk,” seamlessly combining architecture, wall paintings, stucco, and wrought iron. The detailed conservation reports for the buildings encompassed a historical study, an analysis of their current state and damages, restoration evaluations of both the interior and exterior, interpretations of the overall research findings, and proposals with conservation guidelines. Some reports also incorporated specialized research on wall paintings, stucco, stone, woodwork, or metal. In several instances, laboratory tests on materials were conducted. These buildings are exemplary representations of 18th- and 19th-century architecture. Given the limited research on Zagreb's historical architecture and the urgent need for repairs due to earthquake damages, the conservation research served as the academic foundation for restoration projects. It offered deeper insights into the buildings’ historical context, typological and spatial characteristics, and design elements, enabling the redefinition or, in certain cases, the revelation of their original values. revealing their original values.
The author examines the spatial features of the administrative building of the sugar refinery in Rijeka, also known as the Palace of the Privileged Company of Trieste and Fiume. The analysis focuses on two significant phases in its history: the initial construction in 1752 and the subsequent renovation following the fire in 1785/86. By identifying spaces designated for living, business operations, and storage, the author provides a new interpretation of the original intended functions of the building’s floors and rooms. The palace’s architectural design is associated with a group of business-residential structures built in Trieste during the latter half of the 18th century. These structures share remarkably similar spatial characteristics, which are evident from archival drawings since most of the palaces have not survived. The comparisons further imply the existence of a standardized design for mixed-use business and residential buildings, whether these were erected by affluent merchants for their own dual-purpose use or by large, privileged private companies that had their headquarters in Trieste during the 18th century.
The article examines the characteristic phenomena, as well as spatial and design features of civil houses built from the 17th to the beginning of the 19th century in the fortress-towns of Croatia: Osijek, Slavonski Brod, Stara Gradiška and Karlovac. Residential architecture within the fortresses reflected the financial possibilities of the investors, ranging from modest wooden ground-floor dwellings, through burgher’s houses, all the way to grand houses of wealthy merchants. The civilian population was involved in the construction of fortresses and their functioning in times of peace and war. Civilians were, to a considerable extent, the bearers of economic and social development, and the housing they left behind bears witness to urban life in a distinct military environment at the end of the early modern age.
The article gives an overview of the urban development and the construction of Vinkovci, a town located in the Syrmium region of Eastern Croatia, which was, from the early-18th to the mid-19th century, part of the Slavonian Military Frontier, a Habsburg-ruled province bordering the Ottoman Empire. The rise of the town started when it became the command post seat of the Brod Regiment in 1747, followed by the status of the “military community” (Militär Communität) in 1765, which enabled the regulation of the legal affairs between the military personnel and the civilian population. The Military Frontier authorities undertook the construction of dozens of buildings, initially around the town square, with the houses of colonel, brigadier, first and second major, military judges, main guard, as well as a school, a parish church and many others. By the 1850s, as much as fifty buildings were erected for the military administration. Although most of them were relatively modest in scale and design, these buildings constituted the urban fabric of the town. The authorities also encouraged the arrival of the civilians, mostly merchants and craftsmen from Serbia and Bosnia, who opened businesses and started their families in Vinkovci, but also built civic houses, typical for their arcaded porches facing the streets. The article tries to determine the basic spatial and design characteristics of this architecture, as well as the role of the military government in its creation.
The paper discusses the history of the residential and retail building constructed in 1894, at the corner of the Ilica and Frankopanska Street in Zagreb, for the investor Matilda Hönigsberg, based on the designs of the Hönigsberg & Deutsch architectural studio. The designs and other historical documentation show the original appearance and the floor plan organization of the house, as well as the modifications it has undergone since its construction. The first and second floors included one upscale apartment respectively, while the ground floor and the mezzanine housed the Bauer Café, a famous gathering place of Zagreb's intellectual scene, painters and writers. The Café had stucco and painted wall decoration, which was unfortunately taken down in the 20th century. The house has recently sustained damages in the 2020 earthquakes, when the tin roof dome had to be dismantled due to the cracks in the dome tower, and is currently awaiting restoration. The Hönigsberg house is important as an early example of a mixed-use building type in Zagreb with the residential and retail areas clearly distinguished in the building’s outlook, while its lavish neo-baroque style was modelled on contemporary office buildings in Vienna, the imperial capital.
Moretti Palace, formerly known as the "Neo-Classical Palace in Buzet", is a residential house located on the western stretch of the former town walls. The palace is designed with an oval central space, which was meant to be an entrance hall on the ground floor and a salon on the first floor, with groups of smaller rooms adjoining on the sides. The identified investor was a Buzet nobleman Francesco Moretti who had the palace built at the turn of the 18th to 19th century, but died in 1811 leaving it unfinished to his descendants, who are mentioned as heirs in the 1820 cadastre. The cadastre records clearly state that most of the palace was in ruinous condition, and that the heirs lived only in a smaller, northern part of the house. Since it was ruinous only twenty years after the construction, we can assume that it has never been actually completed. This was confirmed by the conservation research showing that the oval hall never had floor decks built within. Furthermore, the fact that the southern part of the palace continued to be “ruinous” in the late 19th century, certainly supports this claim. Although unfinished, Moretti Palace is a unique example of a house with an oval layout in Istria, and by comparing it with similar examples from the region, it is possible to gain insight into the origins of its design.
The article discusses spatial and design features of Osijek’ s residential architecture in the 18th century. The authors focus on the higher-standard houses erected on plots within Osijek’ s planned city fortress, Tvrđa, as well as the time of their construction and the investors. These mostly included artisans, merchants, city and military officials. They used the houses for trade, which took place in the ground-floor shops, while the living quarters of the owners were located on the first floor. The floor plans were organized in rows or groups of rooms. The ground floor had a porte-cochère, either centred or decentred with regard to the central axis, and several other vaulted rooms grouped around or aligned to it. The first-floor living quarters had a group of rooms, the largest usually being a drawing room. Although smaller in scale, the houses resembled the public and military buildings in Tvrđa, both in their floor-plan organization and in the design of their front façades, since the designers were the same – military engineers engaged in the construction of the fortress.
The paper provides insight into the upscale residential architecture of Rijeka at the end of the 18th and the very beginning of the 19th century. Most of the buildings have perished, or have been rebuilt in the later period, and only a few survive until today. In addition to several well-known examples, new houses have here been identifed for the frst time, including their owners and the time of construction. The occurrence of palaces in Rijeka was related to the expansion of the city and the demolition of the medieval city walls, which enabled the construction of new blocks and higher standard housing. The “New Town” became the central city district and its thoroughfare, Korzo, was lined with palaces belonging to wealthy merchants, shipowners and government ofcials. The spatial organization of these palaces can be studied mostly on the basis of archival documentation from the period when it was still extant or at least identifable. It shows typical floor plans formed by grouping or sequencing of the rooms. The origins can be traced to early modern Trieste, where the omnipresent plan model with 3x2 rooms on each floor is recognized as a “typical merchant’s house.” Façades also show considerable uniformity, but also differences in details such as portals and balconies, as well as giant roof gables that gave palaces their visual identity and grand appearance.
The aim of the paper is to analyze the history of the Cernik castle starting from its construction in the 16th century until the 18th-century renovations, when it gained its present appearance. The castle was built for the Dežević (Dessewffy) family in the first half of the 16th century as a four-winged structure with cylindrical corner towers surrounded by a moat. In 1536, it fell into Ottoman hands and remained under occupation until 1688. When the Austrian army liberated Slavonia, Cernik became the property of the Imperial Chamber, which turned it into the seat of a manorial estate. In 1707, it was granted to Baron Maximilian von Petrasch, commander of the Brod and Osijek fortresses in the service of Prince Eugene of Savoy. Petrasch restored the damaged castle around 1720, keeping most of the old structures. His family continued to own the castle until 1756, when his son Josip sold it to the Marković family from Sombor. They undertook a large-scale renewal in 1756 and then again in 1781, giving it a baroque outlook. In the 18th-century renovations, the building kept its pre-Turkish four-sided elevation with corner towers, but a stretch of hallways with arches was added in the inner courtyard, a typically baroque hall in the main axe, a sail vaulting, as well as a system of flat plastered pilasters and strips on the façades. The retaining of the towers and the generally defensive character of the castle can be explained by the owners’ desire to keep its military appearance due to a possible upheaval on the Turkish border near the Sava river, for which a series of fortresses were built in Slavonia in the first half of the 18th century, but also as a memory of the heroic war times, which was characteristic of the peaceful period in the second half of the century. On this occasion, the rooms were turned into salons with large windows and decorative interiors. The Cernik castle exemplifies a construction boost that spread across Slavonia in the 18th century, when the old pre-Ottoman buildings were upgraded with constructional and stylistic elements typical
of the baroque era.
Banski Dvori (Ban’s Palace) originally included a building on the south side of the west perimeter of St. Mark’s Square in Zagreb. This location was occupied by the house of count Petar Zrinski in the 17th century, along with a few other houses, an armoury and St. Ursula’s Chapel. The area was rebuilt and upgraded after 1766 by count Petar Troilo Sermage, who established a magnificent baroque palace facing the square. Further renovations followed at the beginning of the 19th century, when the palace became the seat of ban Ignjat Gyulay, due to which it was further rebuilt and redesigned in 1808–11 by architect Ivan Eyther and thence titled “Banski Dvori ”. During ban Franjo Vlašić’s rule in 1832–40, the neighbouring Rauch Palace, bordering to the north, was added to the complex, which was greatly enlarged as a result and converted to government offices on the basis of designs by architect Ludwig Berger. The renowned ban Ivan Mažuranić had the complex further upgraded in 1875–82, separating the ban’s office and apartment located in the south palace from the government offices in the north palace, where he also built two new wings. Major refurbishments followed in the time of ban Nikola Tomašić in 1910–12, and again in the 1940s, when several new staircases were added. The multi-layered architectural complex underwent its most significant changes during the times of some notable political figures, and has therefore maintained its stately appearance.
The renovation of the Keglević Palace in Varaždin was undertaken in two phases during the last decade. It was an occasion for an overview of all up-to-date knowledge about its history and architecture. The palace was built for count Josip Keglević III in 1774-1775 by a Varaždin builder and architect Jakov Erber. The floor plan of the palace shows a high-baroque space organization, with rooms grouped on every floor, and concentrated around the central axe, which is a reflection of the comfortable 18th-century living standards. The research conducted in 2008 revealed the original characteristics and subsequent changes in the palace structure, technical aspects of its design, as well as the façade coloring. The façades boast lavish articulation with three projecting blocks, portal, balcony, stone and plaster decorations, and was originally painted monochrome in bright white-pinkish color typical of the rococo period. The renovation works included structural repairs, restitution of the inner space arrangement, replacement of the old roof construction, and the restoration of the main façade. It was done with the utmost care to preserve all relevant historical and architectural features of the palace.
The palatial houses built in the 17th and 18th centuries in Varaždin form a high-quality group of Baroque secular buildings in continental Croatia. This book examines the process and circumstances surrounding the palaces’ construction, as well as their development, design and stylistic features in the context of Croatian and Central European architecture. The focus is also on the formal analysis aiming to create a typology on the basis of their floor-plan organization and design.
In the early modern age Varaždin was one of major Croatian cities, and it underwent transformations typical of a Central European urban settlement. The 15th and 16th centuries saw the construction of the fortress and the city walls, due to the nearing Ottoman threats. It was the period of the formation of the urban fabric with the layout of streets and blocks. In the 17th century, Varaždin developed into a strong regional centre, although life and building activities remained concentrated in the area within the city walls. Finally came the peaceful 18th century, when the city opened up to its surroundings, the walls were gradually demolished to make room for new streets, houses and palaces in the suburbs. Although urban development was in many respects determined by church orders which instigated the contruction of churches and monasteries (Jesuits, Franciscans, Capuchins, Ursulines), it was the accumulation of political power in the city that crucially impacted secular construction. The county and state officials started moving into the city especially between 1767 and 1776 when Varaždin became the seat of the Croatian government, i.e. the capital of Croatia, so many aristocrats also came to build their own private houses. The quality of upscale housing reflected the financial potential of owners and investors. At first, the investors were prominent noble families (Erdödy, Drašković, Patačić), but over time, bourgeois merchants, craftsmen and officials (Czindery, Petković, Herzer) acquired wealth and wanted to show off their status by building houses modelled on aristocratic homes. The term palace, therefore, means a town mansion built for a prominent client, which in spatial organisation and appearance stands out from the standard urban housing. Designed for comfortable and elegant living, in size, position and articulation, a palace excelled in the urban image of the city.
In determining the typology of the palace architecture in Varaždin, the book references the postulates made by Carlo Giulio Argan, according to whom an architectural type is based on the fact that groups of buildings are related in form and function, and the standard derives from variations of a shared basic form. Respectively, in the floor-plan organization of the Varaždin palaces, two basic principles can be discerned based on the distribution of rooms in relation to the main corridor: ‘sequencing’ and grouping’. The sequencing, which is of earlier origin, occurs in one-wing buildings where rooms were sequenced along both sides of a coach gateway (portes-cochère), which connects the street entrance with the back yard, while on the first floor, correspondingly, there is a central hallway with a series of rooms on either side. This type of plan was a result of the elongated and narrow plots with shorter side fronting the street, common in the Middle Ages and sometimes persisting until the 18th century. Several such structures dated to the 17th century were preserved in Varaždin, including the Patačić Palace (1669) and the Wassermann-Kreuz Palace.
In multi-wing buildings, rooms were sequenced in rows alined with a longitudinal corridor facing the inner yard, which makes another type of a floor plan, also predefined by the shape of the plot. In the 16th and 17th centuries, small plots were often merged into bigger ones which resulted in the longer side of the plot lining with the street. This enabled buildings with a wide façade of the main wing fronting the street, and the lateral wings stretching towards the back yard. This type of floor plan dates back to 15th-century Florence, and it is believed to have been transfered to Central Europe with the arrival of the Italian master builders in the 16th century. The prototype of this floor plan has four wings enclosing an inner square courtyard and within each wing there is single row of rooms accessed from an arcaded corridor. In smaller urban settlements such as Varaždin, this type was often reduced to two or three wings. However, it marked the beginning of the new palatial architecture. It continued to be used throughout the 17th and 18th centuries until the beginning of the 19th century, and can be found in the Prašinski Sermage Palace (late 17th century), Patačić-Puttar Palace (18th century), Drašković Palace (17th century, redesigned in mid-18th century), Erdödy Palace (ca 1762) and the Erdödy-Oršić Palace (1805).
An important novelty in palace architecture brought by the Baroque era stemmed from the need for a more functional and comfortable living space. It was the formation of groups of rooms organized as apartments. It first appeared in France in the 17th century in Parisian city mansions, the so-called hotel particulier. In Vienna it appeared in the eighties and nineties of the 17th century, and in other Austrian cities somewhat later. We have no record of it in Varaždin until the second half of the 18th century, but was then used in a number of palaces: Pauline mansion (1760), Zagreb Kaptol Palace (1760-63), Petković Palace (around 1767), Varaždin County Palace (1769), Keglević Palace (1774-75), Hinterholzer (1771-72), Janković (c. 1775, upgraded in the 19th century), Herzer (1791-95) and Eggersdorfer (c. 1807).
The occurences of the older and the newer floor-plan types intertwined over the course of centuries, but in general, the sequencing concept originated from the Renaissance, while grouping appeared in the Baroque era. These floor-plan types were not only used in residential housing, but also in public buildings and generally in secular architecture. Administrative buildings could also include the living area of the executive who held office, so their apartment was integrated into the floor plan as its most important part, as shown by the example of the Varaždin County Palace.
In addition to spatial organization, the building frontages had particular typological patterns as well, which were mostly inventions of the Baroque period. The façades were articulated by projecting blocks. According to Christian Norberg-Schulz, this principle was based on dominant and subordinate elements, which was evident at the level of the entire building, its individual parts, and in decoration. The front was regularly grand and decorated giving the visual identity to the building, but also to the street or square. It could have one or three projecting blocks, symmetrically positioned on the central and corner sides of the building, as had most of the palaces in Varaždin. As a form of a projection, two corner houses had bay windows as angular protrusion, the Patačić Palace and the Patačić-Puttar Palace. There is also a case where the projection is formed as a tower, like in the Varaždin Town Hall, a 15th-century building upgraded into a palace in the 18th century, with an axial tower rising above the façade as the most prominent element.
Although accomplished in what was then the largest city of continental Croatia, the concepts of spatial and design solutions of Varaždin palaces did not originate locally but were a sum of different architectural experiences found elsewhere in Croatia and beyond. Under Habsburg rule, the north-western Croatia was politically, economically and culturaly influenced by the nearby Austrian province of Styria. The Styrian masters - architects, builders and artists, played a crucial role in the dissemination of architectural trends in the region. The arrival of military engineers in the 16th century, at first for the construction and renovation of fortresses, and later in the 17th and 18th century, civil architects from large workshops in Graz and Maribor, hired by the Church, as well as by private investors, - influenced the domestic builders and prompted the transfer and exchange of ideas, marking the architecture of Varaždin with Central-European baroque features.
The article provides an overview of the conservation research conducted on eight public buildings in Zagreb's Upper Town from 2019 to 2022, both before and after the 2020 earthquakes. This research marked the initial extensive step towards their forthcoming restoration due to damages of varying degrees. All the considered structures were originally private palaces and houses dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries. However, over time, they were repurposed into public buildings. The Vojković Palace (Matoševa 9), Zagreb's most significant secular Baroque building, now houses the Croatian History Museum. It suffered the most damage and underwent a comprehensive conservation analysis. Similar research was undertaken on the Banski dvori block (1-2, St. Mark’s Square), which comprises two Baroque palaces, Rauch and Kulmer. These were combined into one ensemble to serve as the seat of the Croatian Government. The Bužan Palace (Opatička 8), currently the Government Office for General Affairs, is an 18th-century structure. Its present “neo-Baroque” appearance stems from renovations carried out between 1941 and 1943. The Pongratz Palace (Visoka 22), now the State Residence for foreign official visits, is a structure with a rich history, incorporating a medieval city tower. Its appearance is owed to 19th-century renovations by the Pongratz industrial family and later alterations for the Karađorđević family in the 1920s. The Amadeo Palace (Demetrova 1), which houses the Croatian Museum of Natural History, was initially built in the late 18th century as a private residence that later accommodated Zagreb's first theater. Its current appearance was shaped during 19th-century renovations for government offices. The State Hydrometeorological Institute (Grič 3), located in the former palace of Ludovik Jelačić, which was expanded for a high school (Gymnasium) in the 1860s, also suffered significant damage. Probing its walls revealed medieval stone structures and an exceptional 19th-century stucco design in a first-floor room. The Lovrenčić House (Demetrova 18), a notable mid-19th-century residential building, has been unused since the early 2000s and sustained considerable damage in the 2020 earthquake. Lastly, the palace that once housed the Department of Religious Affairs and Education (Opatička 10), now the Croatian Institute of History, is an extraordinary late 19th-century “Gesamtkunstwerk,” seamlessly combining architecture, wall paintings, stucco, and wrought iron. The detailed conservation reports for the buildings encompassed a historical study, an analysis of their current state and damages, restoration evaluations of both the interior and exterior, interpretations of the overall research findings, and proposals with conservation guidelines. Some reports also incorporated specialized research on wall paintings, stucco, stone, woodwork, or metal. In several instances, laboratory tests on materials were conducted. These buildings are exemplary representations of 18th- and 19th-century architecture. Given the limited research on Zagreb's historical architecture and the urgent need for repairs due to earthquake damages, the conservation research served as the academic foundation for restoration projects. It offered deeper insights into the buildings’ historical context, typological and spatial characteristics, and design elements, enabling the redefinition or, in certain cases, the revelation of their original values. revealing their original values.
The author examines the spatial features of the administrative building of the sugar refinery in Rijeka, also known as the Palace of the Privileged Company of Trieste and Fiume. The analysis focuses on two significant phases in its history: the initial construction in 1752 and the subsequent renovation following the fire in 1785/86. By identifying spaces designated for living, business operations, and storage, the author provides a new interpretation of the original intended functions of the building’s floors and rooms. The palace’s architectural design is associated with a group of business-residential structures built in Trieste during the latter half of the 18th century. These structures share remarkably similar spatial characteristics, which are evident from archival drawings since most of the palaces have not survived. The comparisons further imply the existence of a standardized design for mixed-use business and residential buildings, whether these were erected by affluent merchants for their own dual-purpose use or by large, privileged private companies that had their headquarters in Trieste during the 18th century.
The article examines the characteristic phenomena, as well as spatial and design features of civil houses built from the 17th to the beginning of the 19th century in the fortress-towns of Croatia: Osijek, Slavonski Brod, Stara Gradiška and Karlovac. Residential architecture within the fortresses reflected the financial possibilities of the investors, ranging from modest wooden ground-floor dwellings, through burgher’s houses, all the way to grand houses of wealthy merchants. The civilian population was involved in the construction of fortresses and their functioning in times of peace and war. Civilians were, to a considerable extent, the bearers of economic and social development, and the housing they left behind bears witness to urban life in a distinct military environment at the end of the early modern age.
The article gives an overview of the urban development and the construction of Vinkovci, a town located in the Syrmium region of Eastern Croatia, which was, from the early-18th to the mid-19th century, part of the Slavonian Military Frontier, a Habsburg-ruled province bordering the Ottoman Empire. The rise of the town started when it became the command post seat of the Brod Regiment in 1747, followed by the status of the “military community” (Militär Communität) in 1765, which enabled the regulation of the legal affairs between the military personnel and the civilian population. The Military Frontier authorities undertook the construction of dozens of buildings, initially around the town square, with the houses of colonel, brigadier, first and second major, military judges, main guard, as well as a school, a parish church and many others. By the 1850s, as much as fifty buildings were erected for the military administration. Although most of them were relatively modest in scale and design, these buildings constituted the urban fabric of the town. The authorities also encouraged the arrival of the civilians, mostly merchants and craftsmen from Serbia and Bosnia, who opened businesses and started their families in Vinkovci, but also built civic houses, typical for their arcaded porches facing the streets. The article tries to determine the basic spatial and design characteristics of this architecture, as well as the role of the military government in its creation.
The paper discusses the history of the residential and retail building constructed in 1894, at the corner of the Ilica and Frankopanska Street in Zagreb, for the investor Matilda Hönigsberg, based on the designs of the Hönigsberg & Deutsch architectural studio. The designs and other historical documentation show the original appearance and the floor plan organization of the house, as well as the modifications it has undergone since its construction. The first and second floors included one upscale apartment respectively, while the ground floor and the mezzanine housed the Bauer Café, a famous gathering place of Zagreb's intellectual scene, painters and writers. The Café had stucco and painted wall decoration, which was unfortunately taken down in the 20th century. The house has recently sustained damages in the 2020 earthquakes, when the tin roof dome had to be dismantled due to the cracks in the dome tower, and is currently awaiting restoration. The Hönigsberg house is important as an early example of a mixed-use building type in Zagreb with the residential and retail areas clearly distinguished in the building’s outlook, while its lavish neo-baroque style was modelled on contemporary office buildings in Vienna, the imperial capital.
Moretti Palace, formerly known as the "Neo-Classical Palace in Buzet", is a residential house located on the western stretch of the former town walls. The palace is designed with an oval central space, which was meant to be an entrance hall on the ground floor and a salon on the first floor, with groups of smaller rooms adjoining on the sides. The identified investor was a Buzet nobleman Francesco Moretti who had the palace built at the turn of the 18th to 19th century, but died in 1811 leaving it unfinished to his descendants, who are mentioned as heirs in the 1820 cadastre. The cadastre records clearly state that most of the palace was in ruinous condition, and that the heirs lived only in a smaller, northern part of the house. Since it was ruinous only twenty years after the construction, we can assume that it has never been actually completed. This was confirmed by the conservation research showing that the oval hall never had floor decks built within. Furthermore, the fact that the southern part of the palace continued to be “ruinous” in the late 19th century, certainly supports this claim. Although unfinished, Moretti Palace is a unique example of a house with an oval layout in Istria, and by comparing it with similar examples from the region, it is possible to gain insight into the origins of its design.
The article discusses spatial and design features of Osijek’ s residential architecture in the 18th century. The authors focus on the higher-standard houses erected on plots within Osijek’ s planned city fortress, Tvrđa, as well as the time of their construction and the investors. These mostly included artisans, merchants, city and military officials. They used the houses for trade, which took place in the ground-floor shops, while the living quarters of the owners were located on the first floor. The floor plans were organized in rows or groups of rooms. The ground floor had a porte-cochère, either centred or decentred with regard to the central axis, and several other vaulted rooms grouped around or aligned to it. The first-floor living quarters had a group of rooms, the largest usually being a drawing room. Although smaller in scale, the houses resembled the public and military buildings in Tvrđa, both in their floor-plan organization and in the design of their front façades, since the designers were the same – military engineers engaged in the construction of the fortress.
The paper provides insight into the upscale residential architecture of Rijeka at the end of the 18th and the very beginning of the 19th century. Most of the buildings have perished, or have been rebuilt in the later period, and only a few survive until today. In addition to several well-known examples, new houses have here been identifed for the frst time, including their owners and the time of construction. The occurrence of palaces in Rijeka was related to the expansion of the city and the demolition of the medieval city walls, which enabled the construction of new blocks and higher standard housing. The “New Town” became the central city district and its thoroughfare, Korzo, was lined with palaces belonging to wealthy merchants, shipowners and government ofcials. The spatial organization of these palaces can be studied mostly on the basis of archival documentation from the period when it was still extant or at least identifable. It shows typical floor plans formed by grouping or sequencing of the rooms. The origins can be traced to early modern Trieste, where the omnipresent plan model with 3x2 rooms on each floor is recognized as a “typical merchant’s house.” Façades also show considerable uniformity, but also differences in details such as portals and balconies, as well as giant roof gables that gave palaces their visual identity and grand appearance.
The aim of the paper is to analyze the history of the Cernik castle starting from its construction in the 16th century until the 18th-century renovations, when it gained its present appearance. The castle was built for the Dežević (Dessewffy) family in the first half of the 16th century as a four-winged structure with cylindrical corner towers surrounded by a moat. In 1536, it fell into Ottoman hands and remained under occupation until 1688. When the Austrian army liberated Slavonia, Cernik became the property of the Imperial Chamber, which turned it into the seat of a manorial estate. In 1707, it was granted to Baron Maximilian von Petrasch, commander of the Brod and Osijek fortresses in the service of Prince Eugene of Savoy. Petrasch restored the damaged castle around 1720, keeping most of the old structures. His family continued to own the castle until 1756, when his son Josip sold it to the Marković family from Sombor. They undertook a large-scale renewal in 1756 and then again in 1781, giving it a baroque outlook. In the 18th-century renovations, the building kept its pre-Turkish four-sided elevation with corner towers, but a stretch of hallways with arches was added in the inner courtyard, a typically baroque hall in the main axe, a sail vaulting, as well as a system of flat plastered pilasters and strips on the façades. The retaining of the towers and the generally defensive character of the castle can be explained by the owners’ desire to keep its military appearance due to a possible upheaval on the Turkish border near the Sava river, for which a series of fortresses were built in Slavonia in the first half of the 18th century, but also as a memory of the heroic war times, which was characteristic of the peaceful period in the second half of the century. On this occasion, the rooms were turned into salons with large windows and decorative interiors. The Cernik castle exemplifies a construction boost that spread across Slavonia in the 18th century, when the old pre-Ottoman buildings were upgraded with constructional and stylistic elements typical
of the baroque era.
Banski Dvori (Ban’s Palace) originally included a building on the south side of the west perimeter of St. Mark’s Square in Zagreb. This location was occupied by the house of count Petar Zrinski in the 17th century, along with a few other houses, an armoury and St. Ursula’s Chapel. The area was rebuilt and upgraded after 1766 by count Petar Troilo Sermage, who established a magnificent baroque palace facing the square. Further renovations followed at the beginning of the 19th century, when the palace became the seat of ban Ignjat Gyulay, due to which it was further rebuilt and redesigned in 1808–11 by architect Ivan Eyther and thence titled “Banski Dvori ”. During ban Franjo Vlašić’s rule in 1832–40, the neighbouring Rauch Palace, bordering to the north, was added to the complex, which was greatly enlarged as a result and converted to government offices on the basis of designs by architect Ludwig Berger. The renowned ban Ivan Mažuranić had the complex further upgraded in 1875–82, separating the ban’s office and apartment located in the south palace from the government offices in the north palace, where he also built two new wings. Major refurbishments followed in the time of ban Nikola Tomašić in 1910–12, and again in the 1940s, when several new staircases were added. The multi-layered architectural complex underwent its most significant changes during the times of some notable political figures, and has therefore maintained its stately appearance.
The renovation of the Keglević Palace in Varaždin was undertaken in two phases during the last decade. It was an occasion for an overview of all up-to-date knowledge about its history and architecture. The palace was built for count Josip Keglević III in 1774-1775 by a Varaždin builder and architect Jakov Erber. The floor plan of the palace shows a high-baroque space organization, with rooms grouped on every floor, and concentrated around the central axe, which is a reflection of the comfortable 18th-century living standards. The research conducted in 2008 revealed the original characteristics and subsequent changes in the palace structure, technical aspects of its design, as well as the façade coloring. The façades boast lavish articulation with three projecting blocks, portal, balcony, stone and plaster decorations, and was originally painted monochrome in bright white-pinkish color typical of the rococo period. The renovation works included structural repairs, restitution of the inner space arrangement, replacement of the old roof construction, and the restoration of the main façade. It was done with the utmost care to preserve all relevant historical and architectural features of the palace.
The authors analyse the archival sources regarding the history of the building located in Kobler Square in Rijeka, which was used as a town hall from the 16th to 19th centuries. It was originally built as a residential house and then repurposed for town hall in 1532. Over the course of the centuries, it underwent numerous changes. The most significant one was undertaken from 1740 to 1745 by architect Antonio Verneda, who had the second floor added, adjoined the neighbouring house, and redesigned the façades in the baroque style. The building was damaged in the earthquake of 1750, after which it was restored several times. In the late 18th century, some of its rooms were used for different social and public events. In 1833, the city council moved out to the former Augustine Monastery, and the building was converted to stores and apartments. Being located on the intersection of main streets and the central square, Rijeka’s Old Town Hall has urbanistic relevance. The paper also discusses the results of conservation research conducted on the building, which enabled distinguishing of the construction phases.
The paper focuses on the construction history and architectural features of a palace built in the 1750s, which used to belong to Giovanni Felice de Gerliczy, a city counsellor in Rijeka. The original appearance of the palace can be seen on a plan dated to 1780 and preserved at the Austrian State Archives. The palace is situated in a street row and hidden behind a late 19th-century facade at 14 Ciottina Street. Its original design and spatial organization, as well its exceptional French parterre garden, as seen on the plan, show that the structure was conceived as a luxurious residential palace built for a wealthy investor. The documents reveal that it was used both for residence and as the counsellor Gerliczy's main office. Originally it was a three-storey building with three wings. It had an asymmetrical floor plan, although the grand hall on the first floor had a typically centred baroque position, same as the entrance hall on the ground floor, which was reduced to a narrow corridor not long after the construction. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the palace and the garden shared the destiny of many other mansions in Rijeka, as its primary function was degraded from an upscale living space to a series of small rental apartments. The restructuring resulted in a complete conversion of the interior with the erection of new walls, construction of a third floor and an attic, as well the redesign of the façades. The subsequent interventions after World War II led to the demolition of the palace’s west wing. In view of these changes, it was only through archival research and the preserved architectural plan from the 1780 that the original baroque features of the building could be detected, showing its prominence in Rijeka’s 18th-century urban landscape.
The authors analyze the history of the construction and the design of the Grlečić-Jelačić house on 9 St. Mark’s Square in Zagreb. The house was formed on the location of several earlier building structures which cannot be exactly detected, but of which have remained walled-up arcades on the façades facing the square and the garden. The arcades on the square front have been part of a continuous row of the arcaded houses preserved along the south side of the Kamenita Street. The current spatial organization of the house was created in about 1776, when the house was bought by Nikola Fridrik Grlečić who had erected a monumental staircase with vaulting, columns and richly ornamented stone balustrade. In 1784, the house came into the possession of the Jelačić family who had the façade redesigned in the ‘Zopf style’, while the interior was refurbished with the wall paintings depicting landscapes and the ‘quadratura’. A renewal of the house followed in the second quarter of the 19th century, when the main façade was replastered with the rustication in Biedermeier style. Although it was originally built as a burgher’s house, its features show it is an example of a high-quality residential architecture of the period.
In the 17th- and 18th-century architecture of Continental Croatia, there is a number of façades articulated with a raster of repetitive fields in various forms, which are called 'medallions'. The author determines the origins of these forms relating them to the works of the Italian builders of the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as paths of their adoption in the Habsburg lands, especially in the big cities like Vienna, Prague or Graz, where from they came to Croatia. In Croatia, this type of design is seen in three phenomena. The first is a plastered articulation made of vertical and horizontal strips, in which the inner fields make the medallions, which is completely influenced by Styrian architecture. The second are the wall-painted compositions with randomly painted medallions on a group of buildings near the Croatian-Styrian border, modelled on the works of the architect Domenico Sciassia. And the third is a mature-baroque motif of the cartouche-shaped medallions in Slavonia, which seem to be brought in by the architects who came from Vienna and Hungary. Further transformations of the medallion composition occured in the late 18th century with the geometrical forms shaped as rows of plastered rectangular „plates“, which paved the way for the development of the „Plattenstil“, typical of neo-classicist architecture in Central Europe.
U svrhu izrade članaka provedena su opsežna arhivska i povijesna istraživanja crkve, pa se u zaključku knjige donose i dva značajna arhivska izvora za njezinu povijest (protokoli kanonskih vizitacija od 17. do 19. stoljeća te izvještaj o radovima iz 1937. godine), dok je slika razvojnog procesa izgradnje crkve dodatno upotpunjena saznanjima dobivenim tijekom građevinskih i konzervatorsko-restauratorskih radova, kada su in situ bilježeni nalazi u strukturama. Time je ujedno stvorena i osnovna konzervatorska, arhitektonska i povijesna dokumentacija o crkvi, koja može poslužiti kao temelj svih budućih istraživanja i obnova.
Projekt Primorsko-goranske županije "Kulturno-turistička ruta Putovima Frankopana" sufinancirala je Europska unija iz Europskog fonda za regionalni razvoj.