Austrian Parliament Building - History

History

The new imperial constitution (known as the Februar-Patent) promulgated in 1861 created the Imperial Council as an effective legislature. For that purpose, a new building had to be constructed to house this constitutional organ. The original plan was to construct two separate buildings for each chamber, one for the House of Lords and one for the House of Representatives. However after the Ausgleich which effectively created the Dual-Monarchy in 1867, Hungary received its own separate legislative body, and the original plan for two buildings was dropped.

The precursor to the present building was the temporary House of Deputies or Representatives (Abgeordnetenhaus), located at Währinger Straße, which was erected within six weeks. In its layout the Abgeordnetenhaus would be a model for the later parliament building. This temporary structure was opened in 1861 by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. The building was soon named afterwards named "Schmerlingtheater", after its Speaker Anton von Schmerling. The "Schmerlingtheater" was used by the deputies until the construction of the new building in 1884.

The site was the location of the city’s fortifications and walls. In his famous decree (Es ist Mein Wille at Wikisource) in 1857, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria laid down the plans of the Ringstraße boulevard, which replaced the old walls. The parliament building was supposed to feature prominently on the Ringstraße, in close proximity to the Hofburg Palace and the city hall of Vienna.

An Imperial Commission was appointed to study the building of the Parliament. The Commission decided that the building’s style should be classical. Those who preferred the classical style argued that classical Greek architecture was appropriate for Parliament, since it is connected to the Ancient Greeks and the ideal of democracy.

After studying rival proposals, the Imperial Commission chose Theophil Hansen's plan for a classical style building. In 1869, the Imperial and Royal Ministry of the Interior gave von Hansen the order to design a new parliament building.

Ground was broken on June 1874, the cornerstone has the date “2. September 1874“ etched into it. At the same time, work also commenced on the nearby two imperial museums (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Naturhistorisches Museum), the city hall and the university. In November 1883 the offices of the House of Representatives were completed and started being used. On December 4, 1883 the House of Representatives held its first session under its president Franz Smolka. On December 16, 1884, the House of Lords under its president Count Trauttmansdorff held its first session. Both chambers would continue to sit in the building until the end of the empire in 1918.

The fountain with the statue of Athena in front of the building was designed by Baron Hansen as well, but only completed in 1898 to 1902. The official name of the building was Reichsratsgebäude (Imperial Council Building), and the street behind the building, the Reichsratsstraße, still recalls this former name. The word Parliament however was in use since the beginning as well.

The building saw tumultuous years during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as the House of Representatives was extremely fractious between liberals and conservatives, German-speaking nationalists and Czech deputies, as well as the government and parliament. It became a common feature of undisciplined deputies to throw inkwells at each other. The joke on the street was that Athena was so disgusted by the political infighting, that her statue purposely has her back turned to the building.

Nevertheless the building housed the first form of a parliamentary system for much of the people of Central Europe. Some of the former deputies continued their political carriers after the fall of the empire and became important politicians in their home countries.

The Reichsratsgebäude continued to function until 1918, when the building was occupied by demonstrators during the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. From the ramp of the building, the First Republic was officially proclaimed. The building itself was renamed as “Parliament”, with the new republican National Council (Nationalrat) and Federal Council (Bundesrat) replacing the old imperial House of Deputies (Abgeordnetenhaus) and the House of Lords (Herrenhaus). The parliament ceased to function with the introduction of the Austro-fascist dictatorship and the Anschluß of Austria to Nazi Germany in 1938. Half of the building suffered heavy damage or was destroyed, such as the former Lords Chamber and the Hall of Columns, by Allied bombs in the course of the Second World War. It was in the old Abgeordnetenhaus Chamber that the new Chancellor Dr. Karl Renner declared the rebirth of an independent Austria, helped by Soviet troops. Max Fellerer and Eugen Wörle were commissioned as architect; they chose to redesign and readapt the former Lords Chamber for the National Council, in the process the meeting room of the National Council was rebuilt in a modern and functional style. Work on the National Council Chamber was completed in 1956. The original appearance of the other publicly accessible premises and the building's external appearance were largely restored to von Hansen's design, such as of the Hall of Columns.