Salzburški dvor (Salzburg Court)
Location: Vetrinjska ulica 16
Architect: Johann Georg Stenng (?)
Time of construction: ca. 1725
Salzburški dvor (Salzburg Court), one of the most beautiful Baroque buildings in the centre of Maribor, is located in an area that supposedly belonged to the Salzburg Archdiocese as early as the 14th century. In 1325, the widow of a regional writer, Elizabeth, replaced her own house on "the corner of the square" with the Archdiocese's one beside the wall, while in 1355, a Salzburg granary stood there. The administrative court of the Archdiocese, which is attested to being on this location numerous times in local archives, was thoroughly reconstructed in the middle of the 15th century. The archival documents also mention that a wine cellar owned by the Archdiocese was located in the same area in 1464. In 1601, the court survived a great fire that destroyed the majority of the buildings in the town. The Salzburg Archdiocese owned the court until the beginning of the 18th century, when the Frauenbacher family obtained its ownership. Around 1720 it was obtained by the noble family Filipič, who commissioned a Baroque renovation of the court in approximately 1725. The Filipič family owned the manor until 1778, when it came into possession of the noble family Rosenbüchl, followed by the Balancari, and later the Mandelestein families. Between 1826 and 1941 the owner of the court was St. Paul's monastery, which is why it is also known as Vetrinjski dvor (Viktring Court) and why it is frequently mistaken for the nearby Vetrinjski dvor (also known as the Breuner Manor, Berdajs House, or Nasko Manor) on Vetrinjska ulica 30.
Today, the single-storey palace represents only the front part of an originally much larger complex, the remainder of which was demolished in 1967 in order to build a courtyard for the department store Merkur. The exterior of the preserved part of the complex retained its Baroque features. The ground floor of the seven-bay main façade is divided with horizontal lines and a simple, semi-circular portal with a keystone in the central axis of the building. Above the small profiled cornice, the floor is divided with eight windows. The storeys of the façades that face the street are adorned with vegetable stucco ornamentation, which decorates the fields above the windows and the parapets under them. The Filipič family lavishly decorated the interior with frescoes and stucco works. The frescoes on the first floor were destroyed, while on the ground floor a part of stucco with strapworks and figural fields with allegorical images and scenes from the Bible are preserved.
Based on the stylistic parallels with similar buildings in Austrian Styria, the High Baroque architecture of Salzburški dvor was placed in the vicinity of the works by Graz architect Johann Georg Stengg (1689-1753).
The court also has an important role in the cultural history of the town; Maribor's bourgeoisie gathered there in the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century, while between 1834 and 1854, the court also housed the Reading Society. Since the Second World War it has served as the seat of the Association of the Societies of Engineers and Technicians.
Tina Košak
(25 September 2014)
