Palais Attems

The palace stands as a block-like, U-shaped building of four storeys that encloses an almost square inner courtyard. The plan concentrates representative rooms on the main floor above street level while service and circulation spaces occupy the ground and upper floors. The façades facing the street and the courtyard are richly modelled in Baroque taste and draw on northern Italian palazzo precedents.

The lower storeys are treated as a continuous plinth with windows set in deeply rusticated stone surrounds, while the two principal upper floors display windows crowned by arched pediments and small stuccoed vase motifs. Flat, rectangular pilasters (pilaster, a shallow column attached to a wall) in the middle storeys mark vertical divisions and carry a projecting horizontal moulding, a string-course (a raised band running around a building), which separates the lower and upper zones.

On the street side a projecting rusticated round-arched stone portal provides the main approach. The arch’s keystone carries a sandstone alliance coat of arms combining the Attems and Wurmbrand emblems, commemorating the builder and his first wife. Above that relief sits an altan (balcony or terrace) with a stone balustrade that features figural ornament. The original carved gate leaves survive, set with early iron fittings, and the transom above the entrance bears a vine-scroll wrought-iron grille. The window grilles that protect several openings date to the mid-18th century.

Interior decoration developed in three broad phases. Early in the 1700s ceiling stucco and painted overdoor panels established the scheme of mythological and biblical scenes, and these were later complemented by rich wall panelling and tiled heating stoves installed in the mid-18th century. Around the turn of the 19th century carved classical details and gilded woodwork were added. Ceilings on the principal upper floors show a progression of ornament from acanthus leaves and naturalistic foliage into ribbon-like motifs, all enhanced with gold, silver and copper highlights. Painted programmes include stories from the Old Testament alongside scenes drawn from ancient mythology.

The sequence of interior spaces unfolds directly from the entrance. A two-bay vestibule opens beneath a delicate stucco ceiling decorated with ribbon-and-foliage motifs. Lateral staircases rise to the upper floors; their stone balustrades are open in pattern and terminate in posts topped by lantern-like finials. Stone gateposts on either side of the entrance carry pairs of stucco putti holding vases. Ground-floor rooms present exuberant stuccowork, with some chambers designed in a shell-motif style. A narrow stair in the east wing contains a noteworthy two-armed staircase that links the levels.

The main reception floor, the piano nobile (main reception floor), contains the palace’s finest suites. Ceiling and wall paintings here combine biblical narratives, classical themes and allegorical references to the Attems family, and an antechamber ceiling fresco depicts the apotheosis of the house. The principal state room, the so-called Prunkzimmer, displays numerous wall and ceiling paintings and once held five Brussels tapestries from the Heinrich Reydams manufactory alongside a tiled stove with relief ornament. An adjoining stove room contains mythological imagery throughout its decoration.

The upper floor originally provided private family apartments and was later adapted to house a library and a picture gallery. A large reception room known as the Great Salon, sometimes called the Monkey Hall, is painted with grotesque and exotic figures and landscape scenes and is notable for half-plastic bronze monkeys that project from the ceiling. Beside it the Bird Hall presents abundant scenes from Greek mythology and numerous avian motifs, which give the chamber its informal name. These richly worked interiors survive as restored spaces within the palace.