Guided tour through medieval Innsbruck

Magnificent houses with colourful walls characterize Innsbruck's old town. What motivated people 500 years ago to design their buildings so elaborately? Guide Monika Frenzel takes us on a city tour through medieval Innsbruck.

Let's try a little experiment: imagine an ancient temple and a street in the European Middle Ages. The result would probably be gleaming white marble and a gloomy mud battle through which plague-ridden sourpusses drag themselves. Both are more than understandable given the images that Hollywood likes to sell us. But in the words of Monika Frenzel, historian and founder of Per Pedes Tirol"Color has always been in demand, even in ancient times." She explained to me for MyInnsbruck why Innsbruck's old town is - contrary to expectations - so wonderfully colorful and rich in detail.

What we know today as the old town was built between 1490 and 1520 and is one of the so-called Inn-Salzach towns. In other words, towns along these rivers in North Tyrol, Upper Austria and Salzburg share some characteristics such as large town squares, churches slightly away from the center and colorful facades.

Of course, the latter are not only to be found in Austria, just think of the Hanseatic cities. "There, the color of the houses was determined by the guilds," explains Frenzel. In Innsbruck, it was probably more a question of personal taste and how much money you had in your wallet, as some pigments were extremely expensive. The red of the purple snail, for example, was only used to decorate two houses, and only one was secured as early as the Middle Ages: the house of the Maria Theresian Normal School in Kiebachgasse. Following a trend, it was painted in the legendary Schönbrunn yellow in the 19th century - enthusiasm for the lifestyle of royals was apparently not always a British phenomenon. Incidentally, the earliest depictions of Innsbruck date back to 1420, before which nothing is known about the city's appearance.

The trend towards colorful facades only began with the construction of stone houses, which can be traced back to Emperor Maximilian I's justified paranoia about fire and the Maximilian Transitional Style named after him. In the Middle Ages, wooden towns often burned to the ground, for example Schwaz during the Wars of Independence. The monarch therefore issued new building regulations, which stipulated that the old half-timbered houses should be replaced by stone buildings. Firewalls were to be erected between them, one of which can still be seen today between the New Courtyard (on which the Golden Roof is emblazoned) and the neighboring yellow building. To prevent sparks from flying, Maximilian banished all craftsmen who worked with fire to Anpruggen, today's Sankt Nikolaus and Mariahilf. Thanks to these precautionary measures, Innsbruck's old town with its almost entirely late Gothic architecture was authentically preserved.

The beauty of some houses only came to light by chance. Frescoes were even more expensive than colorful facades - just right for the wealthy family of Count Trautson, whose city palace was one of the most magnificent in Innsbruck. "In times of plague, such houses were whitewashed with lime for fear of infection. The frescoes underneath were forgotten," says Frenzel. Ironically, it was the bomb that destroyed two houses opposite each other during the Second World War that brought the paintings back to light: it was the detonation that caused the lime to begin to trickle away.

The town's citizens and craftsmen used more than just paint to embellish their houses. Coats of arms, tracery, reliefs and the like were used, often made from Höttinger Brekzie. This is a conglomerate stone that was very popular for framing windows, doors and entire portals. The Türing family of stonemasons, who were also sent to Anpruggen due to their need for space, were masters in their craft. They created the reliefs on the Golden Roof, for example.
It was not just the view that was important to the city's inhabitants. "Bay windows were the little man's television," says the historian, describing the importance of the porches. People looked down from the bay windows and marveled at markets, minstrels and the hustle and bustle in the alleyways.

According to Frenzel, the houses in the old town are characterized by the fact that they are actually a size too big for a city with 5,000 inhabitants at the time, i.e. around the year 1500. This is due to the fact that Innsbruck was the residence of the Habsburgs from 1420; as the seat of the sovereigns, the Hofburg is the third most important historical building in Austria.

"You can't reduce Innsbruck to a sports city, something is missing," says the expert.
The generous dimensions of the buildings are particularly evident in their height and depth. Rainwater was channelled down to the loamy town square via typical V-shaped trench roofs, while light wells provided brightness and space for works of art. The floorboards on the first floors had to be large enough to accommodate carts. The only room that could be heated was the parlor - the higher the rank of the inhabitants, the closer they slept to it. The invention of the four-poster bed, which created privacy and protected against falling vermin, also dates back to this time. There were usually inner courtyards where small livestock such as sheep and goats were kept in addition to the latrines.

What is missing from this list of features is a decent sewage system. Instead, there were open water ditches, the Ritschen, into which everything except slaughterhouse waste was allowed to be thrown. "You have to assume that children didn't follow at all times," says Frenzel, citing one reason why waves of intestinal illnesses repeatedly occurred when the brackish water was drunk. It was only when a fountain was built in front of the Golden Roof that the "Leidige Läuf" came to an abrupt end. If you would like to find out more about the olfactorily questionable aspects of Innsbruck's history, we recommend the city tour "Disreputable History - Innsbruck's Everyday Life in the Middle Ages" by Per Pedes.

Incidentally, people back then not only had to contend with the threat of fire, occasional floods and outbreaks of plague. Thanks to its location on an earthquake line, the city was repeatedly shaken, resulting in particularly massive construction. Some towers collapsed, but the town houses remained intact. If you look carefully, you will discover historical protective measures again and again. For example, iron brackets that hold the house walls together, or massive supporting pillars on the colorful facades - again made from the tried and tested Höttinger breccia.

Images, unless otherwise indicated: Florian Riedl

Header image: © Innsbruck Tourismus / Frank Heuer