Plan(t)s for the future – the forgotten orangery in the park of Lamberg Castles in Steyr

Discovering something new and learning to live with it enriches humankind each time. One aspect of architecture is to create space for needs, whether they are new or old. When citrus plants slowly made their way from the Orient to Central and Northern Europe, it became necessary to provide suitable accommodation and conditions for cultivation of these plants. Thus, the foundation for the orangery was laid. To this day, records and documents of various orangery buildings have been preserved and archived.

However, in the case of the garden building in the Lamberg Palace complex in Steyr this is only partially true. Plans or written documentation regarding the orangery are not currently known. Due to the very limited knowledge about the orangery, this master’s thesis aims to classify the garden house in Steyr by comparing it with similar buildings in Austria and Europe.

An analysis of the existing structure, including the surrounding park, should contribute to compiling and refining existing data on the orangery. A typological comparison of the orangery with other buildings from around 1750 should help identify the structure based on its form and recognisable uses in the past. The available engravings and plans of the city of Steyr, which show the buildings in the palace park area, provide further insights into the location and form of the orangery.

From this comprehensive examination of the orangery in the palace park of Steyr an overall impression emerges, consisting of numerous individual pieces that have been obtained from the previous analyses. After assigning the building to a combination of orangery architectures, the work is intended to serve as a basis for developing future usage scenarios for this valuable relic from ancient times.