Celje Hall () is a

community center A community centre, community center, or community hall is a public location where members of a community gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may be open for the whole community or for a sp ...

Celje Celje (, , ) is the List of cities and towns in Slovenia, third-largest city in Slovenia. It is a regional center of the traditional Slovenian region of Styria (Slovenia), Styria and the administrative seat of the City Municipality of Celje. Th ...

, a town in central-eastern

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

. Today it hosts several cultural associations and the town's tourist information centre, and is a venue for concerts and theatre.

Overview

The hall was built in an

eclectic style Eclecticism is a kind of mixed style in the fine arts: "the borrowing of a variety of styles from different sources and combining them" . Significantly, Eclecticism hardly ever constituted a specific style in art: it is characterized by the fact t ...

by the

Viennese Viennese may refer to: * Vienna, the capital of Austria * Viennese people, List of people from Vienna * Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna * Viennese classicism * Viennese coffee house, an eating establishment and part of Viennese ...

architect

Peter Paul Brang Peter Paul Brang (1852–1925) was a Viennese architect who worked in what are today the Czech Republic and Slovenia, as well as in Bulgaria and Romania. Some of his works include the City Baths in Liberec (1901–1902) and Ústí nad Labem (1905 ...

between 1905 and 1906 as the main seat of

ethnic German Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The constitution of Germany, implemented in 1949 following the end of World War ...

associations in the town. It was opened on 15 May 1907. The hall was intended to contrast with

Celje National Hall Celje National Hall () is a city hall in Celje, a town in central-eastern Slovenia. It was built between 1895 and 1896 and today hosts the seat of a township. It was designed by the Czech architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, ...

, which had a similar function for the local

Slovenes The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( ), are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Slovenia and adjacent regions in Italy, Austria and Hungary. Slovenes share a common ancestry, Slovenian culture, culture, and History of Slove ...

. The building's original name was the "German Center" (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

''Deutsches Haus'') and it was used as the main community center for the purposes of the local German-speaking population and by those that identified with

German culture The culture of Germany has been shaped by its central position in Europe and a history spanning over a millennium. Characterized by significant contributions to art, music, philosophy, science, and technology, German culture is both diverse and ...

. In 1919, after the dissolution of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

, the building was confiscated from the German community by the new Yugoslav authorities and renamed "Celje Hall". Several cultural associations were placed in the building, including the Hermagoras Society publishing house, which was after the

Carinthian Plebiscite The Carinthian plebiscite (, ) was held on 10 October 1920 in the area in southern Carinthia predominantly settled by Carinthian Slovenes. It determined the final border between the Republic of Austria and the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croa ...

expelled from its original location in Klagenfurt,

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. Throughout the period of the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...

, the German community tried to get back the property and the building, but they were unsuccessful. After the

Nazi German Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

occupation of northern Slovenia and

Lower Styria Styria (, ), also known as Slovenian Styria (; ) or Lower Styria (; ) to differentiate it from Austrian Styria, is a traditional region in northeastern Slovenia, comprising the southern third of the former Duchy of Styria. The population of St ...

in April 1941, the building was again restored to its former use. With the defeat of the Nazi regime in May 1945, most of the ethnic Germans fled the town together with the occupying

German armed forces The (, ''Federal Defence'') are the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part consists of the four armed forces: German Army, ...

, whereas the others were expelled by the Yugoslav Communist authorities. The building was again renamed "Celje Hall".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Celje Hall

Hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...

Buildings and structures completed in 1906 Peter Paul Brang buildings Gothic Revival architecture in Slovenia 1906 establishments in Austria-Hungary 20th-century architecture in Slovenia