Our architectural panorama shows the central street block on the south side of Wels’ town square (Stadtplatz). The late baroque Town Hall of Wels – the seat of the Wels City Council (Magistrat) – is prominent in the picture. Wels is located in Upper Austria and is the eighth largest city in Austria with around 65,000 inhabitants (m/f/d). Wels was already important under the Romans and was considered an administrative capital in the province of Noricum under the name Ovilava. The town square was built in the 13th century and the town continued to flourish in the Middle Ages. Emperor Maximilian I often stayed in Wels and died at Wels Castle in 1519.
Wels Town Hall
Visually, the Wels town hall (Welser Rathaus) is on the right-hand side of the picture and stands out with its representative yellow baroque façade. However, almost the entire block is practically part of the town hall. In 1995, the three buildings in the centre were converted and added to the town hall. However, the yellow façade building of the Old Town Hall actually originates from two buildings, which were united between 1736 and 1739 according to plans by Johann Michael Prunner. The late baroque building is richly decorated with stucco, has a stone portal with attached vases and a richly framed town coat of arms above the portal. The richly stuccoed parapet above the façade bears the coats of arms of the Habsburg hereditary lands and attached stone vases.
Architecture and facades
The former town houses adjoining the town hall on the left are characterised by 19th century wooden box windows, visually striking rainwater downpipes and a delicate late Baroque stucco façade on the middle building. Only the two houses on the left are not part of Wels Town Hall today. The wider Renaissance building with its detailed stucco façade was built around 1740 (the house itself dates back to 1598). The building is also named the “Einhorn Apotheke” (Unicorn Pharmacy) in the Wels list of monuments and is dominated by a first floor, which is cantilevered on Tuscan columns and has segmental arches. The final corner building dates back to predecessor buildings from the late Middle Ages and is now a late historicist building by the Wels master builder Robert Kunz from 1901.
