Palais Stürgkh, Graz

The Palais Stürgkh is a former city palace in Graz’s main square in the Innere Stadt district. It stands four storeys high with a façade that mixes styles from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. Originally Renaissance, the front was later changed to classicism, and the third floor was added later. Above the main door is a painted sandstone Madonna in a niche, dating from the late 18th century. The building’s history begins in 1521 when Georg Stürgkh, a merchant, inherited the house and became a nobleman in 1532. His descendant Hans Christoph von Stürgkh became a baron in 1668. In 1798 the palace was swapped for another building and then raised by one storey around 1800. From 1810 it passed into private hands and in 1925 banks became owners. Inside, a long vaulted passage leads to the inner courtyard with an open staircase of wrought iron in classicist style. Visitors find Rocaille ceiling stucco from about 1760 in rooms on the first upper floor, made by Heinrich Formentini. The oldest part of the palace, around the second courtyard where the former Ratskeller stood, dates from the 15th century. The main portal, with iron-bound doors and a wrought-iron fanlight, still shows the family’s coat of arms added after 1638. Today the Urania Steiermark adult education centre occupies the second floor and the connected building at Hauptplatz 16.