Happy Birthday to the new teacher education in Würzburg!

The building at Wittelsbacherplatz is turning a crisp 125

With thousands of teacher training students who have come and gone for 125 years, the "Wittel", as the building is affectionately called, has created a home for the Faculty of Humanities with Education, Subject Didactics, Social and Societal Sciences and Theology and Religious Studies. On 1.10.1898 the first residential students moved in and so students lived, learned and taught at the same location directly with real pupils. What remains today from that time are remnants of the former classrooms, the gymnasium and the chapel in the old building, which still recall the old school building – and of course the continuation of the teacher training mission. Between the Jesus painting in the ZIP-Pool, the creaking floors in the seminar rooms and the old staircase, we find, if we look very carefully, snippets of 125 years of history. 

Also part of this history: The new building with the branch library, seminar rooms, two new, modernly equipped lecture halls and offices for staff. Architecturally, the aim was to actively distinguish itself from the old building and so they not only renovated but built completely new. In its place previously were not only the old, dilapidated lecture halls from the 1930s, but also the former Würzburg Theatre Hall with its red upholstered velvet seats and the cabinet of curiosities, the theatre's fly loft with all its scenery. After 2000 and the relocation of the Mainfranken Theatre to its current location, the building served mainly as a depot for old furniture and provided a new home for pigeons and bumblebees.

Whether as a boy with the school class in the theatre, in 1975 as a student and from 1994 to 2019 as an assistant and then as a lecturer in the current lecture hall building – Peter Pfriem knows the "Wittel" inside and out and has witnessed many changes in and around the building and seen students come and go. 

Today he takes us through the old (and new) rooms and shows us everything we would otherwise miss if we just rush through the corridors. 

We asked him five quick questions:

Sprachrohr: What is the biggest spatial change you have noticed during your time at Wittelsbacherplatz?

Peter Pfriem: Without a doubt the new construction of the lecture hall and theatre wing and the dean's building. The old lecture halls were torn down and replaced with seminar rooms and offices and the old theatre wing and dean's building now house the large branch library and two new lecture halls.

Sprachrohr: What is your favourite detail that most people overlook?

Peter Pfriem: The staircase of the main entrance. A staircase from 1898 in Neo-Baroque style, with the granite columns, with the worn steps, with the mosaics on the floor – you can certainly pause there and be pleased that you can study and work in such a beautiful building.

Sprachrohr: Why did you enjoy coming to Wittelsbacherplatz?

Peter Pfriem: I consider Wittelsbacherplatz (with the exception of the Residenz and the Toscanasaal) to be the most beautiful building that Universität Würzburg has. It is a feeling of security. You encounter each other quite differently in a building with history. 

Sprachrohr: What do you most like to think back on when you think of your time at Wittelsbacherplatz?

Peter Pfriem: That repeated itself daily: When I was able to get up from my workplace at the computer and go into a seminar room or lecture hall and meet real students. That was the most beautiful moment every day – the beginning of a seminar. I want to work with people of flesh and blood.

Sprachrohr: What is the first thing you think of when you think of Wittelsbacherplatz?

Peter Pfriem: In relation to the present, as a pensioner I am pleased that I no longer have to turn into the car park, but that I can drive past and wave to the "Wittel".

Anyone who wants to know more will find information worth knowing and further stories by Peter Pfriem in the "Wittel" and on social media for the 125th anniversary of the building at Wittelsbacherplatz. 

Happy Birthday!