Work on the new Palazzo delle Poste in Trieste by architect Friedrich Setz of Vienna’s Imperial Ministry of Commerce began in October 1890 and was concluded in 4 years. It is today the only remaining example of Middle European architecture among the monumental Post Office buildings.
Present-day piazza Vittorio Veneto was once the site of the customs offices, the salt works and the sea. To provide the building with solid, secure foundations, 5,000 wooden posts were pegged, and a “uniformly level base” was placed upon them. Friedrich Setz was inspired by Vienna’s Justizpalast, this seems almost a perfect copy.
Typical of Austrian buildings of the time, it has an eclectic neo-Renaissance style. The central hall on the ground floor, with monumental staircase at the back, features a glass roof “with steel girders and the transparent part in crystal”. To the right of the spacious atrium is the Museo Postale e Telegrafico della Mitteleuropa, which conserves artefacts and images documenting the evolution of the postal service from the mid-1800s to the present-day. These include a reproduction of a late 1800s Post Office with furnishings and equipment belonging to the Royal Hungarian Post.
The building has been restored several times. The most significant of these restorations took place after WWII to repair serious bomb damage; other important interventions took place in 2008 and 2009.
There are two cherubs on the tympanums of the side entrances in via Milano and via Galatti: one, an angel, plays a trumpet and holds the postman’s whip while the other wears an Austro-Hungarian postman’s cap and carries a half open post bag, immortalised as he delivers two letters. Time has preserved him as he was.
Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission
Piazza Duca degli Abruzzi 3 — 34132 Trieste
Phone: +39 040 3720142
Email: filmcommission@promoturismo.fvg.it
