Pejačević Manor: A Noble Residence and Cultural Complex in Našice
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Croatia
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Habsburg
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Manor House
On this page8 sections
History
Pejačević Manor is a historic noble residence in Našice, Croatia, completed in 1812 as a Classicist building and later transformed into a representative Neo-Baroque house. It bears the name of the Pejačević family, a prominent Croatian noble house associated with estates and castles in Slavonia.
Foundation and early building
The foundations of the original manor were laid in mid-January 1811 by Count Vincencije Ljudevit Pejačević. Abbot Stjepan Darašević blessed them on 11 March in the presence of a large crowd, and construction was completed in January 1812. The first building was a relatively small residence with a formal Classicist design.
An earthquake in May 1817 damaged the manor, which was subsequently repaired. Around 1850, during the time of Count Ladislav Pejačević, the house underwent a major renovation. A more comprehensive rebuilding began in January 1865 under Count Ferdinand Karlo Rajner Pejačević, Vincencije’s brother. Although the work was undertaken by Ferdinand, the resulting appearance became particularly associated with Ladislav’s period.
Nineteenth-century transformation
The rebuilding enlarged the manor and changed its character. The modest Classicist house became a representative Neo-Baroque residence, with tower-like side projections, a decorative voluted pediment, a balustrade, a clock, and a mansard roof. Thirteen new window openings were added across the north and south facades.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the manor was the residence of the Croatian composer Dora Pejačević, daughter of Croatian Ban Teodor Pejačević. A Ban was the senior governor and representative of the Croatian lands within the Habsburg and later Austro-Hungarian political system.
Wartime use and later functions
From 1943 to 1945, during the Second World War, the German Army occupied the manor. A military hospital operated in the basement, while wartime damage affected the facades and roof.
During the second half of the twentieth century, the building served successively as a barracks, school, kindergarten, state-administration office, and premises for associations. It now accommodates the Našice Local History Museum, the city music orchestra, the city library and reading room, and an art gallery.
The associated Small Castle was commissioned by Count Marko VI Pejačević and built in 1904–1905 as a hunting lodge. It later acquired new community uses and now contains radio facilities, a music school, and premises for several associations.
Remains
The manor stands within a municipal park alongside the Small Castle and service buildings. Its sloping site produces different elevations: the entrance side has one storey, while the park side has two. The surviving complex combines the enlarged residence with designed gardens, woodland, water features, and later buildings around it.
The main manor
The original rectangular plan remains the basis of the main building. On the southern entrance facade, nine window openings were arranged around a central section three window axes wide. That central section was emphasized by larger windows and an altana, a raised balcony or loggia-like projection, supported by three arches. The later rebuilding replaced the altana with a deeper projection carrying a decorative voluted pediment, balustrade, and clock. The side projections received tower-like forms with domed roofs, and the whole building was covered by a mansard roof.
The interiors retain rich stucco decoration, wood paneling, and built-in furniture. The large entrance hall contains a double staircase that is partly concealed from view and has a stone balustrade. The kitchen stood in a separate park building, with an electric railway carrying food to the manor through an underground tunnel between the two structures.
The Small Castle
The Small Castle is a single-storey Neoclassical building several hundred metres from the main manor. Built as a hunting lodge, it incorporated an early twentieth-century damp-proofing system based on a reinforced-concrete trough, an innovative construction solution for its period. Its present uses include radio facilities, a music school, and premises for several associations.
The park and gardens
The park could have been created only after the manor was completed, on ground previously occupied by natural groves and forest. It was probably laid out around 1850 and likely redesigned after the enlargement begun in 1865. By the late nineteenth century through the 1930s, during the time of Count Teodor Pejačević, its final form had been established and it was maintained as a model park.
The grounds include a spacious terraced garden in front of the manor. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the park expanded northward over part of the natural forest, and a lake with a small island was created. Its later development introduced Romantic characteristics alongside the landscape-park design, a garden arrangement intended to resemble a natural or picturesque setting through lawns, woodland, water, and informal planting.
An old cadastral plan shows a greenhouse, whose Historicist facade may have been added later. Historicist flower beds stood before the main facade and the greenhouse. The park covers approximately 34.5 hectares, and a cadastral map from 1862 shows it reaching a canal that separated the grounds from the forest to the north. Many features visible in old photographs have since disappeared, and much of the park has become woodland. A few vistas and meadows north of the manor still recall its former designed landscape.
