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A Viennese Whirl - Art and Architecture

A Viennese Whirl - Art and Architecture

“You must go to Vienna – it’s like Paris, but without the French!”

So says David Frost, played by Michael Sheen, in the film Frost/Nixon. He’s trying to seduce a woman at the time, and it works, but then, that was the 1970s.

These days there are many reasons to visit Vienna, especially if you’re an art or architecture fan. It has half a dozen outstanding museums, the Metro Stations are works of art in their own right and the Inner Ring (Innere Stadt) is still one of the most beautiful, if slightly cheesy, areas in any European city.

It’s difficult to know exactly where to start with so much art to wade through, but a solid run-through is given at the Kunsthistorisches (1 Maria-Theresien-Platz, www.khm.at). Built to show off the power of the mighty Hapsburg empire, this temple to art includes Brueghel the Elder’s Hunters In The Snow, Vermeer’s haunting Allegory of Painting and Giuseppe Archimboldo’s famous, bizarre Summer, Winter, Water and Fire paintings which show a human face made from fruit, flowers, vegetables and twigs. Amazingly they were painted in the 1560s.

If that gets you in the mood, it’s time to experience some really Viennese decadence – at two of its shining palaces of art. The first is at the Belvedere, but beware, this is split into two buildings. The relevant one is the Oberes (Upper) Belvedere, which houses the works of Gustav Klimt, one of the founders of the Secessionist Art Nouveau School. Millions of tourists head straight for his famous The Kiss (1908), which is certainly impressive and intensely detailed – some claim it is one of the most erotic pictures ever painted. However make the most of the time there to look at his contemporary Egon Schiele, whose work was, at the time, dismissed as ‘pornography’. His visceral, haunting look at human flesh is actually profoundly disturbing and moving, especially his painting of The Family, which shows a couple ravaged by poverty and disease.

Somehow it feels very Viennese, and there’s more in a wonderful new building in the renovated MuseumsQuartier, a renovated old stableyard which now houses three galleries. It’s Vienna’s equivalent of the South Bank, with lots of cafes and a courtyard in which to chill, but the real draws are the MUMOK (museum of Modern Art), exhibition space Kunsthalle and the mightly Leopold. This houses more Schieles, their power bursting through the walls. It also has lots more Klimts, and upstairs the works of the unfairly neglected Oscar Kokoschka, whose frightening images invoke the horrors of the first world war. Also worth taking the time to see on the third floor is a look at Viennese town planning, architecture and style, with an introduction to the work of Otto Wagner, whose elegant, art nouveau houses and Metro stations define Vienna.



From the Leopold it’s a short stroll east along Getrelde, past the extraordinary Secessionist building, designed by one of Wagner’s students, to Wagner’s two Stadt Pavilions, finished in 1902. One is now a slightly tacky cafe, while the other forms the exit for the U4 line, and is well worth a close look. Go on a Sunday and it’s free, the tiny museum nonetheless packs in lots of photos and information about Wagner’s grand plans for Vienna, some of which still stand in elegant glory, some of which were never made.

One which still stands, although oddly was used only once, was his station Heitzing built for the Schloss Schonbrunn, the dwelling of Maria Therese in the 18th century – the equivalent of Hampton Court. Wagner designed a pavilion to be used by the Court, the Hofpavilion, which he decorated with beautiful, elegant wrought iron lattice work which creates a ramp to the imperial horse carriage, and a sumptuous waiting room. Bizarrely it was used just once, then abandoned, but has now been restored to its former glory. Go on a Sunday afternoon, then walk over into the gardens of the palace. You can pay to look around the palace itself, the Imperial Apartments, the Coach Collection or the palm House, but if it’s a hot day a real treat is to walk to the top of the folly in the gardens, the Gloriette, take a picture of the best view in Vienna, then head east where you’ll find a wonderful swimming pool tucked away in the gardens. It has a beach volleyball court, sunbathing areas and the best open-air pool in Vienna, spotlessly clean and just the right temperature on a hot day.

If all of that Wagner architecture has just whetted your appetite, but you feel the need to get out of the busy Inner Ring of Vienna, the answer is a day trip and a walk through the Hutteldorf suburb of Vienna. Take the 46 tram west, which takes you through the slightly grubby region outside of Vienna’s lovely inner area, and out to a dull-looking suburb. Get off just past the Gerhard Hanappi stadium on Linzer Strasse, and walk back about 50 yards. There at No 375 you’ll see the Villa Vojcsik, built in 1901 by Otto Sconthal, a student of Wagner. It’s another art nouveau classic, with gorgeous, sinewy blue lines running through its windows and doorways and brimming with weird, leaf-like details. Now, walk back along the main road, turn right at Huttelbergstrasse and walk up the hill through what appears to be a dull suburbia. Just as you think you’re on the edge of a wood, two amazing Wagner pavilions appear, right next to each other. Villa I is like a Palladian Villa, now a museum showing the works of Ernest Fuchs, a ’Fantastic Realism’ painter. Just past it is Villa II, built as a summer house by Wagner. It is a perfect cube, with tons of period detail, and was Wagner’s last home. Just the other side of the road is a single picnic table, a welcome place to rest sore feet and refuel before the walk back down to hill. Tram 46 has you back in the centre of town in 15 minutes.

Another real treat for architecture fans – more deco than nouveau – is a swim at the recently renovated Amalienbad, right at the end of line U1, Reumannplatz 23. Built during the city’s brief dabble with Marxist, for-the-people architecture in 1923 by Otto Nadel and Karl Schmalhofer, its modest exterior hides a glorious deco-influenced pool, with steam rooms and saunas attached too. At the time it was the largest indoor pool in Europe. A mere €3.50 buys you a day of steamy luxuriance.

For fans of art deco and nouveau art and architecture Vienna is hard to beat, and it has so many examples from the inner ring right out to the suburbs that it would take a year to visit them all properly. It has some of the best Modernist art, the loveliest parks and a Metro system to be proud of. It’s just a shame the people don’t live up to the billing David Frost apparently gave them.

© TheTravelEditor.com

Reproduced with the kind permission of TheTravelEditor.com

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