In The Steps of Vienna's Modernists

Vienna 1900 saw a burst of artistic innovation and creativity that still influences us today. This included challenges to the established historicist architectural style in which much of the city was built, but which did not represent a growing modern metropolis. Several of the architects involved in this new movement were Jewish as were many of those who commissioned homes and commercial premises in the new styles.

This Jewish embracing of modernity may in part, have been an attempt to achieve greater acceptance and emancipation in a time of both opportunity and extreme anti-semitism. The arts presented fewer barriers to the participation of Jews than did other areas and even anti-semites had little objection to using Jewish patrons to fund them. Also during this time many Jews converted to Christianity, with varying degrees of conviction, or were completely secular and for some art and culture became a kind of religion.

The first major movement to challenge the artistic establishment, the Vienna Secession group, was established in 1897. A reaction to the conservative style of the established artists organisation, Vienna Kunstlerhaus, the  founding members included Gustav Klimt, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser. Influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, in particular by Charles Rennie McIntosh, but developing the style we now know as Jugendstil or Art Nouveau.

The Secession building, Joseph Maria Olbrich, 1897.

Architect Otto Wagner, although not a founding member, became a leading light in the group. In 1896 he had published his ideas on the role of architects, advocating the use of new materials and new forms to reflect changes in society. His influence on Viennese architecture of the early 1900's cannot be over emphasised. As Professor of Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts, his students included Hoffmann, Olbrich and others who would make major contributions to the city's landscape. He was also responsible for a range of iconic art nouveau buildings including the Postal Savings Bank, the Steinhof Church, the Karlsplatz Sation and the Majolica House. In the early part of his career he was engaged to design the Rumbach synagogue in Budapest, completed in 1872 and built in the Moorish style.

Majolica House, Otto Wagner, 1898-99

The Eighth Secession Exhibition took place in November 1900 and Hoffmann declared a desire to broaden its scope to include applied arts. He had been influenced by and wished to emulate Charles Roberts Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft workshops. By 1903, Hoffmann and Moser had managed to persuade the Jewish textile manufacturer and financier Fritz Waerndorfer and his artist wife, Lilly, to provide financial backing for such a project and the Wiener Werkstatte was established. Workshops were set up for metalwork, gold and silver work, bookbinding, leatherwork and carpentry together with architectural offices and an exhibition gallery. Hoffmann moved his office there and with Moser defined the principles of the Werkstatte as "...intimate contact between public, designer and craftsmen...to produce good simple domestic requisites. We start from the purpose in hand and our strength has to lie in good proportions and materials well handled. We will seek to decorate but without any compulsion to do so...". The Werkstatte would go on to produce thousands of items including furniture, textiles, glass and metal objects. In 1905 a fashion department was added, producing men's and women's clothes and from 1907 until the beginning of the First World War the graphic design department produced almost 1000 postcards including several to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Many of the Werksatte's workforce were Jewish.

Hoffmann and Moser were prolific artists in their own right. Moser produced some of the most significant graphic work of the twentieth century including the much copied cover of the first edition of the Secessionist magazine, Ver Sacrum, the mosaics and stained glass windows in Wagner's Steinhof Church and countless posters, stamps, glass, textiles and ceramics. All of this was in addition to his large body of work as a painter and furniture designer.

Moser was not the only artist of the period who excelled across a range of disciplines. Hoffmann was similarly talented. Born in what is now the Czech Republic he studied under and then worked for Otto Wagner. He designed the spaces for several of the Secession exhibitions before quarrelling with its members over artistic vision and leaving in 1905. His association the Werkstatte was to last much longer, until the organisation closed in 1932. His chairs were particularly important and several are displayed in Vienna's Museum of Applied Arts.

Much of his architecture from this period appears to predict the modernist styles of the 1920's and 1930's. His Sanatorium Purkersdorf was ccommissioned by Jewish musicologist Viktor Zuckerkandl. Built in 1904 this weekend rest home with baths and physical therapy is devoid of decoration, with smooth lightly coloured walls, windows without frames or ledges and white furnishings denoting hygiene and cleanliness. Hoffmann's "total design" approach included the interior furnishings produced by Werkstatte artists. This concept was carried over into his most famous architectural work, the Palais Stoclet in Brussels. Work on the building commenced in 1906 and was not completed until 1911. Hoffmann was also responsible for the interior and designed furniture to complement the spaces. He engaged the help of the finest artists and craftsmen to work on the interior, including Gustav Klimt who designed a frieze for the dining hall. Hoffman took his concept to extremes, even designing a dress for Madame Stoclet as he felt her Paul Poiret creations  clashed with the decor.

He was later to become problematical, voting for the unification of Austria and Germany and accepting a commission to design a club for Wehrmacht officers during the Second World War. He survived the war years and died in 1956 aged 85.

Former Goldman and Salatsch store, Adolf Loos, 1909-1912 (known as the Loos Haus)

By 1907, the Secessionist style receded in favour of a less decorative, more functional approach. This movement was led by a number of architects including Adolf Loos. Born in Brno in 1870 he failed to complete his studies at Dresden University of Technology, but was to become one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century. Briefly associated with the Secession, he quickly broke with them, advocating a new approach with smooth, clear surfaces stripped of ornamentation and a utilitarian layout. In his 1913 essay "Ornament and Crime" he argued that cultural progress is dependent on the deletion of ornament from everyday objects, declaring it a crime for craftsmen to "waste time" on ornamentation as it hastens obsolescence. This did not however prevent him from designing sumptuous interiors making extensive use of stone, marble and wood, arguing that there is a distinction between organic and superfluous decoration.

Despite his views being unpopular with many of his contemporaries he won a number of commissions from 1904 onwards including for shops and cafes. He is perhaps best known for what is now called the "Loos House" originally designed as a store for the Jewish tailoring company Goldman and Salatsch. The building drew severe criticism from many quarters including Emperor Franz Joseph I due to the absence of decoration on the facade leading to it being called "the house without eyebrows". This was despite Loos having placed four richly veined green Cipollino marble columns at the entrance as a response to the Michael Church portico opposite.

Knife Men's Outfitters, Adolf Loos, 1913

The interior is less austere and includes mahogany walls, mirrored panelling, brass wall lamps and staircase railings and a marble panelled stairway. Damaged during the Second World War the building  has twice undergone restoration and since 1989 it has been the main branch of the Raiffeissenbank. Loos was assisted in this project by a young Jewish civil engineer called Ernst Epstein who was to later design a number of buildings in the city. He committed suicide in 1938 following the Anchluss. Many of Loos' other buildings have survived until today. Three of them are within easy reach of the Loos Haus - the Knize menswear store (1909-1913), the famous American Bar on Karnterstrasse (1907-8) and the earlier Cafe Museum which dates from 1899.

Loos was not Jewish but many of his clients and associates were including philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, composer Arnold Schonberg and writers Peter Altenberg and Karl Kraus. In addition to this, two of his three marriages were to Jewish women. He believed strongly that modern design could act as a vehicle for Jewish emancipation and referred to this as being part of his opposition to the Secessionist style which was heavily embraced by Jewish clients. He described secessionist interior furnishings as "nothing but disguised caftans" . The caftan would immediately identify an Orthodox Jew, steeped in tradition and at least in the minds of others, someone opposed to modernity hence his comparison of the garment to the Secessionist style. This despite the fact that the Secessionists themselves had rebelled against historicism.

In later life he suffered from a range of ailments including cancer, deafness, strokes and possibly dementia. He was also at the centre of a child sex scandal from which he was only partly exonerated. He died in 1933.

Josef Frank was perhaps Vienna's most accomplished Jewish architect of the period. He graduated from the relatively conservative Technical University of Vienna and by 1913 was drawing up plans for town houses including at 3 Wilbrandtgasse. Working with two other Jewish architects, Oskar Wlach and Oskar Strnad he designed the house for Doctor Emil and Agnes Scholl. It exemplifies Frank's ideas on architecture, with a simple facade, devoid of ornamentation but given character by the asymmetrical arrangement of portholes on the middle floor and windows at the upper level. It would be easy to take the building for a 1930's construction as similar to Hoffmann and Loos, Frank's approach predicts later modernist developments.

Werkbundseidlung, this building by Andre Lurcat, 1930-32

Werkbundseidlung, this building by Joseph Hoffman, 1930-32

Frank was critical to the modernist movement that developed more fully in the 1930's. He was the driving force behind the Werkbundsiedlung estate in Vienna's thirteenth district which he saw as a reaction to the monolithic housing estates built elsewhere during the period. His project included single and multi-family houses in a healthy environment, exploring different spatial and functional approaches. As well as designing one of the buildings himself he managed to recruit Loos, Hoffmann, Richard Neutra and the Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld to work on the Werkbundsiedlung. Like Hoffmann, Frank was an accomplished interior designer, setting up the Haus and Garten company in 1925. He was to leave Austria for Stockholm in 1933, becoming a Swedish citizen in 1939. He spent the next three decades working for the Svensk Tenn company where his work remains in demand today.

Another Jewish architect Arthur Gruenberger designed two of the houses on the Werkbundsiedlung estate. He was also responsible for the Eitelbergrasse synagogue in the city's thirteenth district. Completed in 1926, it was a rare example of a modernist religious building. Photographs show an imposing rectangular form relieved with substantial glazing and discrete references to a more Levantine style on the entrance with arches on each flank. The synagogue was one of 93 destroyed on Kristalnacht in November 1938 leaving only the Stadttempel standing in the centre of the city and this only due to its being surrounded by non-Jewish owned properties. Dating from 1826, the Stadttempel is still active today. Gruenberger left for the United States in 1935 and went on to work as a Hollywood set designer.

Interior, Stadttempel, Joseph Kornhausel, 1824-26 

The First World War interrupted Vienna's golden years and then in 1918 a world wide flu epidemic claimed the lives of several of its leading artists including Gustav Klimt. The 1920's and 1930's were politically unstable decades that saw street battles between left and right wing groups and of course, in 1938, Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. Many Jews and other opponents of the regime fled, some of them, such as Frank, establishing successful careers elsewhere. Others were less fortunate such as Frank's client Agnes Scholl who was murdered in Auschwitz whilst others also did not survive the war.

An edited version of this post appeared in Jewish Renaissance magazine in July 2018. 

Picture post 40 - iconic art nouveau in Vienna

Vienna boasts many architectural treasures. The city is especially well known for its art nouveau buildings, also reffered to as the jugendstil or secessionist style. One of my favourites of this genre is the Engel Apotheke (Angel Pharmacy) at Bognerstrasse 9 in the city centre. The building itself is unremarkable, but the facade is decorated in stunning art nouveau style, featuring two glass mosaic angels that give the pharmacy its name.

The angels, dressed in vibrant purple and gold dresses, stand on stone pedestals raising healing potions with the snake of aesclepius, the ancient Greek god of medicine wound around their arms,  signifying the purpose of the store. The golden theme is repeated in the ringlets of both figures and in the sunflower freeze embedded in the wall above the large upper level windows. These windows are also decorated with a leaf freeze and wrought iron bars.  

Built between 1901 and 1902, the building, including its facade, was designed by Oskar Laske, a pupil of the great Otto Wagner. His decorative portal which spreads over the two lower levels of the pharmacy was intended to attract customers. It almost certainly did in 1901 when it would have been the height of modernity at a time when Klimt, Wagner, Hoffman and many others were at work in the city. Today it attracts art and architectural enthusiasts and historians, tourists and people needing prescriptions! 

Laske was involved in designing at least one other building of note in this style - the Nachtlicht, a cabaret where actors, dancers and musicians rubbed shoulders with the likes of architect and designer Adolf Loos and writers Karl Kraus and Peter Altenberg. I haven't been able to locate any pictures of Laske's work there and the club ran for only one year from 1906-7 before closing, upstaged by the legendary Cabaret Fledermaus. He went on to concentrate on painting rather than architecture, unsurprising given the beauty of his work at the Engel Apotheke. He worked primarily in water colours, recording his travels in Europe and North Africa, as well as being a book illustrator and graphic artist. Born in Czernowitz in 1874, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and today part of the Ukraine, he served in the First World War and died in Vienna in 1951.

If you are visiting Vienna and go to view this lovely facade, I also recommend a visit to the shop next door - Zum Schwarzen Kameel,  (The Black Camel) an elegant patisserie selling delicious Viennese sweets, cakes and biscuits. Believe me, I know about these things. There has been a restaurant and shop there since the seventeenth century but the current building dates from 1901 and also has some art nouveau features.

You might also like Picture Post 18 - Majolica House, Vienna.

Vienna - art nouveau, coffee and cakes!

To some people Vienna brings back memories of Carol Reed's film adaptation of Graham Greene's story The Third Man. You can even take a guided tour of the Vienna sewers where the closing scenes of the film were shot. To others its the waltzes of the Strauss family or if you grew up in the 1980's it might be the memory of the 1981 Ultravox hit song named after the city - and said to be based on Reed's film. To me its none of these, although I did read and enjoy Greene's story shortly after my recent visit. For me Vienna is about three things. Art nouveau. Coffee. And cakes. And not necessarily in that order. 

The city has one of the largest surviving collections of art nouveau any where in the world. I have already posted about Otto Wagner's stunning Majolica House and will write about a few more of my favourites here.  Staying with Otto Wagner, a short walk from the Majolica House brings us to Karlsplatz and the famous pavilions designed by our man for the Vienna metro system.

The pavilions, built in 1898, were part of the work Wagner was commissioned to do in designing the city's stadtbahn or railway system. As well as working on the large construction elements of the project, he devoted detailed attention to the railings, lamps and signs - a total design concept for the work. The advent of the u-bahn (metro) in the late 1960's meant that the pavilions were threatened with destruction. Thankfully this was staved off and the pavilions were dismantled and then re-constructed above the new Karlsplatz u-bahn station.

Today, one of the pavilions forms part of the Museum of the City of Vienna as the Otto Wagner Documentation Centre (pictured below). It houses a small exhibition of photographs of his work, architectural drawings and models and details of projects that were never realised. There is also a small shop with books, postcards and souvenirs specialising in Wagner's achievements as well as more general guide books for the city. You can buy a combination ticket that will get you access to the main part of the City Museum which is just across the square and amongst other things features a reconstruction of a room in the home of Adolf Loos, another Viennese architectural icon. The other pavilion contains a cafe and restaurant. The metal and wood iconic apple-green structures share the original colours of the Vienna stadtbahn and have white marble and gold detail exteriors.

The Vienna Secession was an artistic movement founded in 1897 by Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann and others to challenge the staid, classicist approach to art that was the norm for Vienna in the late 19th century. The building to which that movement gave its name lies between the Karlsplatz pavilions and the Majolica House and it is very easy to visit all three in succession as well as taking in some of the other sites including the baroque Karlkirche, the Naschmarkt and the City of Vienna Museum in half a day.

Designed by Olbrich and built from 1897 to 1898, the Secession (pictured below and with detail) was originally intended to be a temporary structure but despite undergoing serious damage during the Second World War, happily, it is still with us. The bronze leaf cupola set above the crisp white, angular, almost cubist building is a well known image in the city and quite early on attracted the nickname the "cabbage head" from the irreverent Viennese.

Nowadays, the building continues to host contemporary art exhibitions but the main draw for visitors from around the world is Gustav Klimt's partially restored Beethoven Freeze in the basement. Klimt has other connections with the Secession building. It is said that Olbrich's designs were based on a drawing of his whilst Ernst Klimt, the artist's brother designed the bronze doors of the entrance. At first glance the Secession appears to be a relatively plain white building with a bronze crown, but in reality it has a great deal of decoration from the golden details on the sides to the lovely mosaic vases by the entrance - each of which are supported by bronze turtles (pictured below). The slogan above the entrance which means"Arts for the time freedom for the arts" came from the art critic Ludwig Hevesi.

One of the joys of re-visiting a city like Vienna is discovering little treasures that you had missed on previous occasions - sometimes quite by accident. On the day I visited the Werkbundieslung, a collection of modernist buildings from the 1930's I decided that rather than take a taxi to my destination, I would walk from the nearest metro station and have a look at a part of Vienna I was not familiar with. As well as seeing some more modernist architecture on the way, I fell upon the Galilei Hof, a large art nouveau building on Lainzerstrasse (pictured below). Built in 1905 as an apartment block by architect Emil Reitman, who also owned the site it commands attention on a corner lot. There are fairly ordinary shops on the ground floor of the Galilei Hof, reminding us to "look up" to see the more interesting things in life!

In an earlier article I confessed that the Majolica House is my favourite of Vienna's many art nouveau buildings. It still is, but it has a rival. Despite having visited the city several times before, I had never seen the Engel Apotheke at Bognerstrasse 9, in the city centre. How can I have managed to reach my advanced age without having admired the beautifully preserved facade of this building?

The Apotheke was designed by Oscar Laske who studied under Wagner  but later gave up architecture for painting. Built from 1901-1902, the structure is not especially outstanding but the facade (pictured below and with detail below) with its rich decoration is striking, surprising the casual passer by as witnessed by the many cameras and telephones being pointed at it each time I passed! The glass mosaic images show two angels on columns holding up healing potions with the snake of aesculapius circling their arms in reference to the purpose of the store. Further up the facade there is a sunflower frieze above a large rectangular window which itself has wrought iron bars decorated with a leaf motif. 

Just a few steps away from the Engel Apotheke I made another discovery - the patisserie and chocolate shop of Zum Schwartzen Kameel (the black camel) restaurant. The reflection from the glass onto the wooden exterior of this tiny shop gave it a golden glow that attracted my attention - as did the word "patisserie" under the name board.  The Zum Schwartzen Kameel is one of Vienna's oldest restaurants dating back to 1618. Beethoven is said to have been a customer. The patisserie offers jars of sweets, cakes, biscuits and hand made chocolate - all presented in beautiful boxes and packaging. I was easily persuaded to part with 12 euros for a small box of chocolates. I ate them all within two days of returning to London...

Which brings us to the coffee and cakes. There are hundreds of coffee houses in this city ranging from extremely old, extremely authentic to the chains you can find in almost any city in the world, including Starbucks. I have nothing against Starbucks - but I find it hard to understand why in a city like Vienna with its excellent coffee houses anyone would want to go to a chain cafe? Each to their own I suppose.

I have a couple of favourite cafes in Vienna. Opened in 1876, Cafe Central in Herrengasse was once the second home for many artists, writers and assorted Bohemians who spent there time there arguing, discussing, working and running up tabs that may still be unsettled. Jewish writer Peter Altenberg spent so much time there that he gave the cafe as his postal address and a figure representing him sits at the first table guests see when entering the premises. Kafka is also said to have used the cafe as a place to write in. Today Cafe Central is largely the preserve of tourists and is somewhat expensive, but I still like to visit, to look up at the vaulted ceilings (pictured below) and to enjoy some strong coffee with the obligatory glass of water served in central European cafes (why not in London?). And of course, its a great place to savour the delights of an apple or cherry (or apple and cherry) strudel, cheesecake or some other delicacy brought to the table by the smart, black suited waiting staff.

Cafe Hawelka has a different ambience.  It originally opened in 1906 as the Chatham Bar. The wood panelled interior is believed to be the original and no renovation or remodelling has ever taken place. It was acquired by Leopold Hawelka in 1939 who together with his wife Josefine ran the cafe until her death in 2005 and his in 2011 - some months after his 100th birthday. The place still attracts students, artists and "real" Viennese to drink coffee and read the papers as well as tourists from all over the world. My choice here is a slightly different take on the strudel - a cheese strudel made of four different kinds of sweet cheese wrapped in filo pastry. Delicious. The service here is less formal but efficient and its OK to linger for a long time over a book, newspaper or laptop - perhaps the only concession to modernity.

All of the best and most interesting coffee houses are listed in The Vienna Coffee Guide 2012 which is well worth investing in if you are unfamiliar with the city. A word of warning. Smoking is still legal in Austrian cafes and restaurants. Larger establishments might provide a separate room for smoking, or designate a space, but smaller places can remain as "smoking cafes". 

I like Ilona Stuberl, a very small Hungarian restaurant established in 1957 to cater for refugees from the failed Hungarian uprising. Named after the Hungarian lady who founded the restaurant with her husband, it is a friendly, charmingly old fashioned place where even the flower vases match the crockery. Old fashioned heavy (and meaty) Hungarian food is the rule, but I had a good tomato and mozzarella salad starter and then a tasty(and filling) mushroom  goulash with gnocchi. I was impressed that the waiter noticing my meat free order told me that one of the breads contained small pieces of bacon so I might like to avoid it! I might have stayed longer but found the smoke too much, primarily from a table of older people celebrating a birthday. The smoke was annoying but they were interesting to look at. At least in their seventies, the women still had ornate "big" hair dos.  The men sported  amazingly combed monstrosities with their remaining locks wrapped around and over their heads in Daliesque, gravity defying styles, or perhaps as a tribute to the sweeps and swirls of art nouveau decoration.  Astonishing. Perhaps I am only jealous.

Jewish Vienna

I spent last weekend in Vienna. Whilst checking into my hotel, I heard two other guests speaking Hebrew. Later on I walked along Taborstrasse to reach the centre of the city and heard two market stall holders speaking Hebrew. On my way back to the hotel I noticed a restaurant called "Bahur Tov" which in Hebrew (בהור טוב) means the good fellow.

I stayed in Leopoldstadt, Vienna's second district which was once home to many of the more than 200,000 Jews who lived in the city prior to the 1938 Anschluss or union of Austria and Germany and is now home to many of the city's approximately 15,000 Jews. About half of this number belong to the official community. On the last day of my visit, I took a guided tour of today's Jewish Vienna with tour guide Daniele of Milk and Honey Tours and saw much evidence of a small but thriving community.

Our walk began on Praterstrasse, the main thoroughfare of Leopoldstadt and once home to many cafes and theatres that were frequented by Viennese Jews. Today there are fewer cafes and only one theatre still operating on the Nestroyplatz, halfway down Praterstrasse. The Nestroyhof Theatre (pictured below) carried a banner with the word "Hamakom", Hebrew (המקום) for "the place". Daniele explained that the ground floor of the building had been used as a supermarket that was now closed down. After it closed a beautiful art nouveau theatre was discovered within the building and brought back into use. The theatre had special meaning for Daniele - it was the venue for his wedding!  

A little further down the adjoining street, at Praterstrasse 25, is the house that Theodor Herzl, father of political Zionism lived in after moving from his native Budapest, until 1882. The house is not open to the public.

Templegasse runs along the side of the Nestroy Theatre and is the site of the former Leopoldstadt Temple. Opened in 1858, the synagogue symbolised the growing confidence of the community which was gradually acquiring civil rights. Unlike other large Jewish buildings it faced directly on to the street and was not hidden behind a wall. Damaged by fire in 1917 it was restored and re-opened in 1921 only to be destroyed again during the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9th and 10th 1938 which left only the north wing standing. However, Tempelgasse is symbolic of the renewal of Jewish life in Vienna and the site of the former synagogue is now home to the Agudas Israel Talmud Torah school and various community organisations. The school is well attended and as we passed there were many children running, shouting and having fun in the playground. Viennese architect Martin Kohlbauer designed four columns that show the size and extent of the original structure (pictured below) and which act as a memorial to the losses of 1938. There is also a large image of the former Leopoldstadt Temple painted on to the wall of Tempelgasse at the end of the street. 

Another short walk leads to the Karmeliterplatz, site of the Karmelitermarkt and home to a surprising number of kosher shops and Jewish owned businesses, several of them owned by Israelis. Many of the bakeries, grocery stores and small cafes in the square and surrounding streets are owned by Jews from the former Soviet Union, primarily from Bukhara and Georgia some of whom also have interests in the city's main Naschmarkt in the first district. There are also several small synagogues, unrecognisable as such from the street other than for the police security box that stands outside them. Walking through this part of the city it is not unusual to see Orthodox Jews dressed in Haredi or Hassidic clothing, giving just an idea of how Leopoldstadt must have been before the Second World War. Whilst it is unlikely the community will ever reach pre-war proportions when it accounted for 9 or 10% of the city's population, it is currently being enlarged by a steady trickle of immigrants fro neighbouring Hungary where anti-semitism is again rearing its head with the Jobbik party having a strong presence in government.

Leaving Leopoldstadt, it is yet another short walk to the jewel in the crown of Vienna's built Jewish heritage, the Stadttempel in Seitenstettengasse. This was the only synagogue in Vienna to survive Kristallnacht but only due to its proximity to non-Jewish houses and businesses and the attendant risk of fires spreading to them. That's one surviving building from 94. The synagogue has an interesting history. Built in 1826, the then Emperor Franz allowed its construction on the understanding that its facade was not recognisable a place of Jewish worship. Strangely, he also wanted to be able to stand on  the roof of St. Stephen's Cathedral and not see the dome of the synagogue and so the architect Joseph Kornhausel, had to build a special chimney like tower to shield the dome and prevent offence to the Emperor. Kornhausel also built himself an apartment within the tower, accessed by an intricate system of staircases. The apartment is no longer there. 

The interior of the synagogue (pictured below) is beautiful. Designed in the Biedermeier style of the time in an oval shape, it has a beautiful blue painted ceiling decorated with golden stars and two women's galleries supported by 12 ionic columns. Daniele told me that the organ is not real. Emperor Joseph demanded an organ be installed and when he visited the synagogue shortly after its opening, a real, smaller organ had to be brought in and played from behind the fake one to sustain the facade. There are regular tours of the synagogue, but visitors must bring their passports and go through rigorous security checks. This began after a palestinian terrorist attack in 1982 that resulted in the murder of two people attending a barmitzvah with a further thirty being injured.

Although the Jewish community of Vienna is tentatively renewing itself, the darker past is never very far away. There are many memorials to the Jews killed during the Holocaust, the most well known being the Rachael Whiteread sculpture in Judenplatz  (pictured below) which commemorates the 65,000 Austrian Jews who were unable or unwilling to leave before being deported and murdered. Unveiled in the year 2000, the structure represents an empty room whose doors have no handles and with the outer walls made up of a library of books representing the lives of the lost. The names of the camps to which the victims were deported are engraved on the plinth.

The Judenplatz is a quiet Viennese square with large scale buildings dating back several hundred years. Turning the corner into the square for the first time, the sculpture presents a shock to visitors, immediately taking their attention and interest. The sculpture is not the only tragedy commemorated in this square. There is also a branch of the Jewish museum in the Judenplatz in which it is possible to see below ground, the remains of a medieval synagogue where 200 men and their rabbi committed suicide and set the building on fire rather than undergo forced conversion during a 1421 pogrom. This did not stop many more Jews being burned alive outside of the city and the exclusion of all Jews from Vienna until the seventeenth century.

There are several other Holocaust memorials in Vienna, but I was particularly moved by two of the smaller ones. As in Berlin, there is a trail that visitors can follow with small plaques fixed to the ground otuisde of the homes of deportees, listing their names, dates of birth and death (where known) as well as place of deportation. This not only keeps their memories alive, but links them forever to their former homes. Aron Menczer was a young man who helped look after the many Jewish children either orphaned or left to fend for themselves when their parents were deported. Despite having the necessary papers to emigrate to Eretz Israel,  he did not take this opportunity to escape, preferring to remain with his young charges to the end, which eventually came with their deportation to Auschwitz in October 1943 where together with Menczer they were gassed on arrival. His memorial is a simple free standing stone block that stands in Marc Aurel Strasse outside of the former orphanage. Apparently the current owner of the building did not want it fixed to the walls. Simon Weisenthal once had his Holocaust Documentation Centre in the same street.

Viennese Jewry has a long and often troubled history. However, it must be remembered that this was the community that gave Austria and the world the genius of Sigmund Freud the pioneer of psychoanalysis, composers Gustav Mahler, Erich Korngold, Arnold Schoenberg and Fritz Kreisler; writers Joseph Roth, Felix Salten and Stefan Zweig, the vocal brilliance of Richard Tauber, architect Josef Frank and countless others whose legacy lives on today. It would be unrealistic to expect what is now a very small community to regain such prominence, but there is again Jewish life in the streets of Vienna and Hebrew can be heard in its streets - not just from the many Israeli tourists who come here to  look for their family history or to enjoy the amazing cultural scene - especially art and music - that Vienna still offers. It doesn't take a great deal to sit in Cafe Central, the favourite coffee house of many of Vienna's most prominent Jews in the 19th and early 20th centuries, to be able to conjure up just what a wonderful community this must have been. Thanks again Daniele!

Read more about Vienna here and here. More photographs here.

Modernism, an elegant swimming pool and Red Vienna

Vienna is rightfully well known for its art nouveau, baroque and classicist architecture, but few visitors realise that the city is also a treasure trove of modernist buildings, dating mainly from the 1920's, many of which were designed by some of the century's leading architects. Furthermore, overwhelmed by the opulence of the Ringstrasse area, many visitors are unaware of Vienna's experiments in social housing during its first period of socialist city government that commenced in 1919 and is often referred to as Red Vienna. On my recent visit to the city, I was able to visit many of the remaining modernist structures of the period and to learn some of the stories connected to their development.

I first discovered the architect and designer Josef Frank on a visit to Stockholm a few years ago. Frank was born in Vienna and worked in the city as an architect until leaving Austria in 1933 for the United States and then Sweden where he settled, driven out of his homeland by anti-semitism. He was to go on to join and lead the famed Swedish design company Svenskt Tenn, which continues to produce high quality interior design items today.

Although Frank had been the only non-German architect to participate in the Weissenhof project in Stuttgart in 1927, he felt that this scheme placed too much emphasis on new building technologies and construction styles. He was more interested in exploring spatial and functional solutions to housing and managed to persuade the GESIBA, the municipally owned property development company, to approve and support a new project in Vienna. Work began in 1930 at a time when an economic crisis was looming and Frank was only able to continue due to the private financing of his project. He managed to persuade a stellar cast of architects to work on his scheme for 70 homes of different sizes, shapes and layouts. His team included Dutch modernist Gerrit Rietveld, Frenchman Andre Lurcat and fellow Austrians Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, Richard Neutra and Otto Niedermoser as well as the female architect Grete Schutte-Lihotzky.  With other colleagues they managed to design a stunning ensemble of modernist buildings on the leafy outskirts of Vienna that is perhaps the finest group of modernist buildings in Europe with its iconic tower block by Lurcat (pictured above) and its variety of takes on the style.

The architects experimented with a variety of approaches - Lurcat with a system of prefrabrication, Loos with a reduced spatial plan and Neutra blurred the divisions between interior and exterior - all methods that were to become commonplace in future years. The Werkbund Siedlung is located in Hietzing, one of the city's greener and most affluent areas. Visitors are free to walk around the estate but should remember that people live here and that it is not a museum. As well as Lurcat's towers, I especially like Hoffman's villa at Veitingergasse 85 (pictured above), and yes, that is a life size figure of Tin Tin and his dog looking out of the window! The rear of the property has a beautiful lush green  field-like space that makes visitors feel like they are in the country rather than a busy capital city. The small block at Woinovichgasse 14-20  (pictured below) by Rietveld is another favourite of mine. It looks extremely modern, belying its 83 years of history and has a decidedly Dutch or Scandinavian look compared to its neighbours. 

Frank had originally intended the properties to be rentals for middle income tenants but the prevailing economic conditions precluded this and they were sold off privately at huge prices. Today, the whole site is highly valued by Vienna and by architectural historians. In recent years the city authorities paid for restoration to all of the properties but only on the proviso that no material changes were made to them. Quite right too.

Frank himself designed some of the homes, but in my view, his best work in this part of the city can be found at Wenzgasse 12 - the Haus Beer, named after Julius Beer who worked on the house with Frank. Built between 1929 and 1931 it overlaps with Frank's larger project but is a significant work in itself. It is about half way between the Hietzing U-bahn station and the Werkbund Siedlung - but be warned, it is a very long walk with practically nowhere to stop on the way, so it might be better to research buses and trams. Also, there were no taxis to be seen at the station despite there being a formal taxi stand there.

The design of the house is important as it represents a departure from what Frank considered to be unnecessary uniformity, with an asymmetrical facade, various kinds of windows and openings and one part of the structure mounted on stilts. When I visited the house appeared abandoned and the postbox on the perimeter fence was sealed up. It was hard to see the property from the street due to the garden being overgrown so I bravely tried the gate and snook in to take a few pictures. The Iranian Embassy is in the same street and it appears that an adjoining property also belongs to the Iranians - both interesting buildings but not a good idea to photograph them and no chance of sneaking into the gardens! Frank considered Haus Beer to be one of his best works. It is pictured below.

But modernist Vienna is not all white modernist neatness. There is also a grittier end in the shape of several real social housing projects developed in the 1920's and early 1930's during the city's period of socialist rule. Perhaps the most well known is the Karl Marx Hof at Heiligenstadt in the north of the city. This huge block with 1,382 residential units was built between 1926 and 1930 and has been called "a kilometre of art deco".  It is the work of architect Karl Ehn who won a design competition for this project which stands on a narrow strip of meadow between a main road and a railway line. Maybe that's where Fairview got their ideas from (!) Ehn cleverly placed the structures around the borders of his site, enabling the provision of a huge green space at the rear of the main block (pictured below) which includes six broad arches and a six towered edifice. Ehn intended the arches to welcome the returning masses of workers to their homes after a hard days labour.

Ehn also had an eye for public art and four ceramic sculptures by Josef Riedl adorn the middle green space-facing facade, representing "Freedom" "Care" "Enlightenment" and "Body Culture". Opened by the socialist mayor, Karl Seitz on October 12th 1930, the Karl Marx Hof came to be seen as a model for socialist workers or communal housing. As well as apartments, the project contained two central laundries, two large bath houses with steam baths, two kindergartens, a dentist, a mother's advice centre, a worker's library, a TB clinic, a youth centre, post office, pharmacy, restaurants , 25 shops and many other facilities. The provision of worker libraries was felt to be a key element of all of the Red Vienna housing developments. By 1932 over 1,000 volunteer librarians staffed these 60 or so libraries across the city with over 2 million books being borrowed from them in 1932. That's a staggering statistic and one that many London local authorities would be proud of today. The larger estates also had a separate reading room and a small children's library. Hygiene, well being and general health were encouraged through the provision of the washing facilities but also through providing physical exercise rooms and in 1931, the city went so far as to build a new stadium in just 23 months to stage the second Workers' Olympiad!

Many of these developments took place within ten years of the devastating effects of the First World War, with limited amounts of money and during a time of great paucity of good quality affordable building materials. Whatever one's political views the committed and determined approach to progress has to be admired. It is possible to walk through the estate and see (from the outside) some of the modernist and art deco features normally associated with homes of the wealthy, that have been incorporated into this huge social housing project. Some of these features are reminiscent of the approach of the Amsterdam School in the Netherlands. An example of this is the unusual block pictured below with its port hole windows, contrasting colours and decorative corner brickwork.

One of the laundries is now given over to a small but fascinating museum on Red Vienna. Unfortunately the museum's captions are only in German, but for 3 Euros visitors can buy a small English language booklet that explains the key exhibits. As well as photographs, banners and posters from workers movements and election campaigns, the museum has a small May Day exhibition and film on the upper floor whilst the plan of a typical apartment is marked out in the main exhibition, showing just how little private space working people had even in this much improved accommodation. 

The exhibition also covers some of the leading characters in the labour movement during this period, including Viktor Adler, Julius Tandler, Hugo Breitner and Robert Danneberg all of whom although not  religious Jews were born into Jewish families. Nowhere does the exhibition acknowledge this or the Jewish contribution to improving the lot of the poor in Vienna during this period, amazingly, even where it mentions the deportation of several leading figures to Auschwitz, Theresienstadt and other camps.

Whilst in Vienna, I was also able to squeeze in visits to a couple of other projects from this period including the Raben Hof housing complex in the third district. Another huge site, Raben Hof has 1,100 units and is located on the site of a former barracks. It predates the Karl Marx Hof having been built between 1925 and 1928. Designed by architects Heinrich Schmid and Hermann Aichinger, former pupils of the great Otto Wagner and who completed several projects for the Social Democratic city government.

Their designs for the Raben Hof include decorative brick paneling closely resembling that of the Amsterdam School as well as some charming and unexpected communal courtyards such as the one pictured below. As with the Karl Marx Hof, the Raben Hof provided access for its residents to a kindergarten, public library and central laundry whilst its former main foyer was converted into a theatre in 1990. A "red carpet" is painted on to the approach to the theatre doors, making a star of everyone!

Part of the Social Democrat city government's programme for working class housing conditions was to make wider improvements in the field of public hygiene. This included the provision of social and cultural facilities, perhaps the most significant example of this is the Amalienbad public swimming pool at Reumannplatz in the tenth district. As well as a swimming pool, the Amalienbad includes a therapeutic baths, showers, hairdressers, a restaurant and rentable bathtubs. Designed by architects Otto Nadel and Karl Schmalhofer and built between 1923 and 1926 for 1,300 visitors, the lobby (pictured below) features stunning ceramic mosaic walls and floors with entrance portals giving the feeling of having entered a temple. Perhaps this was the intention of the architects - that it should be a temple of good health for the workers of Vienna. The baths are still in use today.

Vienna's brief period of social progress and change that followed the First World War ended abruptly in 1933 when the Austrian Fascists seized power and Parliament was dissolved. May day marches were forbidden and the city descended into chaos with shooting in the streets between left and right wingers. The Karl Marx Hof residents experienced this first hand during the disturbances of 1934 when the Fascists opened fire on it. The next few years saw increasing repression from the home grown Fascists which ended with Anschluss or union with Germany in 1938. Many of the leading lights in the Red Vienna period were murdered over the following several years, but their legacy remains in the city's built heritage.

See more pictures of Vienna's architecture here.

Picture post 18 - Majolica House, Vienna

This time next week, I will be in Vienna for the first time since 2006. Looking through some old photographs as part of my preparation for the visit, I came across this one from last time.

Numbers 38 and 40 Linke Wienzeile, better known as the Majolica House, and pictured above, are probably my favourite art nouveau buildings in Vienna and are the work of the architect Otto Wagner. Born in Penzing, now part of Greater Vienna, in 1841, he was responsible for many of Vienna's iconic buildings as well as, rather interestingly, the Rumbach synagogue in Budapest. He was also a founder member of the enormously influential Vienna Secession together with Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Joseph Hoffman and others.

Wagner took both contracting and architectural responsibilities for this ensemble meaning he had almost total creative control and practically free reign to realise his vision. This included covering number 40 in   colourful stoneware tiles which led to the building acquiring its "Majolica House" nickname. It is the colours and floral designs that first strike the first time visitor, together with the gold plated relief medallions that decorate the facade of number 38. The medallions were designed by Koloman Moser. The photograph above centres on the small, rounded balconies where the two addresses link, the deep green "vegetation" on the tiles and the leaf motifs on the iron work must have been designed to give the resident a feeling of having their own garden!

The block became the epitome of modern city living not just because of the beautiful exterior, but because Wagner installed bathrooms and elevators and used a clever floor layout to configure space in an optimal way. The apartments also had uniformly designed basic furnishings - predating the more recent trend to this approach by a whole century! Critic and writer Ludwig Hevesi wrote "The interior furnishings of these houses, as a unified whole in the thoroughly modern form, at once aesthetic and practical, is really something epochal". It certainly was.

The block extends around the corner, taking in number 1 Kostlergasse and it is in this part of the building that Wagner established an apartment for himself. Described as a "night lodging" to differentiate from his real home in Huttledorf, it still boasted a bathroom, water-closet, kitchen, dining room and an ante-chamber, but lacked the salon and library of his other residences. But who needed extra rooms when the bathroom was a colossal 5.28 by 2.91 metres with a ceiling height of 3.6 metres. Not to mention the bath being made from glass with a nickel painted frame construction. The bath became so celebrated and well-known that it featured in an 1898 exhibition organised to celebrate Emperor Franz Josef having served fifty years on the throne.

The Majolica House is located directly opposite the wonderful Nachsmarkt and a short walk from the Secession and other important sites. There are many cafes close-by too - and we all know about Viennese patisserie...

More pictures of Vienna here and here.
UPDATE! For more on art nouveau in Vienna see here.