Monat: April 2023

On Stock-im-Eisen-Platz, directly next to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, there is today the house „Zum goldenen Becher“ from 1883, built according to the plans of the Austrian Arch. Alexander Wielemans of Monteforte in the late historicist style. Wielemans was also responsible for the Palace of Justice in Vienna and the City Hall in Graz.

The name of the residential and commercial building in old German forms derives from a house sign of the previous building, a wrought iron grille with a cup, located above the front gate. The background for this was possibly the Corpus Christi procession in 1549, during which a Protestant baker’s boy named Johann Hayn is said to have snatched the monstrance from the priest and was then burned as punishment. The reigning king and later emperor Ferdinand I would have had a column with a monstrance erected at the site.

Despite damages during WWII, rich facade paintings with allegorical figures, portraits of emperors and verses on the history of the house and the city can still be seen between the round-arched windows, an embellished floor with a lattice balcony on consoles and partly also Ionic red marble columns.

The listed Hotel Daniel on Gürtelstraße in the 3rd district near the Belvedere from 1962 was originally built as an office building for the Swiss pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La-Roche and designed by the Austrian/Swiss architect duo Georg Lippert and Roland Rohn.

In the course of the takeover by the hotel operator and the renovation of the building with the curtain-wall style used for the first time in Austria to create the striking green glass facade in 2011, a work of art by the successful Austrian artist Erwin Wurm in the form of a curved sailboat called „Misconceivable“ was also installed on the roof.

The installation of the stranded airship, originally planned for only 4 years, perhaps also references Vienna’s location by the sea until a few million years ago.

One of the showpieces of the excellent Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer in the Hofburg is undoubtedly the so-called „Adlergarnitur“ from 1547, which the later Emperor Ferdinand I had made for his son, Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol. The name derives from the gilded eagles decorated on the surface, the heraldic animals of old Austria.

The knightly luxury armor, which was usually worn for representation purposes at tournaments, consists of 87 individual parts that can be combined as a modular system to 12 different armors for different occasions (on horseback, on foot, for field, tournament, foot combat, etc..). The „sporting equipment“, elegant due to its excellent execution and decoration, was created by the Innsbruck plater Jörg Seusenhofer.

To produce it, iron was fire-gilded, framed in black, engraved and rivet heads were made of brass. The considerable cost was equivalent to 12 years‘ salary of a high court official. The field armor is the largest preserved of its kind and, through illustration in the inventory of Archduke Ferdinand II, also the best documented.

The Austrian architect and well-known draftsman „Ironimus“ Gustav Peichl is responsible for the planning of the 96m high trade fair tower in Leopoldstadt, which was erected in 2003. The trademark of Messe Wien is also considered a reminiscence of the Mannesmann Tower*, which was located there until 1987 and was a gift from the Düsseldorf company of the same name.

Built on parts of the site of the 1921 World’s Fair in the Prater, the Vienna Trade Fair was intended to improve the dismal economic situation after WWI. Despite complete destruction during WWII, the annual early and autumn fairs were very soon well attended again. In the course of the division of the fairgrounds, the current exhibition and congress center was built at the beginning of the 20th century, and to the south, among others, the WU campus.

*Fig. 2: Official Gazette of the City of Vienna, Vienna Library, 1956

The Kolschitzky monument from 1885 in the 4th district by the Austrian painter and sculptor Emanuel Pendl shows Georg Franz Kolschitzky, born in (today’s) Ukraine, who played an important role as a scout during the 2nd Vienna Turkish siege of 1683.

Kolschitzky, who could speak Turkish among other languages, ventured through the enemy lines with his servant disguised as a Turk and informed the city commander Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg about the approaching rescue by the relief army under the command of the Polish King Jan III Sobieski.

This courageous act, which decisively boosted the morale of the defenders to hold out, earned him, besides the rank of imperial ambassador, among other things, some sacks of green coffee left behind by the Turks and the privilege to establish a coffee house. Whether he actually made use of this privilege is not proven, but he is still considered one of the founding fathers of Viennese coffeehouse culture and the inventor of the Viennese Melange (= espresso with milk and foamed milk topping).