Monat: Juli 2024

The almost 62,000m2 Wertheimsteingarden in Oberdöbling in the 19th district was created as early as 1835 by the Austrian textile manufacturer, art collector and patron Rudolf von Arthaber as a private garden with a country house, the Villa Wertheimstein. After his death, Leopold von Wertheimstein acquired the park and villa in 1867, and 50 years later his daughter Franziska bequeathed the estate to the City of Vienna. In 1967, the Döbling District Museum was established in the villa and a wine museum was set up in the adjoining “Nonnenstöckl”.

A number of statues in the park still commemorate the salon as a central meeting place for liberal personalities in Vienna, which was founded by her mother Josephine. In addition to the writers Ferdinand von Saar, Franz Keim and Eduard Bauernfeld, there is also a bust of the Austrian officer and politician Julius Schlegel, the “savior of the art treasures of Montecassino” from the Nazis.

The charming park, which slopes steeply down to the former Krottenbach valley and Danube Canal valley, is home to many old and exotic plants, a garden for the blind created in 1959 (only partially preserved) and, since 1992, a biotope for lizards.

Due to the great success of the specially tanned and dyed gloves, the production of the former imperial and royal glove factory J.E. Zacharias moved in 1886 to the three-storey factory building planned by Gustav Matthies from Mecklenburg in today’s 19th district near the Danube. Due to the high demand for water, the location of the elongated brick building, with the gables typical of the planner in the early Italian Renaissance style, in Nußdorf, which was still a suburb at the time, was ideal.

With the help of ultra-modern machines powered by steam and their own dynamos, around 300 employees produced up to 10,000 gloves per week, a large proportion of which were destined for export all over the world. After the death of the factory owner in 1904, the now listed building was used as an important print shop for lithographed posters and metal sheets until 1970 and then as a second-hand goods and antiques shop.

For more than 10 years now, the building has been used as “Haus Damaris”, a Caritas facility providing refugee accommodation and basic care for around 220 people. Volunteers and donations in kind are also sought via a dedicated FB group.

One of the highlights of a tour of the Prater Cottage in the 2nd district is the impressive clubhouse for the former “Cycling Club of State and Court Officials” in the Prater, designed by Austrian designer and Secession architect Joseph Maria Olbrich. The central wooden main front, designed as a wide portal niche, is a reminiscent of the entrances to the pavilions of the Vienna city railway stations by Otto Wagner.

Olbrich received the commission in spring 1898, one month after the start of construction of the important Viennese Secession building near the Ringstrasse, which he had planned in the Viennese Art Nouveau style.

Shortly after completion, the club expanded from cycling to tennis. The pavilion, which has remained relatively undamaged despite various adaptations, is still used for this purpose today by the same club – now “SV Schwarz-Blau”.

Interested in a tour of Vienna’s historic bourgeoisie? Just send me an e-mail.