Autor: Michael Würzelberger

From a path above a vineyard in the Ried Alsegg on the Alszeile, there is a wonderful view of the Dornbach district in the 17th district. Characterized by the Alserbach, the Heuberg is located to the south with the „Heubergsiedlung“, a housing estate that emerged from the settlers‘ movement in 1920. However, only fragments of the prefabricated houses designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and Adolf Loos remain.

In the valley, the Dornbach parish church on Rupertusplatz is clearly visible, embedded in St. Peter’s Abbey with a building history of almost 900 years, founded by the abbey of the same name in Salzburg. The parish church, which has been destroyed and rebuilt several times, was extended in 1931/32 according to plans by Clemens Holzmeister and rotated by 90 degrees.

I report on all this and much more during a walk through Dornbach. On this voyage of discovery on the edge of the Vienna Woods, we not only explore historic castles, villas and pubs, but also get an insight into the wine tavern culture with the famous Schrammel music and see the sweetest corner of Vienna.

In the listed branch of the Dorotheum auction house in the 10th district, built in 1929 according to plans by Arch. Michael Rosenauer, special auctions on the subject of „historical entertainment technology“ are also held in addition to weekly auctions.

The three-zone, cubist, block-like reinforced concrete building features slit-like, three-window groups spanning several storeys and houses a prestigious auction room on the first floor.

Rosenauer, who was open to new materials and construction techniques, was born in Wels in 1884 and studied under Karl König and Max Ferstel in Vienna in addition to his artistic training. Even before the Dorotheum was completed, he moved to London and contributed to the revitalization of slums and social housing, later planning residential buildings in elegant London districts. After a stay in the USA, he returned to London and designed, among other things, the administrative building of the Time-Life Group, which opened in 1953 with well-known sculptures by Henry Moore on the façade.

The monument to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, created by sculptor Viktor Tilgner and Arch. Carl König was unveiled on Albertinaplatz five days after Tilgner’s death on April 21, 1896. Soon after its unveiling, there were calls for a change of location, and after bomb damage during World War II, it was finally moved to the Burggarten in 1953.

The late historicist statue made of Lasa marble – a hard, durable and weather-resistant marble from South Tyrol – shows the composer with a music stand on a three-tiered pedestal with a keyboard-shaped upper edge and bronze instruments and a laurel wreath, flanked by angels playing music.

Below this, a bas-relief depicts the invitation and appearance of the Stone Guest from the opera „Don Giovanni“, a reference to the opening performance of the Vienna State Opera in 1869. On the reverse, the six-year-old composer is shown at the piano surrounded by his family with his father Leopold playing the violin and his sister Nannerl singing.

Named after the arch. Günther Domenig in the 10th district the Domenig House from 1979 is considered a major work of the avant-garde „Graz School“, a movement of the 2nd half of the 20th century with impressive cubatures and façades. Originally built as a bank building for the former Zentralsparkasse (now Bank Austria), it now functions as an office building for the Vienna Echo publishing house, among others.

The now listed „house with the kink“ directly between the subway and Victor-Adler-Markt has hardly any straight lines inside or out and features a sculpturally expressive self-supporting façade made of stainless steel panels, which is unusual for Vienna and appears to be squeezed between the neighboring buildings like sheds or veins.

The Simmering crematorium with its urn grove and later extensions in the 11th district was built in 1922 as the first Austrian crematorium directly opposite the central cemetery. The facility with influences of German sacred architecture is considered one of the most famous buildings by the Austrian architect Clemens Holzmeister.

The construction was based on a municipal council resolution under the first democratically elected mayor of Vienna, Jakob Reumann, and was preceded by a controversy with the Christian-socialist federal government until the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the crematorium. Until the Second Vatican Council in 1963, cremation was still considered forbidden by the Catholic Church. More than 7,000 cremations are carried out there every year, and the adjacent cemetery contains around 42,000 graves and a pet cemetery.

Clemens Holzmeister, born in Tyrol in 1886 with Brazilian citizenship (his father had previously emigrated to South America), is considered one of the most important and internationally renowned Austrian architects of the 20th century. His work, comprising around seven hundred buildings, is characterized by the immense creative power of his 60 years of activity, particularly in Austria, Germany, Turkey and Brazil.

The listed and recently renovated Villa Schmutzer in the Cottage Quarter in the 18th district was commissioned by Prof. Ferdinand Schmutzer in 1909/10 and built in country house style by the innovative Viennese Art Nouveau architect Robert Oerley.

Schmutzer came from a family of artists; his great-grandfather founded the „k.k. Kupferstecher-Academie“ in Vienna, a building block of the later founded „k.k. Academy of the United Fine Arts“. Like his grandfather and father, he started out as a sculptor and then studied painting at the academy.

Schmutzer was extremely successful as a portraitist of Viennese society: his contemporaries included Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, his neighbor Arthur Schnitzler, Emperor Franz Josef I and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the villa of Ferdinand and his wife Alice was a meeting place of cultural Vienna.

The equestrian statue of Emperor Joseph II from 1807 on Josefplatz in the 1st district was commissioned by his nephew Emperor Franz II/I from the sculptor Franz Anton Zauner and is modeled on the Roman statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitol in the Palace of the Conservators in Rome. In addition to the exemplary style of the model, the Roman emperor also plays a role in Vienna in terms of content, as he is said to have died near Vienna.

The bronze cast was made in the imperial canon foundry on Wieden and was considered the largest cast outside France at the time. The statue stands on a pedestal made of polished Mauthausen granite, which features reliefs and medallions with scenes of trade and agriculture.

A model of the statue from 1797 can be found in Schönbrunn Palace Park.

The Grillparzer monument by Carl Kundmann (figures), Rudolf Weyr (reliefs) and Carl Hasenauser (architecture) in the Volksgarten in the 1st district was unveiled in 1889, around 17 years after the 81-year-old’s death. It depicts the famous 19th century Austrian playwright together with scenes from his literary works (left: Die Ahnfrau, Der Traum ein Leben, König Ottokars Glück und Ende
Right: Sappho, Medea, Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen).

Grillparzer was also employed as a civil servant from 1813-1856. Although it was customary at the time for a trainee to wait 12 years for his first salary, he was paid more quickly, receiving his first salary after just four years. As a minor civil servant in the Court Chamber, he celebrated his early literary successes; later in the Ministry of Finance, he was already a famous poet and became director of the Court Chamber Archives.

Grillparzer, like many other greats, constantly changed his lodgings. While in his youth he had to move from one poor dwelling to the next with his impoverished mother, who was widowed at an early age, later inner restlessness, imbalance and severe depression were the cause of many changes of location.

Located directly behind the main railway station in the 10th district, the Favoriten substation from 1931 is a monumental functional building of the municipal electricity works in red Vienna, probably influenced by the constructivist industrial architecture of the Soviet October Revolution.

The Austrian arch. Eugen Kastner and Fritz Waage grouped massive, rectangular and round structures on the triangular spandrel plot to form a ship-like building. The industrial building, which is still in operation, was also used as a control center for the power supply in the south of Vienna and beyond until it was renovated in 1999/2000.

Due to its gloomy and deserted appearance, the site is also often used as a prison setting in feature films.

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