At the western entrance to the WU campus in Leopoldstadt, which opened in Oct. 2013, is the striking building of the Executive Academy (EA) and the WU Alumni Club by Spanish Arch. Eduardo Arroyo Muñoz (NO.MAD Arquitectos, Madrid). In the black, twisted 4-story structure with different transparent and reflective aluminum and glass surfaces, the surroundings also show.

Stacked around the central installation core are different plans per floor with soundproofing acoustic floors, the multitude of windows respond to different uses, such as learning areas, arena-style lecture halls and quiet zones.

The architect, born in 1964, with his „non-cartesian“ geometry, is responsible for the Lasesarre Stadium and Plaza Desierto in Bilbao, Casa Levene and Zafra-Uceda House in Madrid and museum extensions, among others.

On the occasion of the redesign of the staircase in front of the church Maria am Gestade in the Inner City, the Hannaken Fountain designed by Rudolf Schmidt was opened in 1937. The term Hannaken refers to an ethnic group from the Hanna region in Moravia (now the Czech Republic), who inhabited a plain between the Haná and Morava rivers and developed their own style of dress as well as a specific folk culture.

The fountain represents the legend of a „Hannakenkönig“ who lived in the adjacent inn „Zum Wolf in der Au“ and is said to have thrown a beating at the feet of passing passers-by at night in order to earn money from the treatment required afterwards. Popularly known as „Hanake“, he is said to have worked as a bather, offering all kinds of physical services such as bloodletting, dental treatment or wound care.

The scene is shown of helpers taking the wounded man – often well-heeled drunks who had just left the inn – to the place of treatment. Also the winged word „throwing a beating at the feet“ is said to have originated from this. Incidentally, the fountain is made of Lindabrunn stone, which was already popular with the Romans in Vienna.

The City Hall on Vienna’s Ringstrasse in the historicist neo-Gothic style was completed in 1883 after 11 years of construction according to the plans of Friedrich von Schmidt. The location is due to the initiative of the Viennese mayor Cajetan Felder, who rejected the originally planned building site opposite today’s Stadtpark and was finally able to convince Emperor Franz Josef I. to build on the former parade ground.

The monumental building, modeled on Flemish Gothic town halls, bears a multitude of reliefs, statues of historical figures, artists, representatives of civic professions, citizen soldiers and shield bearers with the coats of arms of the suburbs, both inside and out. The building is crowned by a 5.4 m high and 1.8 t heavy town hall man in the form of a standard bearer, which is placed on the 98 m high main tower.

The building, which was severely damaged during WWII, was then renovated until the 1970s, the last general renovation taking place in 2012-2014. In addition to the mayor, the municipal council, the city senate, the provincial government and various municipal departments, including the director of the magistrate’s office, also reside in the building.

The Jewish cemetery in the 18th district of Währing was the main burial place of the Jewish Community in Vienna from 1784 to 1879. After its closure, some people were transferred to other cemeteries, and with the Nazi invasion, more skeletons were exhumed to protect them from desecration of corpses.

Further, in 1942 a number of remaining bones were excavated for „racial surveys“ and then buried in the new Jewish section of the Central Cemetery after WWII. In spite of the fact that many graves do not contain any mortal remains today, the cemetery also shows a tour through the upper middle class of the Ringstrasse era, which has shaped Vienna until today, because of the prominent Jewish citizens.

The cemetery, which is currently open once a month and has around 8,000 remaining graves, is being renovated step by step with the help of donations, sponsors, volunteers and the City of Vienna by the association „Rettet den jüdischen Friedhof Währing“ (Save the Jewish Cemetery Währing). Two themed paths and a permanent exhibition in the Tahara House provide information about history and current developments.

The Minoritenkirche (Friars Minor Conventual Church) in downtown Vienna, remarkable in many respects, houses a replica of Leonardo da Vinci’s „The Last Supper,“ probably the world’s most famous wall fresco, made by the Roman mosaic artist Giacomo Raffaelli starting in 1805/06.

Originally commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte for the Louvre Museum, the Roman mosaic was also intended to serve as a safeguard for the original, already in poor condition, in the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan from 1497.

After the fall of Napoleon, Emperor Franz II/I originally purchased the 9.2×4.5m work for the Belvedere. Due to its size, it was installed in the Minorite Church above the Cenacolo side altar and inaugurated in 1847. The world’s largest reproduction of the 20-ton mural on twelve 24cm thick stone slabs between 2 inscriptions captivates to this day by the detailed execution and high artistic quality.

Opened in 1932, the Werkbundsiedlung in the 13th district Hietzing – consisting today of 64 small houses designed by 30 architects and female architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky – was created on the initiative of Josef Frank, based on the model of a similar settlement built a few years earlier in Stuttgart.

The direct juxtaposition of the works of important Austrian and foreign architects of the interwar period is particularly appealing. Despite the high level of visitor interest and positive media coverage, only 14 houses could be sold as planned; the rest were rented out and then turned over to the city administration during the Nazi period.

After renovations in the 1980s and 2010s, the experimental and now listed housing estate stands for undogmatic functionality and spaciousness in the smallest space of early architectural modernism.

Image 1: André Lurçat
Image 2: Josef Hoffmann – Image 3: Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
Image 4: Oswald Haerdtl – Image 5: Gerrit Rietveld
Image 6: Adolf Loos – Image 7: Josef Frank

The Roman Catholic Karl Borromäus Church in the Central Cemetery (2nd gate) in Simmering, directly behind the Federal President’s Crypt built 40 years later, was completed in 1911 according to plans by the architect Max Hegele. In addition to the cemetery church built in Art Nouveau style, which was already planned when the cemetery was opened in 1874, Hegele also planned the main portal and the burial halls.

The former Dr. Karl Lueger Memorial Church, which was reopened in 2000 in the course of a general renovation, was probably renamed because of the anti-Semitic views of the former mayor, who had a tomb built under the main altar in the course of its construction.

The striking, centrally domed rotunda is strongly reminiscent of the Otto Wagner Church at Steinhof, who was himself on the jury evaluating the cemetery buildings put out to tender and was thus familiar with Hegeles‘ plans of 1899.

The rondeau of the Federal President’s Crypt in the chapel courtyard in front of the church is the burial place of the Federal Presidents of the Second Republic. In the centre is a stone sarcophagus with the Federal Coat of Arms.

The 19-part figure group „Passanten“ (Passers-by) from 1985 on the Danube Island between Brigittenauer Brücke and Reichsbrücke consists of iron and steel sculptures of unclothed human figures in various poses.

The Viennese Prof. Herbert Traub, graduate of the Akad. d. bild. Künste and later himself a professor at the University of Haifa and Stuttgart, is responsible for the design. The installation probably also recalls his many years of work as a stage designer for theatre and film and, of course, the summer bathing paradise on the Danube Island.

In the center of the Volksgarten on Vienna’s Ringstrasse, the Swiss-Austrian court architect Peter von Nobile built the approximately 14x25m large classical Theseus Temple in 1823. The crypt of the building, which was planned in the type of a ring hall temple (peripteros) with 6×10 columns, was to serve as a place for the sculptures of the imperial collection of antiquities, especially for the Theseus group designed by Antonio Canova.

Due to the construction on the area of the former moat, the foundations of the catacombs had to reach deep down, but soon proved to be too wet, so that the sculptures were later taken away. Today, the Theseus figure is located in the intermediate landing of the main staircase in the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

After extensive renovation in the 2000s, the temple now serves as an exhibition space and can also be accessed barrier-free. The bronze figure of a youthful athlete by Josef Müllner placed in front of it was ceremoniously unveiled in 1923 and was considered a sign of life for Austrian sports.

The winged Lion of Saint Mark, based on a Venetian model, was first erected in 1869 in the magnificent South Station by Wilhelm Flattich together with 7 other lions on the edge of the roof. Since 2014, it can now also be seen again in the central station in restored condition as a landmark at the main entrance.

The figures, made by sculptor Franz Melnitzky, were probably an allusion to Austria’s claim to Venice, which had fallen to Austria at the Congress of Vienna as the „Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom“, but then had to be ceded again in the course of the Italian unification movement in 1866. During WWII, the South and East Stations were then severely damaged, six of the eight Lions of Saint Mark were destroyed. In the new building of the now structurally merged stations, completed in 1960, one of the Lion of Saint Mark was again presented in the lower ticket hall as a reminiscence of the times when Austria still extended to the Adriatic. The second undestroyed Lion of Saint Mark can be found today near the former Kaiserbahnhof in Laxenburg.