Schlagwort: 1180wien

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 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 23m high Paulinenwarte in Währing, completely in the style of the adjacent cottage quarter of 1888, in the middle of the extensive Türkenschatzpark, is not only popular and well-known as a lookout tower with a panoramic view on the city and the Vienna Woods. The structure, which originally also functioned as a water reservoir, owes its name to the legendary Princess Pauline Metternich, granddaughter of the famous state chancellor and prominent salonniere of her time, who financed most of the exotic plants in the park.

The tower is also known, in particular, for the opening speech of Emperor Franz Josef I, which gave a decisive impetus to the negotiations for the incorporation of the suburbs into Vienna, which would then also be regulated by law in 1890 and become a reality in 1892. Another commemorative plaque is also dedicated to Ehzg. Karl Ludwig, the second younger brother of the Emperor, who also acted as „Protectorate“, i.e. as patron for the Cottage district.

The Paulinenwarte, which was reawakened in the 2000s, has been extensively renovated and is open between April and October, each weekend/month, in fair weather.