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Atrium of Postsparkasse
Seeing the atrium the postparkasse, despite being under renovation, was well worth the trip. When planning this trip, Ben and I had wanted to start off in Llubljana and work our way down the Adriatic coast, eventually ending up in Athens. Unfortunately, due to everything from politics to plane ticket prices, we wound up with a bit of a hop-scotch itinerary. This involved spending a night in Vienna to recover from our bender in London. Fortunately, this gave me the chance to see some of the things I had missed during last year's trip and to return to my favorite coffee house.
For me, the three highlights of the trip were seeing the Karl-Marx-Hof, the first post-modern building; Otto Wagner's Postparkasse, one of the turning points of Modern Architecture; and the Secession Contemporary Art museum.
The Karl-Marx-Hof, built in the 1920s, is interesting because it is one of the first Modern buildings treats the facad itself as a propagandistic sign. The maroon anthropomorphic figures that are aligned in front of the building were intended to be a symbol of solidarity among the workers it was meant to house. Being about a kilometer long, with each edifice bearing the repeated motif, the structure conveys its point in such an overwhelming manner that is slightly
scary to an American observer.
The giant structure is still, fortunately, in use. When I went into the court yard to take a few pictures, I saw some of the residents playing Foosball outside. I wanted some one to take a photo of me in front of the building, so when I saw a break in the game I quickly said, utilizing the tiny amount of German I picked up, "Guetantag, sprechen sie Englisch?" As soon as I said that, everyone playing Foosball turned around and gave me a nasty look. Everyone, that is, except for the incredibly hot girl that I had half-aimed the greeting towards. I immediately suspected the guys playing Foosball thought that I was hitting on her. The girl, of course, turned around, smiled and greeted me. In any other situation, I would have struck up a conversation with her, however, to avoid getting beat up by five kids in an Austrian low-income housing complex, I just said "Could you please take my picture in front of the building," and she happily obliged.
We just barely made it to the turn-of-the-century Postsparkasse before it closed. I wasn't able to find it on my last
trip to Vienna and have been eager to see it for about five years. In order to wrestle power away from Jewish bankers, the government got into the industry and constructed hybrid Post-Office/Savings Bank buildings. Architecturally, the most interesting one was constructed by Otto Wagner. The interesting part of the building it's atrium, where Wagner uses the form of a Gothic cathedral-- a wide, barrel vaulted ceiling flanked, representing the nave, by two horizontal ceilings representing the aisles. I'd conjecture that the sleek, modern combined with the Gothic form was intended to say to the Viennese that, in the modern era, the Christians control their own banks. The ominous message this building conveys towards Austria's Jewish community, combined with the "solidarity" expressed by the Karl-Marx-Hof gives a frightening glimpse into undercurrents in Austrian society in the early twentieth century.
Unfortunately, the Postsparkasse is under renovation so it is impossible to get into the atrium. Here's how to look into it. When you enter, you'll see a row of doors that are blocked off by planters and have paper blocking their windows looking into the atrium. The door furthest to the left does not have any paper blocking its window
so it is possible to look in through it.
I hadn't heard of Secession before I looked around in Ben's Vienna book but we thought that it, being a Contemporary art museum housed in a remarkable building, looked more interesting and a lot less sterile than another Renaissance museum. Our instinct turned out to be correct. The building itself was remarkable. It was built around the turn of the century by one of Wagner's students, and walking around it would be worth the price of admission. The most interesting installation was a room covered huge lead medallions and wall hangings.
We spend the night in the Happy Hostel, near the Westbanhof train station. While the hostel looked really far out on the map, Vienna's ultra-efficient metro system makes it an effective 10 minutes from the city center-- two minutes to get to the station, wait a maximum
three minutes, and five minutes on the train. With the 5 euro all-day train pass, we barely walked anywhere. No complaints about the hostel.
A note about taking the subway system from the airport-- the airport is not in the city of Vienna, so be sure to get a one-way ticket
specifically for that ride in addition to the all-day pass.
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