So we have been in town for about 2 weeks now. Some of it was occupied with the visit from Judith and Michael but we have also been out and about the city, doing more exploration and finding new sites and insights.
One really interesting thing I did was to visit the Post Office Savings Bank building by Otto Wagner. (picture above) There is a small museum there that explains the building and the competition for this design. In addition to everything else he did, Wagner was a teacher at the main architectural school and was the head architect in charge of much of the city development at a time of great expansion at the end of the 19th century. He helped plan the first subways and their platforms and entrances and he designed the bridges and embankments for the Wien river. He also did quite a few apartments and individual houses so you see his work all over the city. He was very involved in the Secession movement and influenced many younger architects. The Post Office Savings Bank was quite revolutionary at the time, covered with rectangular metal pieces held on by metal bolts. Very much into functionality. The other interesting thing I learned was that this was the beginning of savings banks in Austria. The idea was to create savings banks in post offices for the proletariat who would just be able to save little bits at a time, because they would be intimidated by regular banks but would be more comfortable in post offices because they were familiar with them!
Huntertwasser House
One of the most interesting things to see is the work of a guy named Hundertwasser. Actually his name was Frederick Stosser but he changed it to Hundertwasser (meaning 100 waters- don’t ask me why). He was an artist who did a lot of very beautiful and quite colorful paintings but then decided that he could be an architect and developed his own theories about how people should live. For instance, he thought that straight lines were only for the engineers and real people need curves, especially on the ground. So the grounds of his buildings, both inside and outside undulate! Makes for some serious stubbed toes! He designed a fairly large apartment building not too far from where we live. It is composed of blocks of different colors and bays that project at all angles, and floors that rise and fall randomly! He also developed various ideas about ecology and claimed that his work was based on them, so the result looks a little like a work of Gaudi crossed with Greenpeace! In addition to a couple of buildings nearby in Vienna, he designed a complete community somewhere in Germany, as well as a waste treatment facility on the outskirts of Vienna. He is quite well-known in this city although the local architects really don’t like him because he called himself an architect when he really wasn’t one.
Another afternoon Rich and I took a walking tour of WWII in Vienna. There was a lot of discussion of the role of the Austrians and their early perception of being victims of Hitler also because he “invaded” in 1938! Slight problem with that was that he was sort of invited! The history here is pretty interesting because of what had happened during the 1920s with Red Vienna and the civil war that followed in the early 1930s and all of this really led up to the Anschloss. This guide, as well as other people we have talked to said that, although they definitely welcomed Hitler originally, after about 6 months they mostly wanted to get rid of him! Not much good at that point, but clearly there was some ambivalence. And it definitely took a while for this country to acknowledge their responsibility. It is only for about the last 20 years that they have been actively searching out people for restitution.
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