Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place & home

Posts from the ‘Architecture’ category

My Vienna: the Biedermeier St. Marx Cemetery

Above/featured: Spring morning at Vienna’s Biedermeier cemetery.

In Vienna’s 3rd district, the St. Marx cemetery is the only surviving Biedermeier cemetery in the city. A visit now is a jump into the frozen past. The cemetery opened with its first burial in 1784. Closure of the city’s multiple neighbourhood cemeteries began in 1873 with the final burial at St. Marx taking place in 1874. Subsequent funerary functions were transferred to the newly constructed Zentralfriedhof located farther out from the city centre. The very leafy avenues and “leafy gate” are what’s left of the city’s only remaining 18th-century cemetery that’s now open to the public as a city-administered park.

Why Biedermeier

Biedermeier in Vienna corresponds to a cultural period during the first half of the 19th-century marked by increased industrialization in rapidly urbanized areas and strict censorship with the elimination of dissenting political voices. Instead of looking outward to change, the artist and design community moved to safer spaces in nature or to their homes. While innovation might have given way to a modest yet graceful and functional style, Biedermeier architecture in its neoclassical spin provided inspiration for subsequent Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) and Secession movements. An important Viennese architect of the period was Josef Kornhäusel who designed many buildings in the city. Important music from this period was composed by, for example, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Schubert, Schumann. One of the largest collections of Viennese Biedermeier art is in the Belvedere’s collection. St. Marx cemetery is a reflection of both city and age from the 19th-century.

St. Marxer Friedhof, St. Marx cemetery, Biedermeier cemetery, 3. Bezirk, Landstrasse, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Österreich, fotoeins.com

Cemetery’s main gate – 20 May 2022.

St. Marxer Friedhof, St. Marx cemetery, Biedermeier cemetery, 3. Bezirk, Landstrasse, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Österreich, fotoeins.com
St. Marxer Friedhof, St. Marx cemetery, Biedermeier cemetery, 3. Bezirk, Landstrasse, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Österreich, fotoeins.com

Information stone with visiting hours by month. Photo, 20 May 2022.

( Click here for images and more )

My Vienna, Judenplatz: centuries & memories of the Jewish community

Above/featured: Judenplatz at night. The Holocaust memorial is in the foreground at centre. In the background are “To the little trinity” at centre and Misrachi House (Museum Judenplatz) at right. Photo, 10 Jun 2022.

At Judenplatz are clear visual reminders of the city’s first Jewish community in medieval times.

The first Jewish community in Vienna settled around present-day Judenplatz in the Middle Ages with mention in written documents dated mid- to late-13th century AD/CE. Daily Jewish life thrived around the Or-Sarua Synagogue, the Jewish School, and the Mikveh ritual bath. The community along with the surrounding Jewish neighbourhood came to an end with the Pogrom of 1421. Catholic Habsburg Duke Albrecht II rolled out a decree (Wiener Geserah, Vienna Gesera) which legitimatized the expulsion, incarceration, torture, and murder of some 800 Jewish residents; accompanied by destruction and forced takeover of buildings and property.

Below I highlight remnants and traces to the medieval Jewish community at this square in central Vienna.

Judenplatz, Vienna, Wien, Oesterreich, Austria, fotoeins.com

Facing northwest: B, Bohemian Chancellery; H, Holocaust Memorial; L, Lessing monument; M, Misrachi House; T, To the little Trinity. Photo, 20 May 2018.

Judenplatz, Vienna, Wien, Oesterreich, Austria, fotoeins.com

Facing southeast: B, Bohemian Chancellery; J, Jordan House; H, Holocaust memorial; L, Lessing monument. Photo, 20 May 2018.

( Click here for images and more )

My Vienna: Art Nouveau highlights in the capital

Above/featured: A captive audience surrounds the Gustav Klimt painting “The Kiss” in Vienna’s Upper Belvedere. Photo, 19 May 2018 (X70).

If you’re paying attention, traces of the turn-of-the-century Viennese Art Nouveau (Wiener Jugendstil) art and design movement are visible throughout the Austrian capital city.

A painting.
A sculpture.
A building.
A clock.
A church.
A building mural.
A staircase, with railings and light fixtures.
The front facade of an apartment block.
The entrance pavilion to the municipal railway.
A decorative structure marking the exit/end of a river’s diverted route underneath the city.

I provide ten visual examples below, all of which are accessible with public transport.

( Click here for images and more )

My Vienna: Shoah Wall of Names Memorial

Above/featured: Shoah Namensmauern Gedenkstätte (Holocaust Wall of Names memorial site).

I drag my fingers gently down each stone block, across the fine indentations and the print of countless names.

I give quiet voice to each name I see.

In Vienna’s 9th district is a small green space, Ostarrichi Park, in front of the Österreichische Nationalbank (Austrian National Bank). The park is home to the Shoah Namensmauern Gedenkstätte (Holocaust Wall of Names Memorial), dedicated to over 64-thousand Austrian Jews murdered during the Nazi regime. Public inauguration of the memorial occurred on 9 November 2021 on the 83rd anniversary of the Pogromnacht.

The establishment and realization of the memorial has been a lifelong project for Vienna-born Holocaust survivor Kurt Yakov Tutter, who with his family fled to Belgium in 1930. Kurt and his younger sister, Rita, survived with the help of a Belgian family; their parents were deported and murdered in Auschwitz.

He made a new home in Toronto, Canada, where in 2000 he began working to create a memorial to murdered Austrian Jews. Funding from the national Austria state emphasized the enormous significance of the historical memorial; responsibility for continuing maintenance of the memorial is now shared by the Austria National Fund and the City of Vienna.

The names of over 64-thousand children, women, and men are engraved onto 160 slabs of granite; the slabs are arranged in an oval ring. Within the open and uncovered space, visitors to the memorial can walk briskly past each vertical block, but the air is thick with names.

Selma ABZUG, geboren/born 1886
Ernst ADLER, geb./b. 1904
David ALBRECHT, geb./b. 1871
Grete ALTMANN, geb./b. 1928
•
•
•
Therese WEISZ, geb./b. 1867
Eva WELLISCH, geb./b. 1933
Alfred WERTHEIM, geb./b. 1920
Edmund WESTFRIED, geb./b. 1890

Audio: Mr. Tutter speaks about Austria’s very late road to dealing with the past (Vergangenheitsbewältigung) and why he created the Wall of Names project.

( Click here for images and more )

My Vienna: Imperial Court Pavilion Hietzing (O. Wagner)

Above/featured: Facing east, a U4 train departs Hietzing station to terminus Heiligenstadt.

Along Vienna’s U4 metro line, a dark-domed white cube-like structure seems to float over the tracks between Schönbrunn and Hietzing stations. Most may not realize the building’s relevance to the history of the city’s first railway, the city’s rapid urban evolution into the 20th-century, and the railway architect’s eventual “break away” transition from historicism to modernism.

Vienna was going to look very different after 1890. The city undertook its second and greatest expansion, absorbing 6 outer districts and ballooning the total population to almost 1.4 million (almost doubled in 10 years). The city’s administration recognized the challenge of efficiently transporting people between its new outer suburbs and the inner city. In 1894, Vienna appointed architect Otto Wagner with the complete design and construction of the new Wiener Stadtbahn metropolitan railway. The railway saw the creation of four new lines: the Danube canal line (Donaukanallinie), the “Belt” line (Gürtellinie), the suburb line (Vorortlinie), and the Vienna river valley line (Wientallinie). Today, the city’s U-Bahn U4 and U6 lines and the S-Bahn S45 line operate electrified over much of the original routing.

The Vienna valley line brought track and construction in front of Schönbrunn, the imperial summer palace for the ruling Habsburgs. The rail line’s new Schönbrunn station was located at the northeast corner of the palace grounds. But at the grounds’ northwest corner, Wagner created two stations: one for the public, and one for the Habsburgs. Built for the inauguration of the city railway on 1 June 1898, the imperial pavilion was set aside for the emperor, family, and staff. Emperor Franz Josef I only used the pavilion twice, as he was reluctant (hostile) to accept rapid changes brought by modernity.

Wagner created a domed-building whose interior was furnished with floral and vegetal elements in the Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) style, a painting with a bird’s eye view of the city over Schönbrunn, a private suite for the emperor; and whose exterior included the uniform green and white colours seen throughout the entire rail network, glass and wrought-iron elements, and a separate portal providing a covered entrance for the imperials. Out of the many station buildings Wagner designed for the entire system, the imperial pavilion at Hietzing is most associated with the “historical” architectural style. The building is now a part of the city’s Wien Museum after successful post-war efforts to save and restore the structure.

The informal name is the “Hofpavillon Hietzing” (Imperial Court Pavilion Hietzing), but the building’s formal name is “Pavillon des kaiserlichen und königlichen Allerhöchsten Hofes” (Pavilion of the Imperial and Royal Highest Court). In the images below are divided sections: “exterior”, “interior”, and “sketches”.

( Click here for images and more )

Dianatempel, Hofgartenarkaden, Hofgarten, München, Munich, Bavaria, Bayern, Oberbayern, Upper Bavaria, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, fifty

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

12 December 2012.

With fresh snow on the ground, a brilliant early-winter afternoon means time to bundle up and a stroll through Munich’s city centre. The scene is the Hofgarten, a 17th-century Renaissance imperial court garden. Near its centre is the Diana Temple, surrounded by the Hofgartenarkaden, a low-lying arcade framing the border of the garden. It’s cold outside, but that light is spectacular.

I made the image on 12 Dec 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/400-sec, f/8, ISO100, and 18mm focal length (29mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-mK8.

Marathontor, Marathan Gate, Olympiastadion, Olympic Stadium, 1936 Summer Olympics, Berlin, Hauptstadt, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, forty-nine

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

5 December 2012.

This is the Marathon Gate at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, a glorious piece of architecture. But the cold intermittent wind travelling through an open empty stadium makes eerie sounds, as if to challenge the visitor with questions of “who, what, and why.”

Is sport neutral and separate from politics?

In 1934 Germany, the ruling National Socialists (Nazis) commissioned the construction of a giant stadium in Berlin. Werner March designed the structure which took two years to build in time for the 1936 Summer Olympics. At those games, Black American athletes including Jesse Owens participated with great success, but their paths to Berlin were met with hostility and filled with obstructions. American policies regarding black athlete participation were similar to prejudicial policies enacted by Nazis against the German Jewish people. In fact, American legal and racist precedents of the day provided early examples for the Nazis to create their own anti-semitic legislation: the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935.

“Sport as an ideal is not a force for positive social good. Sport is a neutral form. It needs positive underpinnings. And, it requires human beings [running it] to assume a sense of responsibility.”

– Sara Bloomfield, director of U.S. Holocaust Museum (1999–today).

I made the image above on 5 Dec 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/320-sec, f/8, ISO800, and 20mm focal length (32mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-mK4.

My Vienna: Armenian Mekhitarist Community (since 1810)

From outside, the buildings don’t look particularly special. But they tell a tale of extraordinary migration: beginning in Armenia and ending here in Vienna’s 7th district, by way of present-day Turkey, Greece, and Italy.

At the corner of Neustiftgasse and Mechitaristengasse is a set of buildings for the Armenian Mekhitarist Congregation.

If I’m in the city for a month, my curiosity demands to learn more. Through e-mail and by phone, I inquire with the monastery’s contact person about a visit, and I’m instructed to join a group of Americans for a guided tour.

Armenian Mekhitarists

The Mekhitarists are an order of Benedictine monks of the Armenian Catholic Church founded by Mekhitar Petrosean from Sebaste (now Sivas). Since 1810, the Mekhitarists established (a second) headquarters in Vienna, whose modern presence includes monastery, church, museum, and a library containing the world’s third largest collection of Armenian manuscripts.

Understanding the sustaining power of the printed word to a fragile culture, Mekhitar and the order’s monks created a complete dictionary of the Armenian language. The first volume of the “Dictionary of Classical Armenian Language” (ԲԱՌԳԻՐՔ ՀԱՅԿԱԶԵԱՆ ԼԵԶՈՒԻ) was published after his death in 1749, and the second volume appeared in 1769. In 1837, the New Dictionary of Classical Armenian Language was published, whose contents have now been digitized.

With my love of books since childhood, I’m regularly on the look for (sources of) old manuscripts, which is obvious in the images below.

By tour’s end, I have a few quiet minutes for a couple of questions.

Q1. How many Armenians are there in Austria?
A1. With a total population of almost 9 million, Austria is home to about 8000 Armenians, of which about 5000 live in Vienna.

Q2. Who was Deodat/Diodato?
A2. Diodato was an Armenian merchant whose birth name was Owanes Astouatzatur. He is credited with opening Vienna’s first licensed coffee house in 1685. Today, that location happens to be occupied by another café with a memorial plaque inside.

Mekhitarist Timeline

•   1701: Mekhitar of Sebaste (1676–1749) establishes congregation in Constantinople (now Istanbul).
•   1706: Move to Greece’s Methon; new monastery established.
•   1717: Move to San Lazzaro, one of Venice’s islands.
•   1773: 2nd group breaks away from Venice, establishing monastery in Trieste in the Habsburg empire.
•   1775: Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa’s “Privilege” guarantees Armenian colony with permanent status.
•   1805: Napoleon seizes Trieste as French territory; Trieste’s Mekhitarists flee to Vienna.
•   1810: Habsburg Emperor Franz I grants Triestine Mekhitarists permission to settle in Vienna.
•   1811: Mekhitarists establish presence in Vienna’s St. Ulrich.
•   1811–1873, 1889–1898: Book printing press by the Mekhitarists in Vienna.
•   1837: after 1835 fire, new construction designed by Josef Kornhäusel begins in Neubau.
•   1874: Site expansion includes new church, also by Kornhäusel.
•   2000: The Venice and Vienna chapters reunite into single Mekhitarist order.

( Click here for images and more )

Hinternentblösser, Münster, Minster, Cathedral, Freiburger Dom, Freiburg im Breisgau, Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, forty-eight

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

27 November 2012.

Commonly found along the rooftop of cathedrals are stone gargoyles which are sculptural water spouts funnelling water down from the roof and away from the sides of the building. In southwestern Germany’s Freiburg im Breisgau, the south side of the cathedral (Minster, Münster) includes a rather “cheeky” gargoyle, the “Hinternentblösser” (butt-flasher). At minimum scandalous and most definitely a very pointed comment, it’s frankly amazing to see this butt-tastic sculpture remain as cathedral ornamentation.

I made the image on 27 Nov 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/20-sec, f/5.6, ISO200, and 55mm focal length (88mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-mIl.

Monbijoubrücke, Museumsinsel, Fernsehturm, ThatTowerAgain, Berlin, Germany, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, forty-seven

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

16 November 2012.

For me, this familiar scene says a lot of “home”.

In this southeast view from Berlin’s Monbijou Bridge, lingering autumn fog and mist partly obscures city landmark Fernsehturm (Television Tower) in the background at left. Also visible are the Rotes Rathaus at centre-right and the imposing structure housing the Bode Museum on the Museum Island at right. Railway tracks cross the island, “squeezed” between the Bode Museum and the Pergamon Museum. A bright-red Deutsche Bahn regional train crosses over the Spree river from left to right (east to west) on its way to Friedrichstrasse station and beyond to Central Station.

I made the image on 16 Nov 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/125-sec, f/8, ISO800, and 42mm focal length (67mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-mIi.

%d bloggers like this: