Arts | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Arts’ category

Vienna Steinhof Church: city- & Wagner-landmark

Above/featured: East side of the church, in afternoon light. Photo on 28 May 2023, X70 with wide-field WCL-X70 lens attachment, image corrected for geometric distortion.

Building: Steinhof church, also St. Leopold Church, 1907 // Kirche am Steinhof, Kirche zum heiligen Leopold.
Address: Baumgartner Höhe 1, in Penzing, the city’s 14th district.

Up on the city’s Baumgartner Heights is an example of Europe’s first modernist church at Steinhof. Dedicated to St. Leopold, the structure is one of the city’s finest examples of turn-of-the-century architecture, and one of the world’s most important churches in the Jugendstil or Art Nouveau architectural style. The church was designed and built by architect Otto Wagner, inaugurated in 1907 for patients and staff within the surrounding hospital complex the Lower Austria state, sanatorium, and nursing home for the mentally ill (Niederösterreichische Landes-, Heil-, und Pflegeanstalt für Geistes- und Nervenkranke) which included over 30 buildings and room for over 2000 beds. The bright, airy, and spacious modern design was met at that time with skepticism and criticism by local church officials. Of utmost importance on Wagner’s mind were the hospital patients: his church design was about gentle solitude, not fire and damnation.

The church was a collaborative effort with other Viennese artists, including mosaics and stained glass by Koloman Moser, angel sculptures by Othmar Schimkowitz, and exterior tower sculptures by Richard Luksch. The church roof is topped with a dome covered in gold-plated copper plates, whose bright yellow appearance in daylight merits the nickname “Limoniberg” (lemon hill) that’s visible in different parts of the city. The Steinhof church is an example of a “Gesamtkunstwerk“, where every detail and fixture contributed to a “total and functional work of art”; an architectural masterpiece of the period; and one of Otto Wagner’s most important creations.

I included this building as part of my description of Otto Wagner’s architectural legacy in Vienna and of the recent centenary celebration in Vienna of the city’s 19th- to 20th-century architectural transition from historicism to modernism.

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My Berlin: Wrapped Reichstag at night, 30 years on

Above: “Wrapped Reichstag 1995–2025” light show.

In 1995, the artist duo Christo & Jeanne-Claude carried out a bold but contentious project by covering Berlin’s landmark Reichstag parliament building. Plans for the project had taken over 20 years, even though the artwork had always meant to be temporary and all expenses had been covered without corporate sponsors. Over 5 million visited in a period of 12 days in the summer of 1995 to look at the undulating “silver dream” in the German capital city. The timing was ideal. After reunification of the two Germanys in 1990, the new home of the federal parliament would be Berlin’s Reichstag. Renovations to the building began in the autumn of 1995 with the federal parliament opening in the spring of 1999.

From 9 to 22 June 2025, the Reichstag building was illuminated nightly with a light show in a 30-year anniversary tribute to the famous 1995 artwork. In a 20- to 30-minute cycle, the light-show appeared to first envelop the building in silver fabric. The fabric cover flapped in artificial breeze, before the cover lost its shape and fell onto the ground at the base of the building. The free-of-charge light show began shortly after sunset at about 930pm and continued until 1am. Whatever Christo and Jeanne-Claude chose to cover and transform, their art works posed questions of perception, origins, shape, functionality, and permanence.

• DW: Germany Arts
• Visit Berlin

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My Berlin: Dussmann Kulturkaufhaus, more than a bookshop

Pieces & places in Berlin

If I have 3 days or 7 weeks to spend in the German capital city, I make time to stop at Dussmann.

Conveniently located near Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse train station, the “department store of culture” offers more than simply German-language books to serve fiction read-needs or magazines to gauge what’s happening near and far. There’s a separate English language bookshop, as well as an enormous catalog of music, film, and television. The space is also large enough to hold some cultural events. Naturally, there’s a “BerlinShop” for my postcard and your souvenir requirements. And because it’s Berlin, they stay open past 11pm Monday to Saturday.

Dussmann is an important place and piece to the extensive conceptual mosaic I’ve created over the years with the amount of time spent in Berlin since 2002. I never regret any visit to Dussmann. I always regret what’s about to happen: my wallet gets a little lighter, and that I somehow have the massive fortitude to leave with “only” a handful of books.

Dussmann Kulturkaufhaus, Berlin, Deutschland, Germany, fotoeins.com

Completed in 1997, the lower 5 floors of the 8-storey building is all about the Kulturkaufhaus, whereas the upper 3 floors are reserved for office space which includes the Dussmann Group. Photo, 27 May 2025.

At the far end on the ground floor (Erdgeschoss) is the sphinx of Egypt’s Queen Hatshepsut (about 1475 BCE), on permanent loan from the Egyptian Museum of Berlin. The inscrutable statue greets visitors to the café below, as well as the English language bookshop at right. Photo, 27 May 2025.

From the 2nd floor (erste Obergeschoss) this view along the central aisle shows how the combination of natural light from above, mix of artificial lighting and colours, and hanging leafage provides a welcoming atmosphere, which undoubtedly makes it easier for customers to spend. Photo, 30 May 2025.

“Under Berlin’s skies, there’s only one Dussmann.” On the 2nd floor, the theatre banner-like display highlights the movie and television section, and if the quote is indeed from Wim Wenders, it’s an interesting play on the title “Der Himmel über Berlin”, a film Wenders directed in 1987. In the television section, I found DVDs for early-seasons (series) of New Zealand’s “The Brokenwood Mysteries”, distributed in Germany as “Brokenwood – Mord in Neuseeland”. Photo, 30 May 2025.

Café Nénom, Dussmann Kulturkaufhaus, Berlin, Deutschland, Germany, fotoeins.com

Afternoon break at Café Nénom with coffee and book: “The Wall” (“Die Wand”), a work of fiction published in 1963 and written by Austrian Marien Haushofer. Photo, 27 May 2025.

Directions & Hours

• BVG U-Bahn U6 train to Friedrichstrasse station.
• S-Bahn Berlin train: S1, S2, S25, S26; S3, S5, S7, or S9 to Friedrichstrasse station.
• Leaving Friedrichstrasse station, it’s a short 120-metre (400-ft) walk south to the shop.
• BVG Tram M1 or 12 to stop “S+U Friedrichstrasse Bhf”.

Monday to Friday: 9h–0h; Saturday: 9h–2330h; Sunday (BerlinShop only): 13h-18h.

( View this location in OpenStreetMaps )

I received no prior support or subsequent compensation for this piece. I made all above images with a P15 on 27 and 30 May 2025. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-wj0.

25T90 Final full day: summer of `25

E89, C06.

I’m in Cologne on the 90th and penultimate travel day. Fortunately, I still have “room” for travel day 91 and Europe day 90: my last day within Schengen to allow for a timely departure. I didn’t need to stay in Frankfurt this time, because with ICE trains, I can go non-stop from Cologne to Frankfurt Airport in 70 minutes. But I will soon leave with another truckload of memories, thousands of images, and time well spent in places crucially important to me.

The 2025 numbers for 90 days:

Total distance walked: 746 km / 464 mi.
Total number of steps: 1.02 million.
Daily average distance walked: 8.3 km / 5.2 mi.
Daily average number of steps: 11347.

*Rudolfplatz: transport junction for lines 1, 7, 12, 15; and bus routes 136, 146.*

*Dürener Strasse 199-203: there’s a dark-grey plaque at far-left and a “stumbling stone” or Stolperstein at lower-right.*

Known for his series of turn-of-the-century portraits, photographer August Sander (1876-1964) lived and worked at Dürener Strasse 201 from 1911 to 1944. This memorial plaque is on the wall next to the entrance at Dürener Strasse 199-203. The August Sander photograph archives are located at the SK Stiftung Kultur in Cologne’s Mediapark.

Stumbling stone (Stolperstein) within the pavement in front of Dürener Strasse 199-203: Photographer and August Sander’s son, Erich, arrested for high treason in 1934; died age 40 on 23 March 1944 at the NS penitentiary in Siegburg.

*Sander family grave at Melaten Cemetery.*

*Rudolfplatz: “BoConcept: (offering) one-on-one consultations on interior design.”*

*Of these great people in the frame, I’ve known two of them since 2002-2003. The setting that is the Latin American restaurant El Inca is a favourite. (Thanks to MW for the image.)*

*Last light of the day, facing northwest from Barbarossaplatz towards the Herz Jesu church (left-centre) near Zülpicher Platz.*

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 5 August 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

25T89 Cologne Ehrenfeld: “Ihrefeld is my kinda Veedel”

E88, C05.

Some of my best friends in the country are in Cologne, as I’ve known them for almost 25 years. Back in 2002, I’d been introduced to the city’s big football team, as well as the Ehrenfeld district, to which I try and get back when I’m in town. (I tried to stop at Kebapland, but the 630pm queue was already crazy long, and I remember good alternatives in the near.)

To begin my walk west, I’m at the Innerer Grüngürtel (Inner Green Belt) Park, within sight of the Deutsche Telekom building, the 266-metre Colonius telecommunications tower, and the 102-metre Hercules high-rise from left to right, respectively.

*I’ve gotta try to time my stay next time, so I can get a tour of the city’s central mosque. The place opened in September 2018.*

*Opened in 1912, the Neptune Baths have been converted to a fitness and wellness facility since 2002.*

*Helios is a local landmark in Ehrenfeld.*

That’s not a real maritime lighthouse; it’s a structure marking the location of a big factory that once manufactured electrical equipment including maritime lights. I wrote a short blurb about Helios here.

*Kölsch Bloot (Cologne blood) is a clothing company based in Ehrenfeld, which explains the Helios structure, the city’s coat of arms*, *and the silhouette of the city’s cathedral.*

*A 2nd-ad in the Veedel for Netflix and the upcoming 2nd season of “Wednesday”. That queue for Kebapland at lower- right is too long for my state of “hungry.*

*This little tiled piece represents the logo for football team 1. FC Köln. It’s not obvious, but plain as day for fans and for those who know.*

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 4 August 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.