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Posts from the ‘Europe’ category

Vienna’s St. Marx Cemetery, Biedermeier style

Above/featured: Morning visit to the city’s Biedermeier cemetery – 20 May 2022.

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 is 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 entrance. Photo, 5 Jun 2023.

Main gate. Photo, 20 May 2022.

Address: Leberstrasse 6–8. Photo, 20 May 2022.

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

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Vienna: Bohemian Prater, Europe’s oldest carousel

I’m on foot in Vienna’s Favoriten (10th district), slowly making my way uphill onto Laaer Berg. I pass apartment blocks and summer garden cottages and plots. After about 10 to 15 minutes, a clearing appears in the forest.

There’s a ferris wheel. There’s another ride with a vertical drop, some flat rides, even a small roller coaster.

The modest fairground is open on this warm late-afternoon in early-June, which means crowds are a little sparse with most kids in school and adults at work. Still, there’s a scatter of families: some with strollers, and others with young children dragging their parents to the nearest ride or closest treat.

There are spots to buy cold pop/soda, ice cream, and grilled sausage. There are also a couple of larger places for beer, wine, and typical Austrian “fare at the fair”.

And somewhere in the midst of a blaring soundtrack of top-40 and classic rock is home to Europe’s oldest carousel or merry-go-round.

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Vienna: home for snow globes since 1900

Above/featured:“Greetings from Vienna.” Vienna-themed snow globes, 25- and 45mm sizes.

The five-year old boy sat transfixed, flipping the paperweight one way and back over, watching the “snow” slowly float and settle. My fascination with snow globes didn’t wane, long decades after that first memory.

In the Austrian capital city of Vienna, I’m visiting a small shop and accompanying museum to learn about the production of the “original snow globe” whose story begins with Erwin Perzy in 1900.

Perzy who produced surgical instruments was tasked to improve the output from the recently invented electric light bulb and further brighten hospital surgery rooms. He realized that a water-filled glass sphere containing loose reflective bits could provide a solution, except that the materials kept sinking. Flakes of white semolina tended to stay afloat longer; this experiment reminded him of light snowfall. After registering an official patent for the “Schneekugel” (snow globe), Erwin and his brother Ludwig created a shop to produce and sell small snow globes whose early designs included churches. Today, the 3rd generation of the Perzy continues to produce snow globes of various sizes; what material the “snow” is and how it continues to “float” remain secret.

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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.

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

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Vienna Heiligenstadt: Beethoven’s despair, deafness, & 6th Symphony

Above/featured: Memorial statue in Vienna’s Heiligenstadt Park; more details below.

Composer Ludwig van Beethoven spent a total of 35 years in Vienna, from 1792 with his arrival from Bonn until his death in 1827. Every summer, he would leave Vienna to stay in a country- or farm-house in Heiligenstadt which at the time was rural; a stagecoach trip from the inner city required several hours. Today, urban development and expansion have reached and overtaken the once verdant fields right up to the flanks of the city’s northern heights.

By 1802, Beethoven’s hearing loss was almost complete. With his doctor’s recommendation, Beethoven had hoped time away from the noisy city would help recover some of his healing, but after the summer had passed, his initial fears had come true: his hearing would not return. In desperation, Beethoven wrote to his brother a letter, known as the “Heiligenstadt Testament“. He never sent the letter to his brother; the letter would only be discovered 25 years later with Beethoven’s personal effects, shortly after his death in 1827.

I’m tracing out some of Beethoven’s footsteps in Heiligenstadt wrapped inside the present-day city’s 19th district of Döbling. All locations can be visited comfortably on foot in a single day. The following description is part of a larger overview of my search for Beethoven in the Austrian capital city.

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