Home Vienna Vienna City Walks and Walking Tours
Vienna City Walks and Walking Tours
Download iPhone Walking Tours Application for Vienna
iPhone Walking Tours Application for Vienna
Bookmark and Share
Vienna's Modern and Art Deco Architecture
Guide Location: Austria » Vienna
Guide Type: Self-guided city tour
# of Attractions: 9
Tour Duration: 2 hour(s)
Transportation Mode: by foot
Travel Distance: 5.1 km
Image Courtesy of Wikimedia and Lucian Ilica
Author: leticia
Vienna’s architectural displays represent a wide array of time periods and styles. The popular Art Deco style, or Jugendstil, impresses visitors with its bold design and façade. This walking tour will introduce you to some of Vienna’s modern buildings of the 20th century.
Tour Stops and Attractions
Hundertwasserhaus
1) Hundertwasserhaus
The Hundertwasser House Vienna (Hundertwasserhaus Wien) is an apartment house in Vienna, Austria, designed by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The house was built between 1983 and 1986 by architects Univ.-Prof. Joseph Krawina and Peter Pelikan. It features undulating floors, a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows. Hundertwasser took no payment for the design of the house, declaring that it was worth it, to prevent something ugly from going up in its place. The Hundertwasser House is one of Vienna's most visited buildings and has become part of Austria's cultural heritage.
Image Courtesy of Wikimedia and Lucian Ilica
KunstHaus Wien
2) KunstHaus Wien
The Kunsthaus Wien offers an exclusive sampling of work by Austrian architect and artist, Friedensreich Hundertwasser. This unusual building also contains a collection of many other works in the fields of fine art, graphic art, ecology and architecture.
Image Courtesy of Flickr and Richard Berg
Postsparkasse
3) Postsparkasse
The Austrian Postal Savings Bank building (Österreichische Postsparkasse) is a famous Jugendstil building in Vienna, designed and built by the architect Otto Wagner. The building is regarded as an important early work of modern architecture, representing Wagner's first move away from Art Nouveau and Neoclassicism. It was constructed between 1904 and 1906 using reinforced concrete. The building houses the headquarters of the Österreichische Postsparkasse (P.S.K.) bank, formerly the k.k. Postsparcassen-Amt (Imperial-Royal Postal Savings Office). It is located at Georg-Coch-Platz 2, in the first district Innere Stadt, next to the Ringstraße boulevard.
Image Courtesy of Wikimedia and Gryffindor
Haas House
4) Haas House
Haas House, one of the Vienna’s most gorgeous modern buildings, was designed by architect Hans Hollein. Located opposite of St. Stephen's Cathedral, this shopping mall features an all-glass façade that reflects the Gothic style church. You can also enjoy fabulous views at the nice coffee shop and restaurant that sit atop this impressive, modern building.
Image Courtesy of Flickr and Poom!
Loos Haus
5) Loos Haus
Loos Haus, another one of the city's famous modern buildings, was designed by the celebrated architect Adolf Loos. He refused to decorate the building's window bays with stucco, which lead to its façade being nicknamed, “house without eyebrows”.
Image Courtesy of Flickr and Robert Scarth
Albertina Museum
6) Albertina Museum
The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well as more modern graphic works, photographs and architectural drawings. Apart from the graphics collection the museum has recently acquired on permanent loan two significant collections of Impressionist and early 20th century art, some of which will be on permanent display. The museum also houses temporary exhibitions.
Image Courtesy of Wikimedia and Thomas Steiner
Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station
7) Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station
Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station is a former station of the Viennese Stadtbahn. The buildings above ground on Karlsplatz are a well-known example of Jugendstil architecture. These buildings were included in The Vienna Secession, as they followed many of the artistic styles of that movement. They were designed by Otto Wagner, adviser to the Transport Commission in Vienna, and Joseph Maria Olbrich and are, unlike the other Stadtbahn stations, made of a steel framework with marbleslabs mounted on the exterior. These stations allowed Otto Wagner to achieve his goal of creating two modern axes of architecture in a city that was becoming one of the most modern cities of its time. These buildings went on to become the most modern monument of the modern city.
Image Courtesy of Wikimedia and Gryffindor
Vienna Secession
8) Vienna Secession
Located in Vienna, The Secession building was built in 1897 by Joseph Maria Olbrich as an architectural manifesto and exhibition hall for the secession group. Secession refers to the seceding of a group of rebel artists from the long-established fine art institution. The building features The Beethoven Frieze by Gustav Klimt, one of the most widely recognized artworks of Secession style (a branch of Art Nouveau, also known as Jugendstil). The building was financed by Karl Wittgenstein, the father of Ludwig Wittgenstein. The motto of the Secessionist movement is written above the entrance of the pavilion: "To every age its art, to art its freedom" (German: "Der Zeit ihre Kunst. Der Kunst ihre Freiheit"). Below this is a sculpture of three gorgons representing painting, sculpture, and architecture.The building also appears (from a different perspective) on the regular €0.50 Austrian coin. A detail of Klimt's work is featured on the reverse side of this coin.
Image Courtesy of Wikimedia and Gryffindor
Majolica House
9) Majolica House
Majolica House, yet another significant work of Otto Wagner, is a considerable example of the Austrian use of line. This building was named after the flowered tile which covers its wonderful façade. You will be sure to notice the gradation of elements and colors, as well as the gradual increase in difficulty of the floral design from the bottom to the top.
Image Courtesy of Flickr and roryrory
Attractions Map
Visitor's Comments (0)
Visitor's Gallery (0)