With its youthful Museums Quartier, history-heavy Vienna is trying to carve a contemporary image.
The Fine Arts Museum
The upper Belvidere.
The upper Belvedere.
A view toward the Hofburg at night and the……….
A view toward the Hofburg at night and the nave of the baroque St. Stephen’s Church, built between 1702 and 1708.
Doormen at the Grand Hotel and the hotel lobby.
Doormen at the Grand Hotel and the hotel lobby.
The Österreicher Gasthaus bar in the Applied Arts Museum, with its chandelier made of bottles; a service road alongside the Ring Road, built in 1857 after the destruction of the city’s walls.
The Österreicher Gasthaus bar in the Applied Arts Museum, with its chandelier made of bottles; a service road alongside the Ring Road, built in 1857 after the destruction of the city’s walls.
Downtown Map
The Fine Arts Museum and Elephant statue at entrance.
The Fine Arts Museum and Elephant statue at entrance.
Leopold Hawelka, the 97-year-old owner of Café Hawelka, which his family has owned since 1939. Below: the Fine Arts Museum.
Leopold Hawelka, the 97-year-old owner of Café Hawelka, which his family has owned since 1939.
The……….at night, grapes and other fresh produce at the Naschmarkt, and a vendor selling a fish sandwich at the Saturday Naschmarkt
The Vienna State Opera at night, a wide variety of fruit and vegetables are for sale at the Naschmarkt, and a vendor selling a fish sandwich at the Saturday Naschmarkt.
A Guglhupf cake—said to be Emperor Franz Joseph’s favorite—at the Grand Hotel, the ………… statue in…….
A Guglhupf cake—said to be Emperor Franz Joseph’s favorite—at the Grand Hotel, an 1888 monument of Empress Maria Theresa (1717 to 1780) in the park between the Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Natural History.
A waiter at Plachutta, the well-known meat house and an architectural wing jutting out from the Albertina Museum
A waiter at Plachutta, the well-known meat house and an architectural wing jutting out from the Albertina Museum.
……………… and the 1896 statue of Mozart in the Burggarten, downtown Vienna, with bedding plants in the shape of a musical clef.
A waiter at the restaurant Figmueller carrying enormous slaps of Schnitzel and the 1896 statue of Mozart in the Burggarten, downtown Vienna, with bedding plants in the shape of a musical clef.
A copper serving pot at Plachutta and the quirky Hundertwasserhaus (a major attraction and residential building)
A copper serving pot at Plachutta and the quirky Hundertwasserhaus (a major attraction and residential building)
Photography by Tyler Darden
The Austrian capital has conservative traditions, but also people who buck the status quo. Artists and architects did it at the turn of the 20th century. Now the city’s leaders are doing the same as they work to give this history-heavy European capital a more contemporary image.
With its astounding mix of classical culture and imperial history, with its ballrooms and concert halls, coffee houses and design shops, with its turn-of-the-century art and architecture and plethora of outstanding museums, with its Mozart, Strauss, Haydn and Mahler, its Maria Theresa and Franz Joseph, Vienna’s appeal is over the top—overwhelming, even—and not exactly a secret. The Austrian capital has an embarrassment of old-world cultural riches.
But what may be surprising, to those who haven’t visited Vienna since they were art history majors, is how this vital crossroads capital—the center of the Hapsburg empire for some 650 years and now a thriving gateway between eastern and western Europe—has worked to give itself a more contemporary sheen over the last decade or so. Here is a grand, largely egalitarian European capital in the process of redefining itself.
If any one thing reflects the new Vienna, it would be the Museums Quartier. It’s a dynamic and multifaceted cultural complex that opened in 2003 and is today one of the largest cultural centers in the world, on a par with the Pompidou in Paris and the Lincoln in New York. It’s just across the street from the two hulking state museums (Fine Arts and Natural History) in the heart of the city and a short walk from the Hofburg, the former Royal Palace complex that, along with the music composers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, has long symbolized Vienna. And wouldn’t you know it—the MQ, as it is called, has an imperial connection of its own: The baroque front wing, built in 1732, was once the imperial stable.
Like most buildings in this city of 1.6 million people, the MQ is big. The façade alone extends 600 meters and has 10 entrances; the complex in total occupies about 60,000 square meters of space in a mix of historic and new buildings. The new include the Museum of Modern Art and the Leopold Museum, a pair of impressive square blocks designed by brothers Laurids and Manfred Ortner. The Leopold, with a façade of white limestone, has a bright, almost floating appearance. The Modern Art building, in contrast, is clad in a dark-gray lava stone. In terms of color and perceived weight, they either balance or cancel each other out, depending on your perspective.
The Leopold, with its sun-flooded rooms (some containing original objects designed by Adolf Loos, Otto Wagner and Josef Hoffman, all titans of early-20th-century art nouveau design) is the most popular spot within the MQ. It is home to the most important collection of Austrian modern art in the world, including examples of the Viennese secessionist, modernist and expressionist movements in the late 19th century and early part of the 20th. Egon Schiele is the star, but there are also major works by Oskar Kokoschka, Richard Gerstl and Gustav Klimt. Schiele, a controversial man and superb draughtsman with a predilection for the erotic, died of influenza in 1918, at age 28.
Rudolf and Elisabeth Leopold, who donated the collection and direct the museum, spent five decades compiling some 5,000 works from the period—spotting early the talents of both Klimt and Schiele, among others, who were not appreciated in Austria until the 1960s. In fact, Rudolf Leopold was mocked at one 1954 auction when he bought a “degenerate” Schiele nude. We see who laughed last.
In addition to the Leopold and the Modern, the MQ also boasts the new Kunsthalle Wien—a contemporary venue for photography, film, music and new media located near the old Imperial Riding Hall—and the so-called Halle E and G, for performing arts. The Vienna Architecture Museum is also part of the complex.
Sitting in his capacious office, MQ director Wolfgang Waldner says he is proud of the cultural fillip the MQ has given to Vienna. He estimates that 3.5 million people will visit the complex this year—not quite half paying customers and the rest those who come to attend free concerts or lectures or to eat in one of MQ’s nine restaurants or cafes. The average age of visitors is 30. “The main idea of Vienna in the United States is Mozart, the Boys’ Choir and Sisi,” says Waldner. “Now we have developed a more contemporary image.”
He calls the MQ, which is owned by both the federal government and the city of Vienna but managed like a private enterprise, an “oasis,” and adds, “You can almost breathe culture when you enter the courtyard.” It’s also a tangible example, he says, of what U.S. writer Ray Oldenberg has called a “third place.” A “first place” is where each of us lives; a second place is where we work; and a third place is where people go to meet and communicate. “The concept goes back in history,” says Waldner. “Think Irish pub, American mall, Viennese coffeehouse.”
Vienna’s architectural scene, both contemporary and historic, is alone worth a visit. The vernacular of the center city is late 19th-century “historicism”—neoclassical, neo-Greek and neo-Gothic. It has been described as mainstream architecture emanating from the chaos of the Napoleonic wars and reflecting an ethos of order and empire. The city’s iconic Ring Road—a bustling thoroughfare with cars, trams, bikes and buses that encircles the inner city—was built starting in 1857, after Emperor Franz Joseph (1830-1916) ordered the demolition of Vienna’s defensive walls. The city’s Post Office Building, built between 1904 and 1913, was a dramatic breakthrough in design. “For me it has always been the start of modern architecture, along with Wright,” says Dietmar Steiner, head of the Architecture Museum.
Hans Hollein’s glass Haas Haus, a commercial building, is a hallmark of Vienna’s emerging modernist look. It sits right across from St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the Gothic church with decorative roof tiles that is one of Vienna’s biggest attractions. Vienna also boasts a “reclining skyscraper” named T-Center St. Mark, built in the early part of this decade, along with Gasometer, a one-of-a-kind residential, commercial and shopping complex adapted out of four massive former gas storage tanks on the outskirts of the city. The city hired four different architects to convert each of the tanks into a contemporary living space. One of the architects, Frenchman Jean Nouvel, won the Pritzker Prize in 2008 for his cumulative body of work. Gasometer A is considered one of his most distinctive efforts.
At least three other recent structures in Vienna have helped their architects win Pritzkers—including a signal residential development in the suburbs, called Pilotengasse, which features more than 200 homes on stilts and painted in earth tones. Most of the new architecture is concentrated on the other side of the Danube, including the U.N.’s Vienna International Centre, a 20-minute train ride from center city.
For fun, visit the Hundertwasserhaus. Created by the quirky painter, sculptor and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, it is a unique apartment building made of concrete, glass, stone and wood, with undulating floors and trees growing inside and out. No two windows in the building, completed in 1985, are alike. Hundertwasser was as much philosopher as artist; he would give speeches in the nude and wrote manifestos against “rationalism” in design. He hated straight lines.
No first-time visitors would think of skirting the attractions of old Vienna. They are too splendid, too imposing, too numerous to miss. Indeed, my colleague and I saw a Verdi opera (oh, the treachery!) at the venerable State Opera House on our first night in the city. One could spend months visiting the dozens of excellent museums in the city. They include the world-class Fine Arts Museum, with its unmatched collection of paintings by Bruegel among hundreds of other masterworks, along with the Natural History Museum, the modernist Museum of Applied Arts (whose excellent new restaurant and bar, Österreicher Gasthaus, is a hot spot), and the stunning Belvedere in the heart of the city—not one baroque palace but two, connected by a historic garden. In the Upper Belvedere, you can view a large sampling of the Viennese Biedermeier period and the art Nouveau genius of Klimt. His masterpiece, The Kiss, is enclosed in its own large, climate-controlled glass display.
The Hofburg, the massive Hapsburg imperial palace, is the third most visited site in Vienna. It’s a complex that includes the National Library, the Treasury, the Lipizzaner Stallions and various exhibits and treasures associated with the Holy Roman Empire and the Hapsburg dynasty—jewels, period musical instruments and more. See the silver collection of Emperor Joseph and Empress Elizabeth in the Sisi Museum. The nearby Albertina Museum, with its new roof wing jutting past a heroic statue of Joseph on a horse, exemplifies the new cultural mix in Vienna. In a little plaza outside the Albertina, I saw a profoundly moving exhibit of sculptures by Alfred Hrdlicka, all symbolizing the terror of violence and dedicated to the victims of war and fascism.
The wars are over, but ironically Vienna is again the extended cultural hub that it was when Joseph ruled the region. Viennese designers, artists and artists are influencing newly liberated nations in eastern Europe, and eastern Europeans, in turn, are flocking to Vienna, filling a gap created by a falloff in tourism from the west. “We’ve had a huge increase in tourists from Ukraine, Russia and Romania who drive by car,” says Eva Draxler, media relations manager for the Viennese Department of Tourism. Czechs and Slovakians are coming in large numbers, too. “Some of these countries are members of the European Union now,” adds Draxler, “and their people have more money for travel. We have a lot of historic links to eastern Europe. Parts of Romania and Hungary were part of the Hapsburg empire.”
For all the changes, guide Beatrice Auymar was quick to remind us, Vienna is “an old-fashioned city.” Its people are mostly Catholic, somewhat conservative by nature, and yet also tolerant. During the January-February “carnival” season before Lent, the city’s ballrooms spring to elegant life as they have for centuries; there are hunters’ balls, artists’ balls and the famous Opera Ball. There are about two a night during the season, each with an orchestra. “Dancing is big with us,” says Auymar. “Knowing how to dance the waltz is a question of honor. And you must learn it properly.” For upper-income families, that means sending their children to the Elmayer dancing school—an institution in the city—at age 16 or 17.
The Kaffeehaus (coffee house) remains a vital part of the Viennese lifestyle. It is the place to relax, chat, read the paper and eat plum cake or some of the many tasty pastries available throughout the city. (“Austrians eat a lot of sweets—it’s something you have on the table,” says Auymar.) The coffee break is a civilized respite from the hurly-burly outside. The Austrians have a word for it: gemütlichkeit—relaxing, taking your time, having a good conversation.
Some of the coffee and pastry houses are elegant (Café Central: first opened in 1860, vaulted ceiling and marble columns; Leon Trotsky and Egon Friedell were regulars), others touristy (Demel, an elegant confectionary), and still others a little retro (Café Prüeckel, opened in 1903 and now with a 1950s motif). Try the renowned Sacher torte at the café inside the Hotel Sacher.
My favorite coffee house was Café Hawelka, in the center city—a dark, smoky redoubt for locals, mostly, replete with yellowed art posters. It was opened in 1939 by the family Hawelka and immediately found favor with the intelligentsia, who sometimes paid for their food and drink with pictures or poems. We got a Mélange and a Grosser Brauner—essentially espressos with hot water and milk, the former with foam and the latter with whipped cream. Back near the kitchen, I noticed customers shaking hands with, and saying “auf wiedersehen” to, a frail but well-dressed older man in gray slacks, sport coat and a red bow tie. He sat on a small bench. It was the owner, Leopold Hawelka, age 97.
Not into caffeine? Try Austrian wine at one of the many wine bars or more rustic wine taverns (Heuriger) in the city. Austrians themselves like Gruner Veltliner, an elegant white that they drink young. There are 1,729 acres of vineyards within the city limits, and about 200 Heuriger, which can serve only their own wine. “Going to the Heuriger is very popular here,” says Draxler. “They are rustic, with simple food and good wine.”
What to eat in Vienna? You can stroll through the Saturday Naschmarkt in the trendy 6th district, which is flush with restaurants, art galleries and shops selling art nouveau and art deco furniture. One night, we ate at one of the best spots in town, the original Plachutta, a cozy meat house that specializes in tafelspitz (boiled aitchbone—one of Vienna’s most famous dishes). Cooked in stock, it practically fell off the fork. A who’s who of American celebrities, their pictures tastefully relegated to a downstairs service area, has dined at the establishment.
When in Vienna, the well-heeled can usually be found at the five-star Grand Hotel, where we had the pleasure of spending three nights. It is perfectly located on the Ring Road, a block from both the State Opera House and Karntner Street. From it you can walk or take a stroll to most of the city’s best spots. The Grand was opened in 1870, and according Celine Brigg, a spokeswoman for JJW, the London-based company that owns it and the casual-chic Ring Hotel across the street, it immediately set new standards for luxury. It was one of the first hotels anywhere to have a steam-powered elevator and phones in every room. Johann Strauss celebrated his 50th Jubilee on stage at the Grand. “If you had money, it was the place to be,” says Brigg. Russian troops made the Grand their headquarters during World War II, and, later, so did the Atomic Energy Agency. All Nippon Airways, a Japanese airline, bought the place in 1989, turned it back into a hotel in 1994, then sold it to JJW in 2002.
Though lacking a spa, which is on the drawing board, the Grand is luxurious. It has a sushi restaurant and one of the best French restaurants in the city—Le Ciel. You can also buy a tin of Viennese guglhupf at the hotel, the special cake said to be Emperor Joseph’s favorite breakfast. It’s made with chocolate and nuts, with almonds on the outside—delicious.
Through it all, we were nagged by a question that was, admittedly, something less than existential: What about the Wiener schnitzel? If you visit Austria, don’t you have to see the Schiele and the Wiener schnitzel, even if the dish was invented, we learned, in Italy? The deskman at the Am Stephansplatz Hotel—a hip little guesthouse in Stephansplatz—had heard this question before. He pointed us to the Figlmüller restaurant, a short walk away. “The original place is so popular that they’ve opened a second location right around the corner from the first,” he said.
Minutes later, we were queued up in a narrow alley in front of the Figlmüller, in the heart of the shopping district. On a Sunday night, the eatery was packed with diners, so I scouted Figlmüller 2. It was larger, also crowded, but seemed to lack the 1950s-style Stygian charm (think heavy chairs and dark wood molding) of the original, which was started in 1905 and claims to be one of the last family-owned restaurants in the city.
And so we waited at Figl 1 and were soon seated in tight quarters in the back next to a large group of boisterous Germans and a trio of Frenchmen. Perhaps the Germans were happy because they were drinking sturm, the near-wine made from apples or grapes that’s popular in Austria and will give you a near-migraine if you drink too much of it. (So I heard.) Amid the bustle of the place, the smell of vegetable oil was palpable.
Indeed, fresh, deep-fried schnitzel, made with “high class bread crumbs,” is the specialty of the house—and the house does not stint on its serving size. Quite the opposite: Every German at the table next to us ordered the Figlmüller schnitzel, and there was a collective roar of amazement and laughter when the plates started arriving—each loaded down with a 250-gram slab of thin veal, accompanied by a side of salad with pumpkin-seed oil. (Austrians like pumpkin.)
The schnitzel was so enormous that its edges spilled over the sides of the plates. We, too, were agog when our one dish of schnitzel arrived, along with a dish of sautéed calf’s liver. I ate all of the liver. Tyler Darden, my colleague, didn’t fare as well with his über-schnitzel: He ate a third of it, gave me a third, and the rest went back to the kitchen. So ended our schnitzel search, and our too-brief trip to the old and new Vienna.
