Die Oper!

Dear People,

Just so you don't get the wrong idea, I promise I do not spend all of my free time in front of a computer. It's just that I figure when I get back to the States, I want to print all of this out and make it into a little book about my trip to Vienna, and thus I feel like I have to put in all the gory details of my life here. Also, if you want a postcard or something, send me your address, or put it in the comments section. Just keep in mind that it costs 1,25 Euro for each postcard, so don't make me go broke!

But onto my Wednesday adventures...

Tuesday night the flatties decided that it would be a good idea to go to the Opera the next evening, so we all set out our clothes for the next day ahead of time. Since we were going for standing room tickets, we had to be there about two hours before the performance started. This meant that I had about an hour and a half to kill in between class and standing in line. Which is why you all got a blog post yesterday. On a side note, German keyboards are really screwy. The y and the z keys are switched, and the umlauts are actual keys on the right hand side. That's why it took so long to write yesterday's post...that and I had to actually think about what my fingers were doing when I had to use shifts and apostrophes and y's. But anyway, we got all gussied up yesterday morning so we wouldn't have to go home.

The people in the morning class had to be at IES for 9:00, but Matt and I were going on the Art History Museum (Kunsthistorisches Museum) tour at 10:30. We were a few minutes early when we got there, so we took pictures of the Maria Theresa statue in the middle of the courtyard thing. It's kind of like a mall between the Art History Museum and the Museum of Natural History. She is shown sitting with all of her generals and advisors around her. Because I'm such a dork, I thought this was really cool...I also wrote a paper on her last semester for one of my German classes, so I recognized some of the names listed by the generals. Some of the following information is borrowed from other sites because they are clearer than I would be in describing the Museum.

The building of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna is one of the most important 19th-century museum buildings in Europe. It was commissioned by the Emperor Francis Joseph I in 1858 as part of his project for enlarging the capital. The monumental building was designed not only to house the magnificent art treasures assembled by the Habsburgs over the centuries but also as a suitably impressive setting for them. The construction work took twenty years from the digging of the first turf in 1871 until the formal opening ceremony in 1891.

Over the centuries, the imperial art collections had been housed in different buildings, frequently under somewhat cramped conditions. In order to rectify this cultural embarrassment ­ other cities such as Berlin, Madrid, or London had long been embellished with spacious and important museums ­ a new, centrally located museum building was planned in Vienna. As early as 1858, the erection of new museums and galleries had been included in the plans for the enlargement of the capital. But it was only in 1864 that the decision to build two identical buildings opposite the Vienna Hofburg Palace was taken: the Imperial Art History Museum and the Imperial Natural History Museum ­ the Kunsthistorisches and the Naturhistorisches Museum respectively.

Apparently, there were four architechs who submitted designs for the area.

Ferstel designed the museum square as a secluded, quiet area. The museum was to form a world unto itself. He envisaged the large inner courtyard of the four-winged building as a place where museum visitors could refresh and prepare themselves. Even enlarging the collections would have been possible, and a Hall of Austrian History was planned in the arcades.

Competition project, bird´s-eye view, 1867

Critics objected to the high building costs of the four domes, the fact that they would cast shadows over the wings housing the collections, and the limited space in the narrow museum buildings. They also criticised the lack of reference to the Imperial Palace, though it would be possible to drive from the Palace to the Imperial Stables, as required by the rules of the competition.

From an art-historical point of view Hansen´s design is the most important. The great Classicist envisaged two museums flanking a central square, a centre of urban life - an agora. It would have become one of the most important 19th-century town squares. The connecting corridors were designed to house shops and offer protection to promenaders in bad weather.

Total view of competition project, 1867

Hansen chose the "Greek-Renaissance style" as an expression of this democratic principle and the concept of the agora. In contravention of the competition rules, Hansen designed a columned hall to connect the two museums and embellish their façades; the main emphasis was placed on a central Glyptothek, a sculpture collection.

Competition project, detail, 1867

Note how Hansen planned to erect the buildings on raised ground. Thus Hansen´s large building would have completely dominated the Imperial Hofburg Palace.

Löhr´s design of two buildings facing one another fulfilled most closely the rules of the competition, the collections´ need for space and the wishes of the curators. However, the curators were unhappy with his lighting design. This question was of particular importance because there was, as yet, no electrification. On the whole, Löhr designed modest or even plain museum buildings, economical rather than lavish. However, those times were past and opulence was in vogue.

Overall view of the second, improved project, 1868, which includes a free-standing Hall of Fame between the museums.

Drawing showing the façade´s central bay and a side bay of one of the two museum buildings, 1866-67

Like Löhr, Hasenauer envisaged two museum buildings facing each other. However, his designs for the façades are much more elaborate and ornate. He believed that a museum´s façade should reflect the wealth of treasures housed inside. The outstanding quality of Hasenauer´s first design was also appreciated by Semper, who later put him in charge of the opulent interior decoration.

Overall view of the competition project for the Imperial Museums, 1867

First competition project for the Imperial Museums, façade, 1866

The jury, however, came to the conclusion that none of the four submitted designs was suitable. Thus they invited the famous architect and art theoretician, Gottfried von Semper, to Vienna to evaluate the designs. However, Semper not only criticised the designs but also the competition¹s frame of reference, and called for an overall concept. The emperor then commissioned him to design the two museum buildings and to choose an assistant familiar with local conditions. Semper chose Hasenauer. The Imperial Forum Semper´s design focused on an Imperial Forum in which the two museum buildings would play a prominent role but still be part of an overall plan.

On July 30, 1870, the Emperor approved Semper´s plans for the Imperial Forum. The imperial building permit was issued the following year, and the digging of the first turf took place in the autumn of 1871.

The Sculptural Programme
All four of the museum´s façades are decorated with numerous sculptures. They depict allegories and personifications as well as historical personages and artists. Gottfried Semper devised the iconological programme. For Semper the decorations of the façade illustrate the conditions governing a work of art: material aspects dominate the ground floor, artistic ones the main floor, and both are surmounted on the attic floor and along the balustrade by the individual as the crowning glory, the statues depicting famous artists.
The whole programme is devised in chronological order. The façade on » Babenberger Street is dedicated to classical antiquity, that facing the Museumsquartier to the Middle Ages, that facing » Maria Theresa Square to the Renaissance, and finally, that facing the » Burgring to art of the modern era.

Central Bay - Babenberger Street Greek and Roman Art

The art and civilisation of classical antiquity mark the beginning of the iconographic-iconological decorational cycle. The seated figures between the columns represent » Art Industry and » Architecture. - a laterally reversed continuation of the programme of the central bay facing Maria Theresa Square. The statues on the upper floor represent the social and political influences of classical antiquity, of Ancient Greece: » Pericles and » Peisistratos.

One of the main principles governing the design of the building is the conscious return to the universal Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) of the Renaissance. For the 19th century, however, the term "Renaissance" was less restricted than it is today: it also included earlier and later styles and attitudes. For Gottfried Semper, the architect of the museum buildings and the devisor of the iconographic-iconological programme of the façades, the first collections of art were "started by the great Renaissance architects". Thus the sculptural programme of the main façade is dedicated to the Renaissance.

The sculptural programme along this façade forms both the end and the beginning of the iconological-iconographic universe of art. The periods of art end with contemporary art, i.e. the art of the late 19th century - with the museum building on the Ringstrasse itself bearing witness to the huge and successful urban redevelopment that marked Vienna´s birth as a modern metropolis on a par with other world cities.

Note in the » spandrels the personifications of cities housing world-famous art collections then open to the public: Paris, London, Madrid, Milan, now Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Brussels, The Hague, St. Petersburg, and Copenhagen.

We had a lecture on the facade facing Maria Theresa Square. In the pictures I have up online, you can see what I'm talking about. Because the whole complex was built during the rule of Franz Josef, everything practically screams imperial. All of the lights in the Square have crowns on them. This detail was added later because they obviously didn't have electicity in the late 1800's, but was done to keep the continuity. Since you were meant to come into the Museum slowly, many details are on the facade that kind of tell you what to expect. On the upper level, you see the initials E and FJ separated by some leaves. These stand for Elisabeth and Franz Josef, the rulers of the time, just in case you forgot who had built the museum. Then below them, on the next level, are pictures of people painting and sculpting, so that you knew what to expect once you got inside. On each side of the door, there were two carvings. The left is Faust and Helene. Faust is a very famous German play, and Dr. Faustus, the main character, was searching for knowledge throughout this work. In this instance, that is what he represents -- the quest for knowledge. Helene, in ancient mythology, was the most beautiful woman in the world, and so represents beauty here. By marrying the two in one carving, the designer was telling visitors to the Museum that they were to search for knowledge through beauty. On the right side of the doors, there is a carving of Eros and Psyche. This is a marriage of emotion and spirit. The story of Eros and Psyche is also ancient mythology, and since I don't feel like typing it out here, if you don't know it, then you can google it really easily.

There are three great halls inside the Museum.

The central bay dominates the building´s centre and houses the State Rooms. Here are located the magnificent rooms that mark the beginning, middle and end of the museum: the » Entrance Hall, das große » Main Staircase and the central » Cupola Hall on the first floor.

The Entrance Hall
Entering by the museum´s main entrance on Maria Theresa Square, the visitor first encounters the classically cool, white, grey and black elegance of the Entrance Hall. The two smaller stairs on the left and on the right lead up to the ground floor exhibition halls. From the Entrance Hall, the magnificent » Prunktreppe (Main Staircase), leads up past the statue of "Theseus Slaying the Centaur" to the first floor. View from the Entrance Hall up into the Cupola Hall

Again, because you were supposed to be taking your time entering and visiting the Museum, you were supposed to be naturally drawn to the center of the room, from which you can go in the four compass directions. In front of you lays the Great Staircase, and to the left and right are wings to the rest of the Museum. On the right is the art from south of the Alps and on the left, from the North. I think its incredible the amount of thought that went into the construction of the Museum.

The Main Staircase is richly embellished with paintings. It is dominated by a large-scale » ceiling painting depicting "The Apotheosis of the Renaissance" by Mihály von Munkácsy. Each of the four walls is decorated with three painted » lunettes; all the paintings in this cycle of 12 are by Hans Makart. Note below the lunettes the » paintings in the spandrels and between the black-and-white columns. They are the work of the painters Gustav Klimt, Ernst Klimt and Franz von Matsch.

As you go up the Great Staircase, your eyes are drawn up to the painting on the ceiling. It is meant to make you feel like you are actually in the painting and that the stairs go all the way up to heavens. The painting depicts the great artists whose work is found in the Museum and Apollo presiding over his court in Olympus. You also see Fame, one of the gods from ancient mythology, holding the Palm of Fame and bestowing it on the artists below her.

The Staircase leads up to the magnificent and sumptuously decorated Cupola Hall linked by an opening in the floor to the Entrance Hall below. It is flanked by the Picture Gallery and overlooked by the balconies of the second floor. The colour scheme of the Cupola Hall´s interior decoration was carefully planned and creates a restrained contrast to the profusion of colours that marks the Main Staircase: the star-shaped designs of the geometric decorations of the black-and-white >> marble floor repeat the designs of the segments and ribs of the dome.

		The eight segments of the dome unite to form a magnificent panorama of Habsburg patronage. Here the importance of the imperial family as collectors and owners of these magnificent collections is clearly spelled out for the visitor. From the Emperor Maximilian I to the Emperor Francis Joseph I, all important Habsburg rulers and patrons are assembled and depicted together with their achievements in >> reliefs and >> portrait medallions. The reliefs, the winged figures of children bearing coats of arms and monograms of members of the imperial family and the caryatids next to the windows are by the Viennese sculptor» Rudolf Weyr. The portrait medallions are by » Johannes Benk.

We walked through the Museum with our guide from IES. She teaches the Current Exhibitions course here. I was really more interested by the architecture of the building than by the actual art it houses, so I'm skipping over that. If I get back there in the next couple of weeks, I'll take some pictures and probably have more to write about.

Once the tour was over, we had to hussle over to IES for German class. We did more of the same, grammar and some culture. This is when it hit me that not breaking in my heeled shoes before I left wasn't my brightest idea.

After class, I sat down and did some blogging before it was time to find dinner. Matt and I met up with the girls from the flat and walked over to one of the Wurst and Pizza stands that crowd the streets. On the way there, we heard a police car, and it was actually coming down the walking area! The entire center city is cobbled and it's pretty much a walking-only area. I kind of laugh whenever I hear a police or ambulance siren because it reminds me of "Lola Rennt." Natalia almost got run over by it, but they stopped just before that happened.

We bought Käsekrainer (a wurst with meat and cheese inside served with or without a bun) and pizza for dinner, and then walked over to the Opera to wait in line. Of course, I managed to get ketchup and mustard on my clothes and had to walk around kind of dirty the rest of the night. But dinner was REALLY good. Now, since I'm running out of battery and I want to do something on the Opera like I did with the KHM above, I'm going to stop here and do another post when I get home.