What Wonders are in Vienna?
The 53rd Passport Stamp
It is the curse of my life that I can move faster than the seasons, hop between continents overnight and change countries like fashion but I can never escape seasonal allergies. I thought coming to Vienna from Croatia would be a good change of climate and that change of seasons would get rid of my allergies. Alas, the springtime pains continue.
I spent two nights in Vienna with enough time on the first day to walk around the city and take pictures of all the baroque and neoclassical architecture. I started off at the Wein Rathaus (city hall) and then wandered through a rose garden to the Ephesos Museum and later arrived at St. Stephen’s Cathedral. What I noticed the most along the streets were the decorations at the top and corners of the buildings.
Many of the older buildings have statues sculpted and moulded to tell a story that I do not know. I wondered if these semiotics remained relevant today and if knowing them would make the buildings any more significant or if they’re just meaningless decoration. Somehow I doubt it.
In Invisible Cities by Itali Calvino Marco Polo says, “You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.” To which Khan replies, “or the questions it asks you, forcing you to answer, like Thebes through the mouth of the Sphinx.”
Stephen’s Cathedral is the jewel of the city and it was kinda cool but also less impressive than I expected. Mass was in session so I couldn’t walk the nave but it wasn’t as tall nor as ground as other cathedrals I’ve visited.
On the south side is a tower 343 steps up to the bell tower. The entrance is sort of hidden in the corner. I thought there’d be more to it but it was literally a single spiral staircase going up and up and up. The only break was for the bell room, sans bell, and at the top it was a chamber to buy souvenirs with small windows on the four sides. I thought the cityscape would be more interesting but there wasn’t much to see. The roof had an interesting tiled pattern on it but even that was difficult to see from this vantage.
Since it was going to rain the next day I decided to check out some nearby parks to see if they were interesting. I walked along the canals and came to Augarten park which had a distinctly familiar tower. It was only after reading the plaque that I remembered seeing it in a YouTube video. These are two of six World War 2 anti-aircraft towers built to protect the city. One is a command/communication tower and the other is for the guns.
After my thesis I’ve taken an interest in the architecture of memorials and dilapidated structures. The architecture of this war has been preserved as a reminder to the horrors of forced labour under the social nationalist regime — but it got me thinking about how we preserve old and culturally important of structures. The towers are clearly decaying and concrete is spalling off. Around the base is a fence. They no longer guard the city but being surrounded by parkland are evident along the city skyline.
At first I wondered why the structure isn’t open to the public to climb and explore. Since it’s from a recent war and not a long ago castle or fortress this probably isn’t appropriate. It’s also apparently dangerous according to the youtube video because of a failed attempt to destroy it.
But to leave it to decay seems like a lost opportunity. Why isn’t there art? Murals or ribbons or lights that in the immediate term express peace juxtaposed to war. I’d first seen the towers from the top of St. Stephen’s cathedral. I’d thought them a fortress worth checking out. I suppose I was partly correct, but if they had been colourful and less stoic, maybe there would be a better relationship to the city. In the long term, seeing vegetation slowly consume the structure might be a suitable future. This would be better then the current state of decay as pigeon on roosts but I suspect realistically they will fall into disrepair to a state where the government has to demolish them.
I found this online, https://www.worldbook.com/behind-the-headlines/Mythic-Monday-The-Riddle-of-the-Sphinx:
The Sphinx is found in both ancient Egyptian and Greek mythology. In the story of Oedipus, the goddess Hera sent the Sphinx to plague the people of the ancient city of Thebes. This was punishment for an ancient crime, possibly the failure to atone for the crimes of a former king of Thebes. The Sphinx sat perched on a mountain cliff nearby the ancient city. The creature guarded Thebes with a riddle that she had learned from the Muses. Each time a traveler failed to solve her riddle, she devoured them, effectively preventing anyone from leaving or entering the city.
The riddle? “What being has four legs, then two, and then three?” Some accounts write it, “What has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?”
After many people guessed incorrectly and were killed, the king of Thebes announced that he would give the kingdom to anyone who could solve the riddle. The road past Mount Phicion, where the Sphinx awaited her victims, was strewn with the bones of people who had failed to find the right answer. Eventually, Oedipus, fleeing Corinth, solved the riddle. He answered, “Man, who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two legs, and finally needs a cane in old age.” Upon hearing the correct answer, the Sphinx jumped from the cliff to her death. The plague of Thebes was lifted.
It would seem that Vienna is asking me what wonders I like while simultaneously holding me captive. But where the riddle has a simple answer, the question might be rhetoric. I’m not convinced that the answer is a wonder at all…
The wonders of Vienna seem to palaces and the most prominent is the Schönbrunn Palace. It was an 18th century summer home for the emperor and there are two tours of the inside. These tours have been scripted to move the highest volume of tourists through in the least time. Measured by the number of rooms (22 or 40) the latter takes just 50 minutes. Both are accompanied by audio guides to shuffle along the cattle and since photography isn’t allowed, there’s little reason to linger.
I was once again sniffled by being too old to get the student discount and ended up paying more because I visited the Sisi museum but didn’t get a combined ticket (the student rates would have been cheaper). The Sisi museum was more interesting because the second half was a story about the empress and had a narrative to follow. In both places I was surprised by the lack of luxury on the interior since there are so many other decorated buildings with statues and faces on the facades in the city. This might be because the emperor Franz Joseph was known for leading a simple life devoted to running the country. Another strange aspect of the two residence I saw, at the summer palace and in the city, were that the main rooms didn’t seem to be located central to the buildings. It was as if the emperor and empress lived to the side. There was a model of the palace and where the royal residence were was far removed from the centre.
While the buildings were somewhat of a disappointment, the Schonburnn gardens behind the summer palace was nice and free. I particularly enjoyed the Roman Ruins which were an artificial construct fashionable during the 18th century with the rise of Romanticism that symbolizes the decline of revered civilizations and the desire to preserve relics. Interestingly, romanticism intentionally creates ruins from scratch as a point of interest in the garden but does not actually preserve anything.
At the top of the hill the Gloriette Schloss Schönbrunn is an observation pavilion that looked cool but I didn’t purchase a ticket to go to the rooftop. Instead I walked around the base and then made my way back down the hill. Though it is a symmetrical garden, I was kind of surprised that the most colour was on the wings in the rose gardens. Between the palace and the hilltop was a fountain and just grass fields.
The architecture in Vienna was interesting but I found myself more interested in the typical 5 storey housing typology than the palaces or monuments. Many of these housing buildings were distinctly recognizable as Germanic and I would have liked to study the buildings and statues decorating the top more closely. Unfortunately the Airbnb I stayed was the ground floor of a grimy building of little historical significance. Other than a water fountain in the hallway, now brackish, there was little evidence of how people might have lived before a mid-century renovation. I made a poor selection in this AirBnB to save a few bucks. Neither did it help the war on allergies that the place had grimy floors or that the room smelled musty. After two nights I was very happy to leave.
I realized in my next destination that what draws me the most isn’t the seven or seventy wonders of the city but what might have been there before.
