Friday in the City

Our day centered around a trip to the Natural History Museum.  We all could have spent the whole day in the geology section, but forced ourselves to push through the rest of the first floor as well.
The first photo here is a Chinese creation.  Only the stems are not rocks.
The top quarter of the walls in each room have paintings and some have these odd statues that we didn't really have time to identify.  (second photo)  The kids were happy to find a little area dedicated to the New Zealand kiwi and moa birds.  (4th photo)
For lunch we went to a Brotchen shop where they only serve small open-face sandwiches with spreads and sometimes toppings like onions and sliced boiled egg.  They also claim to have invented the Pfiff, which literally means "whistle", and is a very small serving of beer.  We all liked it a lot.  I liked the crab spread, Maya liked the cream cheese and lachs, Jarrod liked the red pepper spread, and Gabe didn't have a favorite.  We stopped off at St. Peters on the way to the chocolate store and snapped a photo of the angel Gabriel.  Then.....St. Xocolat
Maya was in heaven and Gabe swears he was hoodwinked by the sales lady who gave a free piece when we walked in which, "Gave him a craving for everything in the store."
After we each picked out our chocolates we went to a cafe for hot drinks which fortified us for the walk to the stand where we got a bag of roasted potatoes, which fortified us until we got on the bus and popped a truffle into our mouths, which fortified us until we got home for a nice cup of tea.

More Medieval

 Most of these items were rescued from St. Stephans after a big fire and moved to the museum for safe keeping.
Dr. O used these statues to talk to us about the Gothic S Curve--the way that they are standing, a pose that no person would hold for long and giving them a fanciful appearance.

 

Frescos

 

 

 

The cutest gargoyle ever

 

 

Rudolf IV a.k.a.Rudolf the Founder (1339-1365)--did a ton for Vienna, established the university, faked his way into becoming an elector, faked St. Stephens into becoming a "cathedral"---why?  He married a stunning Bohemian princess (below) and spent his life keeping up with his father-in-law, the great Emperor Charles IV. He died at 27, bitten by a strange bug while off fighting a war. 

 

Rudolf's father (Mother above--got a major S-curve goin on, Parents one below, Father two below) was Albrecht the Lame.  :-(
He had R.A. and modern day scholars say that he suffered more from the cures than from the disease.  He even went blind from a "cure".  

 

 

A sinful, mortal human who likes art nouveau.

 Since 1632 almost all Hapsburg royalty, including 12 emperors and 18 empresses, have been entombed in the Kaisergruft (Imperial Crypt) which lies beneath a Capuchin Church and Monastery.  Some of their internal organs are in urns in other churches, mostly in the Augustina Church which is nearby.  Gabe and I went to the crypt with our history class, though we could also have filed the trip under 'art history' as the style-changes of the sarcophagi roll with the times.  The photo above is looking into the founder's vault with the two oldest sarcophagi (of Anna of Tyrol and Mattias).  Maria-Theresia had an entire wing built for her family and pushed the crypt into the space under the garden of the monastery so that her room is the only with natural light.  Notice the sharp contrast between she and her husband's (Emperor Franz I) double tomb built in the Baroque manner that her reign is known for and that of their son, Emperor Joseph II's (in the foreground below).  Also, at her insistence, the life-long Nanny of her 16 children is entombed in the family room- the only non-Hapsburg in the entire crypt. 

 

Maria-Theresia's domed ceiling.

Ceilings in the more recently built rooms. 

 

I am going to have to ask Dr.Czermak which crowns these are.  I think the left is Bohemia and the right is Croatia.  

There is a story about the crypt that seems very important the the Austrians.  There is a little ritual that happens when the Hapsburg's funeral procession reaches the door of the crypt.  The herald knocks on the door.  The monk asks, "Who requests entry?"  The herald names the deceased with all of their titles (Empress of, Archduchess of, Queen of....sometimes 70 plus titles).  The monk states, "We know her not."  Then the herald knocks again.  The monk asks, "Who requests entry?"  This time the herald states the name with an abbreviated version of the titles and, again the monk states, "We know her not." After the third knock, the monk asks "Who requests entry" and the herald replies "(name), a sinful, mortal human being."  This time the gates open and the Hapsburg is admitted.  

 

On the way from the crypt to the Wien Museum (for AAA class) we stopped to admire this subway pavilion.  Otto Wagner (the architect and urban planner of Vienna roughly ten years before and after the turn of the century) thought that the architecture of the Ringstrasse (more on that later), which was neo-everything, was a really bad move.  He (along with Klimt and the other "Secessionists") asserted that only the NEW! is beneficial for a city.  Thus, these art nouveau pavilions that I love!

I also just like this scene.  The bike, the glass elevator, the U-bahn sign, the shoveled bike path and separate side-walk, the Wien Museum in the background.  So Vienna-- whatever that means.  

For class we only had time to do a small portion of the museum.  We started with pre-Roman findings--carefully arranged bones buried with jewelry and pots with animal shapes (art!).  Around 5th century BCE, there is a string of hill-top settlements along the Danube, one of which is at Leopoldsberg (just one hill away from Kahlenberg--remember the Polish King saying mass before swooping down on the Ottomans?)   Then Roman times.  Vienna was a Roman settlement called Vindobona.  It was a militarty outpost, defending against those pesky Germanic tribes.  The museum had perfume bottles, hand lamps, and crockery, but the coolest thing to me was a model of the heated houses!  The Romans had raised floors and hollow walls so that houses could be heated by large external fires.  Sub-floor heating, yes!

The museum's collection jumps from Roman times to Medieval, but we will fill that it in further classes.
The Medieval stuff is so fun.  These decorated helmets and shields were used to advertise the families that came for the HRE Frederick III's funeral in 1493.  I wish I knew where the families were from and why the certain symbols....

 

 

 

 

We were not talking about this time-period at all, but I couldn't resist a quick snap shot of Maria-Theresia---my Austrian namesake, mother of Marie-Antoinette and 15 more children!  I keep saying that I have 17 here- but only one that may end up beheaded.  

Wiener Wochenende

Our first outing of the weekend was to the 21er Haus, a contemporary art museum (all photos on this left side, only the bad photo is mine-the rest off line).  The sculpture garden was closed for snow, and the main floor was closed in between exhibits, so we began in the exhibit about Fritz Wotruba- an Austrian sculptor.  He is most famous here for a church that he designed (5th picture down) that does not look anything like most Austrian churches so far.  I found out that it is here in Vienna, and am definitely going to check it out in person.  There was a quote of his in the exhibit that essentially asked: Why is it that urban architects/planners/engineers are designing in ways that mimic empire when we (Austria) are trying to build a democracy?  I just butchered the quote, but in its original form it captured a feeling-thought (I am totally loving the German compound nouns) I have been having here in Vienna.  Perhaps I will go back soon and take a pen and paper :-)  

The 21er as a space is entirely appealing.  Maya and I oooed and ahhhhed over the bathroom fixtures (Adrienne?).  You can see some of it below, great light, and great use of light.  Look at the back wall in the first photo.  The framing of the translucent windows protrudes about 6 inches and has cut out circles from top to bottom.  So, when walking down the hall of windows, there is a cool effect.  Man, I am really stumbling over explanation in this one.  Sorry guys, half of this blog is for my memory so, bear with it.

Further down in the photos is Gabe's favorite, the pink-domestic-Bodhisattva.  You can't quite see it but he is holding various kitchen utensils in his many hands.  

The cool thing about these was that they could not be seen 

well at all straight on, but in the mirrored-wall opposite they 

were pronounced.  

                                                                                      

Above, more Wotruba sculptures.                                 It was the coldest day so far and those extra                     few degrees really made a difference.  So, off to the cat cafe (Cafe Neko) for something much more gemütlich (love this, German for "cozy").  Everyone (okay, the kids and Jarrod) loved having some cats around to pet.  Even I love the idea- something about sleeping/lazy cats that sets the right mood for a coffee house.                                                                          Today (Sunday) was a bit of a flop.  I bought tickets to an opera "preview" at the Staatsoper that turned out to be a a panel discussion on the opera with the director, conductor, etc.  Our German just isn't good enough, so we left as soon as was remotely polite.  It was fun, however, just to sit in the opera and look around the building.  The first three photos on the right are at the opera.  We will go back for the real deal eventually.  Then, we went to cafe Mozart which is famous but so expensive and smacked of tourist rip-off.  We had coffee and cakes.  I will write another time about Viennese coffee.  (Spoil alert: not what it is cracked up to be).  

              Sure enough, the success of the day involved sausage.  We stopped at a Wurstel stand on the way to the tram and had three kinds of sausage with bread and mustards.  Cheap, hot, yummy.  Now, home to do our German homework!