The Vienna Secession

Following their motto ‘To every Age its Art, to every Art its Freedom’, the Secessionists’ designs – from metro stations to office buildings, and from elaborately decorated apartment buildings and luxurious villas to churches – shaped the Viennese cityscape in the early years of the 20th century. The revolutionary art of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele and the extraordinarily modern-looking furniture and interiors designed by Josef Hoffmann and Kolomon Moser were a radical break from the conservatism of the 19th century Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Our tour will include a visit to the movement’s elegant gallery, designed by Joseph Olbrich to house the first exhibitions of contemporary art in the city, now home to Klimt’s 34-metre long Beethoven Frieze. We will also pay visits to the Belvedere Museum, to see its large collection of other paintings by Klimt and Schiele, and to Klimt’s last studio in the suburb of Hietzing.

Other highlights will include a visit to Otto Wagner’s landmark Postal Savings Bank, views of his metro stations at Karlsplatz and Schönbrunn as well as his Majolika Haus apartment building, and a private tour of his masterpiece, the Church of St Leopold in the grounds of Steinhof Psychiatric Hospital.

The Secessionists’ use of the latest building technology and decorative techniques appealed to the period’s new industrial and commercial middle classes, and their designs and interiors remain popular today. We will see well-preserved examples of cafés, bars and shops, as well as furniture and homewares designed by the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) set up by Moser and Hoffmann in 1903, influenced by William Morris’s craft workshops in Great Britain.

We will stay throughout at the Hotel Mailberger Hof, an elegant family-run hotel situated in the historical First District. 

This tour will be led by Christopher Bourne, BA, who read History and French at the University of Manchester and lived and worked in Brussels for 15 years, where he was an architectural tour guide and a freelance translator and editor. His interest and enthusiasm for the art and architecture of the Vienna Secession and the Jugendstil is a natural progression from his knowledge of Art Nouveau. He is now based in London, where he is a member of the Victorian Society and the Twentieth Century Society.