We’d been to Vienna before so today we knew what to expect as we wandered the streets in search of the cities finest architecture. I’m not going to cover that again here because you can read details from our previous visit.
On thing that is worth exploring from the morning was our visit to the Austrian parliament building. Basically it was shut, shrouded in scaffolding and surrounded by a high fence. It seems that the Austrians have managed something that (to date) us Brits have not – to clear out of the existing parliament building to allow it to be renovated.
We have been talking about the need to renovate Westminster for years now but issues seem to be a reluctance to move the chamers elsewhere and the cost to do the work – neither seem to have ultimately stopped the Austrians. It was a shame not to be able to see the building but I look forward to seeing it in its restored glory at some point in the future.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser
In the afternoon we went away from the centre of the town to a couple of places dedicated to the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. We’d not heard of him before but looking online it seemed like our kind of thing.
First stop was the KunstHausWien housing a collection of his works in a former furniture factory that Hundertwasser had converted. His architectural style is very reminiscent of Gaudi. The paintings were almost all abstract with bright primary colours and use of gold and silver gilding. They were great and as we suspected just to our taste. Unfortunately we couldn’t afford and original and so came away with a few postcards of his works.
Just five minutes down the road was a rather more ambitious piece of his work – the Hundertwasserhaus. This was a series of adjacent appartment buildings that he added his flourishes to. I’m not sure that I would have wanted to have lived there with all the people standing staring up all the time but it was great to see.
