Weekend in Vienna: art, design, modern antiques
Austere and creative. Severe, in its rigorous Habsburg architecture, and joyfully nonconformist. Traditionalist, but open to change. In Vienna, appearances can be deceiving and one must be ready to let oneself be blown away by what the urban unconscious reveals, and reveals (the spirit of Freud still hovers in the city, well beyond the Berggasse house-museum 19, where the father of psychoanalysis lived for over thirty years, freud-museum.at).
To catch the signs of the new that is advancing, you can start with a walk in Naschmarkt, the famous food market, in the sixth district: an icon of Vienna, is a symphony of sounds, colors, flavors and aromas from all over the world, where you can enjoy a Milanese cutlet, the classic breaded and fried veal cutlet, as much as one tabbouleh (salad) Middle Eastern.
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Contamination and transformation: less than five minutes’ walk, in Papagenogasse, a former pleasure house has become a design hotel, theHotel Beethoven Vienna. Each of the six floors recalls the themes of the Viennese tradition: literary cafes and the Secession, the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and the theater, celebrities and great women who lived in the city. The breakfast (delicacies of small Austrian producers) is served in the mezzanine, once a showcase for women who offered themselves, which overlooks the Papageno gate of the Theater and der Wien, where Beethoven performed. There is also a piano, the passion of the owner, Barbara Ludwig, a cultured and cordial lady, in love with Italy.
The Christmas atmosphere in Vienna
The party atmosphere is everywhere, even if this year the pandemic has closed (with some subsequent reopening) about twenty Weihnachtsmärkte, the Christmas markets, which traditionally light up various squares and areas of the city during the Christmas period, such as Rathausplatz, the town hall square, Maria-Theresien-Platz, fragile Kunsthistorisches Museum (which until January 16 hosts an exhibition on Titian, khm.at) and the Naturhistorisches Museum, there Freyung square; in front of the palace of Schönbrunn (pictured), summer residence of the Habsburgs.
Spittelberg, the museum district
Characteristic also the Weihnachtsmarkt am Spittelberg (8th district), Christmas stalls in the former seedy quarter, today one of the most pleasant areas of the city, with cobbled streets and Biedermeier-style houses. This is the area of the MuseumsQuartier Wien (mqw.at), the citadel of contemporary culture born twenty years ago.
The new has appropriated the old: the former imperial stables welcome, among the many institutions, the Leopold Museum (Schiele, Klimt, Kokoshka), the Mumok (Warhol, Picasso, Oldenburg, Richter), la Kunsthalle (modern and contemporary international art). Speaking of contemporary, it deserves, in Karlsplatz, L’Modern Albertina, opened, quietly, in 2020 as an extension of the historic Albertina museum. Here the immense patrimony of the private collection Essl (five thousand works from 1945 to today) and two exhibitions can be visited: Schiele and his legacy (until 23/1) e The art of the Eighties, which affirms the concept of artist as a brand and of creativity as an asset to promote marketing (up to 13/2, albertina.at/albertina-modern).
In Vienna, between design, modern antiques and social projects
It would seem a well-studied promotional operation also that of Vollpension, in the fourth district. Exposed brick walls, velvet sofas, modern antiques lamps and chairs, trinkets and photos everywhere: it feels like entering the living room of some Viennese house from the last century. Instead, it is the setting for an interesting social project: a cafeteria, very popular with young people and families with children, where one is served by pensioners, who manage the place in rotation, cook cakes, strudel and toast and gladly exchange a few words with customers. The elderly supplement their meager pensions, fight loneliness, find new social and cultural stimuli.
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That there is always an opportunity to make a change in existence is also the lesson of gabarage, 130 meters and a two minute walk from Vollpension. Clothes, accessories, bags, lamps, jewelry made from the reuse and transformation of waste objects are on sale. The project involves former alcoholics and former drug addicts, people with mental frailties, immigrants and aims at their social and work reintegration. There is a heart beating under the severe shell of Habsburg Vienna.
DISCOVER IN THE GALLERY what to do and see in Vienna
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