Design week in Vienna: what not to miss in the city
Imperial palaces, romantic parks, Guinness museums, the evocative architecture of the Viennese Secession. But also design festivals, walks through the vineyards, freshly opened hotels and restaurants that mix retro charm and captivating interiors. The Austrian capital is a classic destination to visit at any time of the year, thanks to a carousel of iconic monuments and testimonies of its Habsburg past, fromHofburgimperial residence and home of Princess Sissi, at the castles of Schönbrunn And Belvedereamong the most elegant princely architecture in Europe.
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However, it is only now, in autumn, that one can witness the grape harvest in the vineyards declared intangible heritage of Unesco, be the first to enter the newly opened rooms of the new exhibition spaces, participate in the approximately 200 events of the Viennese Design Week: the event that from 16 to 25 September transforms the city – and especially the district of Mariahilf – in a hub of innovative creativity, rigorously made in Austria.
Vienna Design Week, what to see
They call it Design Week, but in reality they are ten days (from 16 to 25 September) in the name of total creativity, from design to open-air installations, from furniture to graphics. The main Austrian design festival offers visits to ateliers and tours of production sites, exhibitions, gastronomic programs under the banner of “Urban Food & Design”, open-air parties and meetings on topical issues such as sustainability and digitization.
Every year it takes place in a different one, now it is the turn of the VI district, that of Mariahilfwith the highest concentration of Jugendstil architecture – signed Joseph Maria Olbrich, Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann – a step away from the Naschmarkt and the Mariahilfer Straße: the famous shopping artery, designer and non-designer.
The novelties of the museums in Vienna
Among the main cultural centers of Europe, Vienna has an extraordinary museum offer. Its 100 “historical” museums are flanked by important innovations, starting with Heidi Horten collection by patron Heidi Goëss-Horten, one of the few female founders of museums in the world: in thirty years she has collected works from classical modernism to contemporary, passing from Gustav Klimt to Egon Schiele, from Pablo Picasso to Marc Chagall and Gerhard Richter.
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Other new entries are the virtual and interactive world of Myth Mozartmultimedia experience of about an hour in the place where the famous composer composes The magic Flute and the Requiemand where he died in 1791. Or the last home of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzkymaster of European architecture, the first Austrian woman to boast the title of “architect”: her apartment in Franzensgassewhere it was spent twelve years ago, it will be open to visitors starting from October, twice a week (on Tuesdays and Fridays).
Vienna: new hotels and restaurants
On cobenzltraditional excursion destination in the Viennese hills, the Weitsicht Cobenzl it was among the most anticipated novelties. Finally open, the complex of four buildings that mix history and high-tech houses rooms for events and the very elegant Viennese café-restaurant in the spaces of what was originally the Meierei dairy.
The hotel offer is also rich and varied. To the numerous boutique hotels that allow the panorama of city hospitality, there is now added a level address such as the Rosewood Vienna, in an elegant historic building of the nineteenth century. The The Great Lion brings its Baroque style to the list of the most charming hotels in the city, one step away from the St. Stephen’s Cathedral. The spaces of theGilbert Hotela family-run four-star hotel that embraces the philosophy of sustainability.
In the footsteps of Sissi
She is the most famous empress in history, celebrated by chronicles, cinema, literature. From the first film in 1955 starring a very young Romy Schneider, Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie von Wittelsbachalias Sissi, continues to seduce the collective imagination. A freshly printed book has arrived to celebrate it, Sissi. The true story (by Martina Winkelhofer, Giunti Editore) and the new Netflix series The Empresson screens from 29 September.
To retrace his traces, you can visit the cult places of his life, from the rooms of the Wagenburgwith the wedding and coronation carriages, to the museum dedicated to her in the imperial palace ofHofburg.
Walks in the urban vineyards
The Austrian capital in autumn is a poem of trees and leaves that turn from green to red, ocher and orange. But this is also the season of the grape harvest, grown in the urban vineyards a few kilometers from the center, on the hills of Kahlenberg, Nussberg, Bisamberg (and in the suburb of Mauer) which slope gently towards the Danube.
Vienna is the only city in the world to boast a real wine production, with 140 producers on an area of 700 hectares which has been declared an intangible heritage of humanity by Unesco. If you are there at the end of September, do not miss the Viennese days of wine walks scheduled for the weekend of 24 and 25 September.
FIND OUT IN THE GALLERY what to do in Vienna during the Design Week
In the photo, the Austria Center Vienna cultural center
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