Joseph Maria Olbrich, Vienna Secession Building, 1897 - 1898
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IMAGE LIST | ACTIVITIES
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In 1897 a group of mostly young artists in Vienna split from the dominant artists' organization, which controlled the city's only public exhibition space. Led by painter Gustav Klimt, the breakaway artists wanted to see not only more of their own work shown but also that of the avant-garde from elsewhere in Europe. This is the building erected to house their exhibitions. It opened in 1898. Emblazoned on the building is their motto: "Der Zeit ihre Kunst. Der Kunst ihre Freiheit" (To the age its art. To the art its freedom).
The group called itself the Vienna Secession, a name that echoed the secessio plebis, when the plebs of ancient Rome literally "withdrew" to the Aventine hill outside the authority of ruling patricians. It signaled a desire to break with the fathers, to leave behind traditional conventions and make an art appropriate for the modern world. In the anxious climate of impending chaos that marked the fin de siècle, "appropriate" art was one that could both express the psyche and salve it.
Olbrich, architect of the Secession Building, said he wanted "to erect a temple of art, which would offer the art lover a quiet, elegant place of refuge." He saw that "there would have to be walls white and gleaming, holy and chaste… [expressing] pure dignity." The building's spare design shares the geometrical proportion and axial focus of ancient temples. This parallel was unusual in a day when museums and exhibition spaces were more often conceived as great palaces of art. Here the references are not baroque but classical -- seen in the clarity of the façade's organization, the decoration of laurel, the furies who guard the doorway, and the dome.
The building's forms are simple and confident, yet they were perceived by contemporaries as exotic. During construction the building became the object of intense scrutiny: "If these days you pass by the River Wien in the early morning…you can see behind the Academy a crowd of people standing around a new building. They are office people…who should be on their way to work, but instead stop in amazement unable to tear themselves away. They stare, they interrogate each other, they discuss this 'thing.' They think it strange, they have never seen anything of the kind. They don't like it." Several disparaging nicknames were coined, and the cupola was punningly called the "gilded cabbage." Secession style art, however, gained an appreciative audience among wealthier Viennese and even won official support. Austrian currency and stamps were redesigned in the art nouveau style.
The interior space of the Secession Building was entirely open; it pioneered the use of moveable partitions. Space was mutable and momentary just like modern life. The decoration inside was understated and geometric, and the widely spaced hanging of paintings on a single level was innovative at a time when Salon hangings stacked works to the ceiling.
Learning Activities
Art
• Compare the Secession Building with the Pantheon and with an art museum in your town.
• Discuss the way art is displayed in a museum in your town. Or compare two installations, if possible. What effect do things like the wall color, lighting, and spacing have on the art displayed?
Humanities
• Learn what the Latin slogan Ver Sacrum on this building means. Discuss why it might appear there.
• Devise a motto for the art of today.
• Collect examples of mottoes on buildings in your town. How were they chosen? How do they relate to the functions of the buildings on which they appear?