Schönbrunn: Hofpavillon

+++ This Munzee is a white sticker without a green edge. +++ Otto Wagner Hofpavillon Hietzing is temporarily closed due to renovation works. The Munzee is outside the pavilion. +++ Otto Wagner created this "Pavilion of the Imperial and Royal Highest Court" expressly for the emperor and his court. The highlight is the domed room - the waiting room of the emperor - furnished in mahogany with gold fittings and decorations, embroidered silk wallpaper, a knotted carpet and a view of Vienna by Carl Moll. Josef Maria Olbrich, too, was involved in the design and execution of the pavilion. The interior of the Court Pavilion is one of the very few surviving interior designs by Otto Wagner, and is a jewel of the art produced around 1900. +++ Wagner finished this structure 1899, one year later than the Hietzing railway station. The Hofpavillon bridges the Obere Wientallinie ("Upper Vienna River Valley Line"), now the U4 underground route to Hütteldorf. The Kaiserpavillon was meant as the Kaiser’s (emperor’s) private access to the railway from the royal summer residence at Schloss Schönbrunn. Although Franz Josef I is documented as using it himself only twice - on 16 June 1899 and 12 April 1902 - when he opened two new segments of the railway system, the pavilion was, nonetheless, used by official visitors who visited the court at Schönbrunn, and who were quartered there. These facts run contrary to a current myth that the station was an extravagance because the Kaiser himself had used it only twice for official occasions. Josef Maria Olbrich, whom Wagner made chief draftsman (Chefzeichner) of the rail projects, had, as drawings show, a substantial hand in planning this pavilion. Olbrich, the architect of the Secession building, had apparently a great deal to do with the design and the floral ornamentation. It is at once a reference to the dominating Baroque of Vienna’s imperial buildings, at the same time adding some modern touches as well. Although drawings for the project do differ, nevertheless, regardless of whoever might have done designs for the building in Wagner’s atelier, the final word would still have been Otto Wagner’s. The reference to this Frühstückspavillon on the grounds of Schloss Schönbrunn across the road is no accident. Once again, Wagner has worked with respect to, and out of respect for, a context. In 1956, the Hofpavillon had been marked for destruction, however, wiser heads and lack of ready funds to build something new and ugly managed to sidetrack this idea. Finally, in 1987, the city reversed itself and moved to restore this building, by then in hideous disrepair. The Hofpavillon reopened in the summer of 1989 as a new segment of the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien (today Wien Museum). It contains pictures and other items of interest about Otto Wagner, the emperor, the building of the Hofpavillon, and the Stadtbahn. The building has also been used as a site for special exhibitions and cultural events. +++

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