Architectural Posters of Vienna

Vienna between Baroque and Modernism

Seven architectural posters trace a path from Vienna’s great Baroque ensembles of the eighteenth century to Otto Wagner’s functional architecture of the modern age. Comparative façade studies, precise individual elevations and a wide-ranging Belvedere panorama make different scales of urban and architectural history legible.

AP 206 · Otto Wagner, Austrian Post Savings Bank

Otto Wagner built the Imperial and Royal Post Savings Bank between 1904 and 1912, designing its interiors and furniture as well as the building itself. Its rigorously functional organisation makes it a key work of Viennese Modernism. Granite and marble slabs clad the façade, while visibly applied aluminium elements combine technical purpose with a new, restrained architectural expression. The vertical poster reproduces Wagner’s perspective of the central projection and focuses attention on the strict order of the façade.

AP 111 and AP 112 · Viennese Baroque Architecture and Palaces

These two comparative posters juxtapose church and palace façades from the period between 1650 and 1750. Their principal figures are Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt, whose buildings decisively shaped Baroque Vienna. Rather than documenting a single monument, the plates reveal how domes, pediments, central projections, classical orders and animated rooflines form a range of ceremonial compositions.

AP 330 · Vienna, Karlskirche

Emperor Charles VI founded the Karlskirche in fulfilment of a vow made during a plague epidemic. Begun in 1716 and completed in the late 1730s, it was the last major work of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. The church is dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo, whose life is narrated in reliefs winding around the two 47-metre columns in front of the façade. The poster records the dramatic combination of portico, triumphal columns, lateral pavilions and great dome in a precise frontal elevation.

AP 401 and AP 331 · Prince Eugene’s Belvedere

Prince Eugene of Savoy commissioned Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt to create his Vienna summer residence. The Lower Belvedere was begun in 1712 as a residential palace; construction of the Upper Belvedere, intended chiefly for ceremonial use, started in 1717 and was completed in 1723. Dominique Girard designed the terraced garden that unites both palaces as a Baroque ensemble. AP 401 combines elevations, a plan, the garden layout and architectural details, while AP 331 isolates the long garden front of the Upper Belvedere.

AP 343 · Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace

Emperor Leopold I commissioned Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach to design a hunting lodge in 1693; work began in 1696, and its central range was habitable by 1700. From 1743, under Maria Theresa, Nikolaus Pacassi transformed the complex into an extensive imperial summer residence. The considerably calmer appearance of today’s façade results from a further remodelling by Johann Aman between 1817 and 1819. The wide poster presents the long, axially ordered garden front as the palace’s defining architectural image.