Kirche Am Hof

~The Kirche Am Hof looks like a renaissance style church. It has flowing line and not much ornamentation. There are 14 statues which adorn the church at either the top or inlayed in the center. The windows are simple and rectangular, and the color of the church is white. The center is pushed back and has a balcony. This is the only church I had seen with a balcony. Atop the center is a peak, but it is thick and on each side there are pillar designs. There are three statues on the top of the churches peak, two of which are angels. In the design are three arches, one for the left, right, and center of the church. The door is very simple and had no ornamentation on or above it, just a plain stained glass window. The window is easy to miss and almost the same color as the door. This church was right next to the first Parliament building in the center of Vienna. I had passed it many times, because it was right up the street behind what our group labeled the “antique Christmas market”.

Karlskirche

~Karlskirche or St. Charles Church was very unique, because it incorporates many different styles like Roman, Greek, and Chinese. It is just off the Karls Platz, and was my favorite church in Vienna.

"The central buildings, turned into highly revered focal points for the dynasty and the people of Austria, where extended in the baroque period. Then the Karlskirche was erected as the central sanctuary, for which all the Habsburg lands provided financial support" (Ahrens, 218).

It was built in honor of St. Karl Borromeo, the patron saint of fighting against the plague. It at first looked like a mosque, but like Peterskirche it is a baroque church. The two columns that are in the front of the church are so different from any of the other churches in Vienna. They look like Roman columns and each one tells a different story through pictures. The left column is supposed to represent steadfastness while the right shows the courage of St. Karl Borromeo. On top of the columns are four eagles, one facing each corner, and then a small dome. There is also a statue of St. Karl Borromeo above the front entryway. The front of the church has a Greek temple look to it. There are six pillars that sit on top of the stairway which support a pediment. The Greek looking peak, or pediment, depicts the suffering of the Viennese during the plague which claimed 8,000 lives. In front of the steps are two angels, one on each side of the steps. Next to the columns, one on each side, are entrance ways. What make these special are the Chinese styled tops. The church doesn’t have many windows, and no stained glass windows. Lastly, the dome is massive. It takes up almost the entire center of the church. The circular area directly below the dome is where most of the exterior windows are. On top of the dome is a smaller dome with more windows and a cross that sits at the peak. There isn’t a color scheme like many of the other churches. It is simply white with green domes, and a little gold ornamentation.

Stephansdom

~The Stephansdom or St. Stephen’s Cathedral was massive. It is beloved to the Viennese, and was one of the first things rebuild after WWII.

"The lingering nostalgia for Vienna's central function that has endured post-1945 is expressed, for example, in the assistance given by the Austrian Federal Lands to the resconstruction of the cathedral of St. Stephen's" (Ahrens, 218).

It even has its own stop on the subway. The church is definitely gothic. Like the Voitvkirche, there is very heavy ornamentation. It has one very large peak, which takes 343 steps to climb. Standing at the base and looking up I couldn’t even see the top. It was a little disappointing that there was scaffolding cleaning the tower when we were there, but from pictures I have seen it too has “spikes” that stick out of the peak. The church has many peaks and even more patterns than the Voitvkirche. Patterns that I could pick out were circles, rectangles, triangles, and diamonds. There are many stained glass windows and a huge front door. The door has many sculptures or what look like carvings over it, and there was a depiction of Jesus and two angels. What was most impressive was the tiled roof. I had never seen tiling like that before. It has 250,000 colored tiles over the entire church. The main pattern is a chevron with colors of yellow green white and black. On the opposite side the church there is a Habsburg coat of arms in the tile. What was interesting to me was walking around the church. It was apparent that it had been added onto through the years from 1147 to the 15th century the church kept expanding.

Peterskirche

~Peterskirche or St. Peter’s Church was off of the main shopping strip. It set further back from the shops, and it looks like a baroque style church. It has very similar architecture to the Schottenstift. These similarities are in the inlayed statues, stucco, windows, and arches. The statues on the façade are of the four apostles. A difference that makes me think it not classical architecture is the very large dome. There are also two small peaks to each side of the large dome. The peaks and dome are green in color and have crosses on the top of them. The color of the church is white with beige. The other major difference between the two churches is the entranceway. Over the door is heavy ornamentation. There is an inscription above the door that says, “What I vow to the Lord for my salvation that will I fulfill”. There are colors of white, black, and gold, and a statue that sits on top of the entranceway.

Voitvkirche

~Voitvkirche was several blocks up from the Schottenstift. It is the upper left of the Ringstrasse. This church is in a gothic style. It has two large and very high peaks, and one smaller peak near the rear of the church. It looks like there are spikes that stick out of the peaks. There is heavy ornamentation, and smaller peaks throughout its design with very high stain glass windows. The patterns throughout the stone are of circles, triangles, and rectangles. There is also colored tiling on the outside ceiling. It is in a diamond pattern with crosses, and the color is a sea green and navy blue. Something unusual about the church, which was not even part of it, was a billboard in front of the church. Instead of making the billboard smaller, it looked like they screen printed a picture of what the church was supposed to look like on the edges of the billboard. It was really strange when I noticed it, because the picture is slightly to the left making a clear distinction it was part of the billboard.

Schottenstift

~The monastery of the Schottenstift from the outside it didn’t seem very big. I think this was because it was surrounded on all sides by shops or restaurants. The façade is simple with straight clean lines, smaller arches, and swirl patterns. It has a flat top with flattened peaks, but does have statues of people inlayed into the walls. There are also patches of stucco which add texture to the building, and there is a hint of yellow color. There were small windows with no stained glass. The Schottenstift looked to be more of a classical church from the outside.

So Many Churches So Little Time

There are many churches in Vienna, which I think can be classified as either classical, gothic, renaissance, or baroque. The churches I am focusing on we either went on a tour of, or I went to see them on my own. These churches are the Schottenstift, Voitvkirche, Peterskirche, Stephansdom, Karlskirche, and Kirche Am Hof. The first church we saw also happened to be part of our “hotel” the Benedictushaus House.

First Thoughts

I recently visited Vienna, Austria for the SYE 471 course at Otterbein College. Our professors, Dr. Thomas Ahrens and Dr. Andrew Mills, guided us through what we had studied by showing our class what Vienna looks, smells, sounds, and tastes like first hand. We spent 11 days in the heart of Vienna’s 1st District, and two days in Budapest, Hungary. For the entire Fall Quarter of my senior year our class dove into, what my professor described as, the culture, conflict, and identity of Vienna from 1900 to 2000. In this course we learned everything we could in 10 weeks. We studied the history, Austrian identity, culture, politics, music, language, art, and architecture. I am focusing on the architecture that makes Vienna what it is. I do not have any formal education in architecture or knowledge of the topic, other than my Dad being an architect himself. The architecture was the first thing I noticed in Vienna, and was something that stuck with me. I am going to speak of the architecture in my terms of defining the buildings. Everywhere we went I seemed to get this feeling of awe and astonishment at how big and beautiful the buildings were. There was such contrast and years of history right where I was standing. The experience took my breath away, and I would go back to this amazing place in a heartbeat.

This is the first view I had of Vienna. We just stepped out of the U3.