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.