#Vienna secession characteristics full#

Look out for Secession honey made by the bees that live under the golden dome. On my trip, it stocked a wide collection of art books & catalogues, high-end gifts, and more traditional souvenirs like posters and fridge magnets. You can visit the store without a ticket.Tickets & visitor tipsĪt the time of writing, a single adult ticket (covering both the exhibitions and the Beethoven Frieze) cost €9.50 with an English audioguide available for €3.

Before you reach the Frieze, an antechamber gives you a brief history of the Secession building (in English), including blueprints, a model and design sketches. Once inside, go down some stairs (or take the lift) to find the home of Klimt’s famous Beethoven Frieze. When I went, the next two exhibitions were set to feature Moroccan-French visual artist, Bouchra Khalili, and US visual artist, Elaine Reichek.

Quite what you see inside depends, as always, on the current artists or themes on show. 129001/2 reproduced with permission under the terms of the CC0 licence) (Poster for the first exhibition of the Secession in 1898 Gustav Klimt (Artist) Wien Museum Inv.-Nr.

#Vienna secession characteristics full#

It re-formed under a slightly different full name in 1945 and is still going strong today, hosting contemporary art exhibitions in the galleries within the Secession building. And many other pieces of art by famous names of the time.Īlthough Klimt soon parted company with the Secession, the organisation continued until its forced closure under the Nazis. Klimt’s works appeared here, for example. Locals affectionately call this 8.5m-wide dome the “golden cabbage”, though not everyone greeted it with approval back in 1898: one writer claimed the dome led you to think you were facing a buddhist temple, mausoleum or crematorium. Though not one of the “traditional” tourist destinations, the Secession Building enjoys a lofty status among locals and visitors alike.įirst, you have the architecture of the Secessionsgebäude itself, which was fully renovated in 2018.īuilt by Joseph Maria Olbrich, the building features a white, Jugendstil design topped by a cupola constructed from 2,500 gilded iron laurel leaves.