Mandarin Oriental VIENNA Goddard Littlefair returns to the Austrian capital, bringing grandeur and glamour to a former Secessionist courthouse. Words: Rick Jordan Photography: © Mel Yates (unless otherwise stated)
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rom the recently reimagined Wien Museum – its original 1950s Modernist building now sporting a glass pavilion lobby and central floating staircase by
Austria’s Winkler+Ruck Architekten – it’s possible to take in a bird’s-eye view of Vienna. Along with an 18ft model of St Stephen’s Cathedral, complete with periscope so visitors can peer up inside its Gothic grandeur from beneath, there are two models of the city centre: one depicts the city with its defensive walls, built to withstand the sort of siege the Ottomans threw at it in centuries past; the other shows the city with its walls demolished and in their place the famous Ringstrasse boulevard. Built over three decades in the boom years of the latter 19th century, the boulevard was a crowning achievement for the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Encircling the historic First District and lined with grand palaces, cafés and museums, it still defines the city today. And while its architecture has many excellent examples of neoclassical design, there are arguably more varied and interesting buildings to be found inside the Ring. The new Mandarin Oriental, which recently opened after a decade of work and a two-year delay, occupies the former Commercial Law courts built in 1908 by Alfred Keller, an architect and artist who was part of the Secession. This was the fin-de-siècle movement that celebrated art for art’s sake, turning its back on the past and instead paving the way for Austrian Modernism. It bloomed in paintings such as Klimt’s The Kiss and structures including Otto Wagner’s
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