Rudolf Kaftan (right) gives a radio interview in the Museum of Clocks and Watches, 1931.
Rudolf Kaftan’s collection, c. 1916. Kaftan kept it on the attic floor of a private sanatorium owned by Professor Heinrich Obersteiner in Billrothstraße in Vienna’s Döbling district.
Ebner-Eschenbach’s collection of 270 precious pocket and pendant watches, about 100 mantel and table clocks from a factory-owner named Gustav Leiner, and another 400 timepieces previously owned by watchmaker and collector Josef Nicolaus. In those early years, visits to the Museum could be made by appointment only. We can see from pictures and descriptions of the collection from the 1930s and 1950s that Rudolf Kaftan maintained the character of his private collection in the Museum of Clocks and Watches over many decades. The Museum was his opus magnum, horology his main interest in life; he took visitors on innumerable guided tours of the Museum and gave public lectures at the nearby “Urania” and other educational institutions, as well as on the radio. All these activities, which are scrupulously documented in newspaper clippings in the Museum’s archive, made the Museum very popular. In its tenth anniversary year in 1931, Director Kaftan welcomed the 30,000th visitor and gave the 2,000th guided tour of the Museum; both events were duly reported in the local press. After Kaftan died in 1961, steps were taken to give the Museum a complete overhaul and present its holdings in keeping with more modern principles of museum organisation. In the years 1962–1964, the Museum building was renovated,
including some structural alterations. Originally built in the late medieval/early modern period, it had been bought in 1690 by Ferdinand Marchese degli Obizzi, commander of the town guard, who had two storeys added and refashioned the building’s interior and exterior in the Baroque style. This is how we still find it today, with Baroque facade and interiors. The 1960s modernisation plans foresaw a presentation of the Museum’s holdings in chronological order, highlighting individual objects. And this is how the Museum, which has been slightly enlarged since, is still organised today: ascending through its three floors, visitors can trace the chronological development of mechanical clocks and watches up to the present, including some fully electronic timepieces. To make the Museum even more attractive, another alteration was carried out in 2000 according to plans by the architects Renate Prewein and Markus Eiblmayr. Display windows and showcases were added to “open up” the ground floor of the building, the lobby was enlarged, and a room added for special displays and events. In the course of the works, a former latrine was discovered. Probably dating from the 17th century, it is one of very few such structures that have been documented by research in Vienna. 9