Stefan Zweig et al. – 2007er vintage

10 women’s portraits, 28 men’s portraits, 6 artefacts’ portraits are assembled in my Viennese Portrait Gallery 2007. I love them all; all are important for me. It feels almost like they live together with me in today’s Vienna. So much do I know about them; at so many places in Vienna they are present. They enrich my life and put it into perspective. What can be better than passing by the grave of Ottavio Piccolomini in the morning on my way to work, to pause for a moment and to pray for tactical cleverness for the day,

Viennese Cuisine – Vienna Eats Differently

Actually I am not in love with the Viennese cuisine – too much meat for me. My attitude is not based on vegetarian beliefs as Bertha von Suttner’s are:“Of hundred well educated and emphatic people perhaps ninety would stop eating meat today if they had to slay or stab the animal themselves.” And I am not anxious of something that could follow eating as Georg Kreisler says:”When we were thinner we were closer.” But repletion by Viennese cuisine makes you sleepy. And being sleepy in Vienna is a waste of time. As there are so many adventures waiting for you in Vienna.

But there must be something in the Viennese cuisine that makes it a kind of medicine. All these interesting people I portrayed here in the Viennese Portrait Gallery in 2007 lived on Viennese cuisine. And what happened? Inventions, explorations, music,… – Nobel Prize, fame, immortality! Ok then give me Suppe (soup), Beuschel (innards, the test of good cooking), Gulasch (goulash), Gekoches Rindfleisch (cooked beef, in the 19th century the meat most consumed in Vienna), Wiener Schnitzel mit Limonisuppe (Viennese schnitzel with lime soup), Backhendl (baked chicken), Rostbraten (roast), Wiener Schweinsbraten (Viennese roast pork), Schinkenfleckerln (ham & noodle casserole), Karpfen (carp, during fast as filling for a fried sausages compromise), Gemüse auf Wiener Art (vegetables Viennese style), Guglhupf (ring cake) and Strudel (strudel) – that promising nutrition for creativity and innovation.

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (Part 2) – Kitchen Closed

”I am always described as a kitchen architect, although I have built many housing estates and kindergarten. What is a kitchen compared to my other work?” 1998, Schütte-Lihotzky (1897 – 2000)

I finished my first portrait of M. Schütte-Lihotzky with: When Lihotzky together with her husband went to Moscow in 1930, she does not want to do anything on kitchens any longer. It is interesting to check her impressive CV on what more she did than kitchens.
Even more interesting than reading her CV is to visit an exhibition these days: “Ich bin keine Küche. Gegenwartsgeschichten aus dem Nachlass von Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky.” (I am no kitchen. Contemporary stories from the estate of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky.)

17 prospective curators of the course “exhibition and cultural management” of the Viennese University of Applied Arts cooked and produced a three-course menu: first course “Mythos Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky”(Myth Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky), second course “Paradigmen der Moderne” (Paradigms of modernity), third course “Demokratisches Design“ (Democratic design). In the exhibition centre Heiligenkreuzer Hof. This beautiful old building (documented first in 1201) combined with “contemporary stories” in an unusual exhibition design (Ivar chairs from IKEA) is worth a visit.

No-Kitchen-Sources:
Exhibition-Website (website and exhibition in German only, but nevertheless worth a visit)

Exhibition centre „Heiligenkreuzerhof“ by Dr. Heinz Adamek (in German)

Karl Landsteiner (Part 1) – Viennese Blood

What do you prefer? An appropriate blood transfusion or salvation? Yes, an unfair question. You would perhaps like both – if needed the correct blood transfusion and a balanced soul. Exactly this means that Karl Landsteiner (1868 – 1943) deserves as much attention as Sigmund Freud gets. Because Karl Landsteiner discovered the blood groups A, B, and 0 in 1901 in Vienna and saved lives due to matching blood transfusions. And enabled follow-up research for the health of mankind as well as the paternity test and other evidences with blood groups.

Family Artaria – Paradise Vienna

Visitors and people who moved to Vienna love Vienna; Viennese love Vienna less.
The Italian family Artaria founded a firm in Vienna in 1770 and led love lead to actions. From 1779 onwards they published the famous “Sammlung von Aussichten der Residenzstadt Wien” (Collection of Views of the Residential Town Vienna). Views of Vienna in 57 coloured outline etchings. They do not only show buildings but also people and their life in the town. Among others the park “Augarten” then opened for the public – today my favourite jogging area. The park now still looks in some parts like on the four “Augarten” pages of the collection.
Not only did they produce a sheet of pictures of the city – it even grew with the development of the town because the pages were updated: Again not only the buildings but also the fashion of the inhabitants. But not all changes of the social life from Josephinism to Biedermeier, from the times of “reforms in law, administration, education, culture and the catholic church” to the times of “disappointments after the Restauration of 1815 and the nearly complete renunciation of public-political life” got visualised. Perhaps the idealised town sold better to “tourists”.