Wien, noch einmal

A day of mixed success. Toby and I had debated what to do today; whether we should jump on to the "Baden Bahn," a train that runs directly from the Vienna opera to Baden bei Wien, the closest spa resort about 26 km south of Vienna, or to stay around the town. The deal breaker was the fact that the Secession museum, one of our must-see sights, is normally open on Sunday and closed on Monday. Better, we thought, to stick around town today and go south Monday.

Well, the best laid plans...

I had noticed yesterday afternoon while we were strolling around town that there were a number of posters put up by, among other groups, the KPO (Kommunistische Partei Oesterreichs), announcing a large march and rally in honor of May Day. When I first saw them, I laughed out loud. Toby asked my why. "Well, I'd just forgotten that Communism is still taken seriously by a lot of people here" I replied, and then tried to answer Toby's next obvious question ("what's Communism?") with my dialectic-materialism-for-seven-year-olds lecture (patent pending). The results were mixed. Nevertheless I didn't give it another thought, save to take note of the fact that there were an unusual number of portable toilets surrounding the Rathaus which seemed to be the destination of the marchers the next day.

Fast forward to this morning. As we alighted from the U-Bahn at the Opera, we noticed a proliferation of red banner-bearing folks gathering at the Operaplatz. I didn't really pay it much mind until we crossed the street, and then I saw even more, as well as a several-meter-long banner, compliments of the KPO, which featured portraits of Communist heroes. And it was wild. Are you ready for this? In left-to-right order, the portraits were: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Yes. STALIN and MAO. I actually could not believe it. There they all were, tons of folks, young and old (mostly, I'd say, college-aged), from all different groups (including, quite prominently, the Turkish communist party -- I guess of Austria), marching behind banners of two of the biggest mass murderers of the twentieth century.

Now, those who know me well know that I'm a lefty. But it's days like today that I realize just how moderate I am, because I was just disgusted by this display. I mean, exactly what kind of person do you have to be to believe that Stalin represents your interests?

I was actually surprised by how angry this made me.

And that was just the beginning. Walking away from this little display, Toby and I made our way south to the Secession, only to find out that it was...closed. AARGH! We walked around the building, hoping that perhaps the main entrance in front wasn't the, well, main entrance, but it was futile. I found a couple that looked like locals who were also trying to get in and asked them, "Wissen Sie, warum das Museum geschlossen ist?" They were as bewildered as me. "Vielleicht der erste Mai," said the woman with a resigned shrug. "Walla," I replied, in what has by habit become my catch-all Arabic response to just about any news.

Leave it to the commies to spoil the day.

Well, in the spirit of making lemonade out of lemons, I used the opportunity and our location to spot and photograph several of the buildings south of the city center for my collection of fin-de-siecle Viennese architecture pics. And there were some beauties -- remarkably almost ALL by Otto Wagner.

I had never realized just how much Otto Wagner has come to define exactly what Vienna is in terms of its sense of self through buildings. So many of the major building projects of the 1880-1910 period are either his own designs (several of them also contracted and overseen in their construction by him) or by his students. It is amazing. Some of the examples we saw today were the Wienzeile apartments, with their incredible art nouveau details (see image), the U-bahn station at Karlsplatz, and of course the Postparkasse building. We stumbled, surprisingly, upon one of the most (in its time) shocking buildings of Adolph Loos (see pic), the apartment house on Michaelerplatz, and I actually appreciated why it was such a dramatic and controversial structure, even today, surrounded by Baroque grandiosity.

Well, anyhow, enough for tonight. I think I'm becoming a little obsessed by architecture...I'll have to stop by the Sigmund Freud museum and see if they dispense free psychoanalysis...maybe through one of those little penny-souvernier dispenser thingies.