A house on the edge of Hietzing, a few minutes from the gates of Schönbrunn, applied for in 1907 by one Franz Hopfner. By 1913 it was known as the “Dependance Hopfner”, the annex of Hopfner’s Parkhotel Schönbrunn, and in 1920 it reopened under the name it still carries. The building is not a listed monument; its story comes from the building press and the small advertisements of Viennese newspapers.
At a glance
Eduard-Klein-Gasse runs beside the Hans-Moser-Park, between Hietzing’s district hall and the bridge over the river Wien. It received its name in 1899, after the lawyer and local politician Eduard Klein. In November 1907 the Viennese building press reported a new two-storey house at number 9, applied for by Franz Hopfner of Kärntnerstraße 61. The same years saw Paul Hopfner build his Parkhotel Schönbrunn round the corner, on the site of Dommayer’s Casino. By 1913 the house at Eduard-Klein-Gasse 9 was known as the Dependance Hopfner, and in 1915 the Parkhotel advertised it as its annex. In June 1920 a newspaper announced a “new” Hotel Viktoria at this address, and the name has stayed. The City of Vienna’s survey of building periods places the house in the years 1884 to 1918, which agrees with the 1907 records.
Key facts
- Where: Eduard-Klein-Gasse 9, 1130 Vienna (Hietzing), Austria, facing the Hans-Moser-Park
- Street name: Eduard-Klein-Gasse since 1899, after the lawyer and local politician Eduard Klein; earlier Badgasse and part of the Hietzinger Kai
- Built: applied for in 1907 as a two-storey house (Hietzing, cadastral entry 462) by Franz Hopfner, I., Kärntnerstraße 61; site builder Alois Rous
- City survey of building periods: 1884–1918, type “rental house, street-front block” (building code 31054)
- Architect: not named in the notices we have read
- 1913–1915: “Dependance Hopfner”, annex of Hopfner’s Parkhotel Schönbrunn
- 1918: address of a branch office (Expositur) of the Ministry of Social Welfare
- Hotel Viktoria: announced as new in June 1920; advertised under that name through the 1920s
- Protection: none. Not in the list of protected monuments of Hietzing
- Coordinates: 48.187604, 16.301589 · open in Google Maps
History
The street along the river here, once Badgasse and then part of the Hietzinger Kai, was given its present name in 1899. Across the road from the Schönbrunn gardens, the restaurateur Paul Hopfner owned the old Dommayer’s Casino, where Johann Strauss the younger had made his debut. In 1907–1908 he replaced it with a grand hotel designed by Arnold Heymann, Hopfner’s Parkhotel Schönbrunn.
In the same year, 1907, three building periodicals, the Architekten- und Baumeister-Zeitung, the Wiener Bauindustrie-Zeitung and Der Bautechniker, list a new two-storey house in Hietzing, cadastral entry 462, at Eduard Kleingasse 9, for Franz Hopfner of Kärntnerstraße 61 in the city centre, with Alois Rous as site builder. None of them names an architect. We have not established how Franz Hopfner was related to Paul Hopfner of the Parkhotel, but the later history of the house ties it to the hotel.
In November 1913 small advertisements in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt give “13. Bez., Eduard Kleingasse 9, Dependance Hopfner” as a reply address, and in March 1914 the Reichspost, in a list of restaurants and inns, names “Hopfners Restauration, Eduard Kleingasse 9”. In the spring of 1915 the Fremden-Blatt repeatedly carried a notice for “Hopfner’s Parkhotel Schönbrunn, family hotel of the first rank opposite Schönbrunn Palace”, adding that the “Dependance Hopfner, 13th district, Eduard Kleingasse 9” had reopened. The house was, in other words, the annex of the Parkhotel.
The war years brought another use. In January 1918 Der Bund, the journal of the federation of Austrian women’s associations, told its readers that the Ministry of Social Welfare forwarded the applications of women candidates recommended by the associations to its branch office (Expositur) at XIII., Eduard Kleingasse 9. Two years later the house was back in the hands of the hotel trade. In February 1920 an advertisement offered rooms “with and without board” at Eduard Kleingasse 9, near the Hietzing bridge stop, and on 29 June 1920 the Neues Wiener Tagblatt announced a “new” Hotel Viktoria near the Hietzing bridge, at Eduard Kleingasse 9. Advertisements for the Hotel Viktoria, telephone 82270, continue in 1923 and 1926. The hotel still bears the name today.
What you see
We have found no freely licensed photograph that shows the whole front, so the description below is based on the hotel’s own photographs, which we cannot reproduce. The house is a rendered street front in pale yellow, several windows wide on either side of a rounded bay. Above the ground floor rise two full storeys, as the 1907 notice describes, and above them a steep red roof with a row of dormer windows forms a further attic floor; whether that attic was part of the 1907 building we do not know. The rounded bay rests on a curved projecting base over the ground floor, rises through both upper storeys and ends under a band of green metal and a small finial.
The ornament is restrained: the first-floor windows stand on small balustraded parapets, window surrounds carry modest stucco panels, a band of ornament runs under the eaves, and lozenge-shaped panels sit below the ground-floor windows. The entrance, to the left, has a gabled stucco frame flanked by two small carved finials and is sheltered by a green barrel awning lettered “Hotel Viktoria” with three stars; the name is repeated in green letters across the front. The same awning can be glimpsed through the trees in freely licensed photographs of the Hans-Moser-Park opposite.
Practical information
- The building is a family-run hotel, the Hotel Viktoria; the interiors are for guests.
- The front is best seen from the Hans-Moser-Park across the street, which also has a bust of the actor Hans Moser.
- The building has no heritage protection; what is described here is its documented history, not a listed interior.
Getting there
Hietzing station on the U4 underground line is about 100 metres away, according to the hotel, and several tram lines also stop at Hietzing. The park of Schönbrunn Palace lies just beyond the Parkhotel, across the Hietzinger Hauptstraße.
Nearby
- The Parkhotel Schönbrunn, Paul Hopfner’s grand hotel of 1907–1908 by Arnold Heymann, of which this house was the annex; about 100 metres away.
- The Hietzing district hall (Amtshaus) at Hietzinger Kai 1, built in 1912–1913 by the city building office, and the small gas pressure station in the Hans-Moser-Park opposite number 7; both are protected monuments.
- Otto Wagner’s Court Pavilion, the private station built for the emperor on the city railway, about 300 metres to the east.
- Schönbrunn Palace and its park, across the Hietzinger Hauptstraße.
Do you know more?
On this page we have published what can be seen and what we were able to verify. We could not find who designed the house, how Franz Hopfner was related to Paul Hopfner of the Parkhotel, or who opened the Hotel Viktoria in 1920 and chose its name. If you know something — a name, a date, the architect, the family who ran the hotel, an old photograph or postcard, a document, a book that mentions it — write to Sofia, who looks after these pages.
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Please start your message with the title of this page, so it reaches the right file. Every contribution is checked against independent sources before it goes on the page, and we always say where a piece of information came from.
Sources
- Architekten- und Baumeister-Zeitung, 24 November 1907, p. 7 (Austrian National Library, ANNO): “XIII. Bezirk: Zweistöckiges Haus, Hietzing, Einl.-Z. 462, Eduard Kleingasse 9, von Franz Hopfner, I. Kärntnerstraße 61, Bauführer Alois Rous”.
- Wiener Bauindustrie-Zeitung, 1907, Beilage Nr. 8, p. 66 and Der Bautechniker, 1907, p. 944 (ANNO): the same notice.
- Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 5 November 1913, p. 48 (and 9 November 1913): “Eduard Kleingasse 9, Dependance Hopfner”.
- Reichspost, 25 March 1914, p. 8: “Hopfners Restauration, Eduard Kleingasse 9”.
- Fremden-Blatt, 2 April 1915, p. 9, and further issues of April to September 1915: Hopfner’s Parkhotel Schönbrunn and the reopened “Dependance Hopfner, 13. Bezirk, Eduard Kleingasse 9”.
- Der Bund. Zentralblatt des Bundes österreichischer Frauenvereine, 1918, Heft 5, p. 15: the ministry’s “Expositur (Abteilung) XIII., Eduard Kleingasse 9”.
- Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 1 February 1920, p. 47, 29 June 1920, p. 11 (“Neu! Hotel Viktoria. Neu! Nächst Hietzingerbrücke, Eduard Kleingasse 9”), 23 January 1923, p. 18 and 2 September 1926, p. 23.
- Stadt Wien, Wien Kulturgut, “Bauperioden”, and the open-data layer of building periods on data.wien.gv.at: building code 31054 (Eduard-Klein-Gasse 9), 1884–1918, “Miethaus seit der Gründerzeit, Straßentrakter”.
- Wien Geschichte Wiki, “Eduard-Klein-Gasse” and “Schönbrunner Parkhotel”, City of Vienna: the naming of the street in 1899; Paul Hopfner, Dommayer’s Casino and the Parkhotel of 1907–1908 by Arnold Heymann.
- List of protected monuments in Vienna-Hietzing (after the Federal Monuments Office): the Amtshaus at Hietzinger Kai 1 (1912–1913) and the gas pressure station in the Hans-Moser-Park are protected; Eduard-Klein-Gasse 9 is not listed.
- Hotel Viktoria, official site: a family-run hotel, Hietzing station about 100 metres away; also the source of the photographs described above.
- Hans-Moser-Park in Wien 13, photograph by Gugerell, 2015 (Wikimedia Commons, CC0): the park, the bust of Hans Moser and the hotel awning seen through the trees.
- OpenStreetMap / Nominatim: position, returned as Hotel Viktoria, 9, Eduard-Klein-Gasse, Hietzing, Wien 1130.
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