The Ringstraße gave Vienna a new parliament, a new opera and a new university. It also gave the painters a building, and they got Theophil Hansen.
At a glance
The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is one of the oldest art academies in Europe, founded in the late seventeenth century. Its main building on Schillerplatz was designed by Theophil Hansen and opened in 1877, as part of the Ringstraße rebuilding of Vienna. Work on the interior, including Anselm Feuerbach’s ceiling frescoes, continued until 1892.
Key facts
- Architect: Theophil Hansen
- New building approved: 1871, within the Ringstraße project
- Built: on the site then called the Kalkmarkt, now Schillerplatz; sources give the construction as 1871–76 or 1872–77
- Opened: 1877
- Interior: finished only in 1892, including the ceiling frescoes by Anselm Feuerbach
- The academy’s founding: the late seventeenth century — 1688 and 1692 are both given
- 1872: Emperor Franz Joseph I approved a statute making the Academy the highest government authority for the arts
- Address: Schillerplatz 3, Vienna
- GPS: 48.2014, 16.3656 · Open in Google Maps
History
The academy is far older than its house. It was founded in the late seventeenth century — the sources give 1688 and 1692 — and spent nearly two hundred years in other premises before it was given one of its own.
That came with the Ringstraße. When Vienna pulled down its walls and built a boulevard of public institutions, each got a building and an architect, and each building was given the historical style thought to suit its purpose. The new academy was approved in 1871 and raised on the Kalkmarkt, now Schillerplatz, to the plans of Theophil Hansen, the Danish-born architect who also built the Parliament. It opened in 1877.
Finishing the inside took another fifteen years. Anselm Feuerbach painted the ceiling frescoes, and the interior was not complete until 1892. In 1872, while the walls were going up, Franz Joseph I approved a statute that made the Academy the highest government authority for the arts — so the building was finished for an institution whose standing had changed since it was designed.
Hansen on the Ring
Theophil Hansen came from Copenhagen and spent years in Athens before Vienna, and the Greek work shows. On the Ringstraße he built the Parliament in a Greek manner, because parliament was held to descend from Athens; here he worked in a Renaissance manner, because the Renaissance was held to be the age of the painter. The reasoning is period reasoning, but it produced a building that states what it is for before you read the sign.
What you see
A long symmetrical front of brick and stone on a small square off the Ring, with the measured bays and the heavy cornice of Hansen’s Renaissance manner. Inside, the ceilings are the thing: the painted work that took until 1892 belongs to the building as much as the walls do.
Sources & resources
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