Majolikahaus
Otto Wagner wrapped a six-storey Viennese apartment block in rose-pink majolica tiles — sunflowers, fern fronds, and tendrils climbing every floor — proving that the applied arts and the urban housing stock could inhabit the same building.
At a glance
Linke Wienzeile 40 takes its common name, Majolikahaus, from the Italian fired-clay glazing technique applied to the entire upper facade. Otto Wagner designed the building in 1898 as part of a pair with the adjacent Medallion House (No. 38), both rising over the Naschmarkt as a demonstration that the Wiener Secession’s visual programme could govern not just exhibition spaces and public buildings but the residential fabric of the city. The tile designs — pink and red roses on curling green stems and fronds against a white ground — were drawn by Alois Ludwig and manufactured by the Viennese firms Wienerberger and Böhm. The result is a building that reads at two scales: as an urban composition of ochre and rose from across the market, and as a dense botanical inventory at close range.
Key facts
- Completed: 1898–1899
- Architect: Otto Wagner (1841–1918)
- Tile design: Alois Ludwig; manufactured by Wienerberger and Böhm
- Style: Vienna Secession (Jugendstil / Art Nouveau)
- Address: Linke Wienzeile 40, 1060 Vienna, Austria
- GPS: 48.197422, 16.359251 — Open in Google Maps
- Status: Active residential building; listed cultural monument; exterior freely visible
History
Otto Wagner’s commission for the two Wienzeile apartment buildings came from private clients who wanted investment properties on the newly widened boulevard. The Linke Wienzeile had been replanned as a grand urban artery in the late-Ringstraße tradition; Wagner saw in it an opportunity to demonstrate the Secession argument at housing scale. He designed both No. 38 and No. 40 simultaneously, the interiors as conventional Viennese rental flats, the exteriors as a unified public facade experiment.
The choice of majolica was practical as well as aesthetic: the glazed tiles were weather-resistant, easy to clean, and structurally independent of the underlying render — closer to a curtain-wall logic than to applied ornament. Wagner published his principles in “Moderne Architektur” (1895), arguing that ornament must arise from construction and that new materials demanded new forms. The Majolikahaus was his own proof of concept at residential scale.
During the Second World War the building sustained minor damage; post-war restoration preserved the original tiles. The facade was listed as a national monument, and repair programmes in subsequent decades replaced damaged tiles using period-consistent glazing techniques. The building remains occupied as apartments today.
What you see
The tile surface begins at the first floor and covers all four exposed upper storeys in a continuous botanical grid. The motif shifts by height: large sunflower heads at the lower floors give way to climbing stems and fern fronds at the upper levels, creating a trompe-l’œil vertical movement that makes the facade appear to grow. The cornice is unornamented — a deliberate plainness that forces the eye back to the tile field rather than upward into historicist brackets.
The contrast with No. 38 next door is instructive. The Medallion House has a more austere plaster surface interrupted by large gold-leaf portrait medallions by Kolo Moser; the two buildings together demonstrate Wagner’s range within the same Secession vocabulary. Standing back from the Naschmarkt, the pairing reads as a single architectural unit: one building exuberant, one restrained, both governed by the same compositional logic.
Practical information
- Access: Exterior only — the Majolikahaus is an active residential building; the facade is visible from the street and the Naschmarkt
- Best viewpoint: From across Linke Wienzeile near the Naschmarkt stalls, which allows a full frontal view of both Wienzeile buildings
- Time needed: 15–20 minutes for the exterior and the comparison with No. 38
- Combined visit: Pair with the Secession Building (10 min walk north) and the Karlsplatz Pavilions (12 min walk northeast) for an Otto Wagner / Secession afternoon
Getting there
The Majolikahaus is at Linke Wienzeile 40, in the 6th district (Mariahilf), alongside the Naschmarkt. The nearest U-Bahn stop is Kettenbrückengasse (U4), a two-minute walk east along the Wienzeile. From Karlsplatz (U1/U2/U4), the building is a twelve-minute walk southwest along the Linke Wienzeile, passing the Naschmarkt in its entirety.
Nearby
- Medallion House (Linke Wienzeile 38) — Otto Wagner’s companion building with Kolo Moser gold medallions, directly adjacent
- Naschmarkt — Vienna’s main open-air food market, immediately in front of both buildings
- Vienna Secession Building — Olbrich’s exhibition hall (1898), 10 min on foot northeast
Sources
- Austria Forum (AEIOU): entry on Otto Wagner and the Wienzeile buildings
- Wagner Werk Museum Penzing, Vienna: permanent collection on Wagner’s residential and public commissions
- Bundesdenkmalamt Austria: monument records for Linke Wienzeile 40
- Otto Wagner, Moderne Architektur (1895): primary statement on his ornament-from-construction principle
Find it on the map
📷 Diventa un fotografo di Cultural Heritage Online
Condividi le tue foto dei luoghi: restano pubblicate con la tua firma come autore. Più vengono viste, più ti fai conoscere — e presto un concorso premierà le foto più apprezzate.
Accedi o registrati gratis per aggiungere una foto