Medallion House
Everyone photographs the Majolica House next door. Wagner put the angels on this one.
At a glance
The Medallion House stands at 38 Linke Wienzeile in Vienna, one of two apartment buildings Otto Wagner built side by side in 1898–99 in the new Vienna Secession style. Its better-known neighbour at No. 40 is the Majolica House, sheathed in floral tiles; No. 38 takes its name instead from the gilt medallions across its facade and the sculpted figures on its roofline. Together they form one of the clearest statements of Wagner’s break with historicism.
Key facts
- Architect: Otto Wagner
- Built: 1898–1899
- Style: Vienna Secession
- Address: 38 Linke Wienzeile, Mariahilf
- Decoration: gilt medallions; sculpted rooftop figures
- Companion building: the Majolica House, No. 40
- Setting: Wagner’s planned Wienzeile boulevard
History
As Vienna expanded in the 1890s, Otto Wagner proposed regulating the Wien river and lining a new boulevard with modern buildings. The city accepted his project in 1894. Wagner was scathing about the historicist facades of the Ringstrasse, which he dismissed as a “stylistic masked ball”, and in his 1896 essay Modern Architecture he called for forms that expressed their function.
The two apartment houses on the Linke Wienzeile, built in 1898–99, put that argument into brick and tile. They were income-producing residential blocks, not monuments, which made their radical decoration all the more pointed. A third building nearby, at 3 Köstlergasse, served for a time as Wagner’s own residence.
Where No. 40 wears a full skin of majolica tiles, No. 38 carries gilt medallions and rooftop sculpture, a more restrained but equally deliberate Secession facade.
What you see
The facade is flat and urban, a plain apartment front transformed by ornament rather than by mass. Round gilt medallions punctuate the upper storeys, catching the light above the busy Wienzeile, and sculpted figures crown the cornice line.
Read together with the Majolica House, the building shows Wagner testing two finishes for the same idea: that a modern city block could be both rational in plan and unmistakably of its moment in dress. It is the Vienna Secession applied to ordinary housing.
Practical information
- This is a private apartment building; only the facade is open to view.
- See it together with the Majolica House at No. 40, immediately alongside.
- The Naschmarkt market runs along the same stretch — a natural pairing.
- Time needed: 15 minutes for both houses.
Getting there
The houses face the Linke Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district, beside the Naschmarkt. The Kettenbrückengasse U-Bahn station is a minute away, with Karlsplatz a short walk to the east.
Nearby
- The Majolica House, Linke Wienzeile 40.
- The Naschmarkt and the Secession Building, both close by.
Sources
- Wikipedia, “Linke Wienzeile Buildings”.
- City of Vienna heritage information.
- Bundesdenkmalamt listing.
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