Part of the funding for construction was supplied by patrons led by the industrial magnate Karl Wittgenstein the rest was paid for with the proceeds of the Secession’s inaugural exhibition, which was held at the Imperial and Royal Gardening Society. It was only after the Secession revised its plans to build on a site on Friedrichstraße that permission was granted for “the erection of a provisional exhibition pavilion for the period of no more than ten years” (minutes of the city council meeting of November 17, 1897). A site along the Ringstraße was originally chosen, but Olbrich’s designs drew fierce opposition from the Vienna city council. The members commissioned the architect Joseph Maria Olbrich-an associate in Otto Wagner’s architecture studio, he was barely thirty years old at the time-to design the building, which would become a key work of Viennese Art Nouveau. One central desideratum discussed in the very first assembly of the Association of Austrian Visual Artists Vienna Secession was the erection of a dedicated exhibition building. In addition, the Grafisches Kabinett on the upper floor and the three-room gallery in the basement accommodate a wide range of temporary exhibition designs for contemporary art, while Gustav Klimt’s historic Beethoven Frieze is on permanent display on the second underground level. The magnificent main hall with its glass roof is particularly well suited for interventions on account of its functionality and flexibility.
INSIDE OF THE VIENNA SECESSION BUILDING INTERIOR SERIES
The Secession’s architectonic design is meant to be used in many different ways, a challenge taken up by exhibiting artists who have engaged with the building’s interior as well as exterior to produce an ongoing series of specially developed artistic ideas and concepts. Its youthful architecture has stood the test of time: the building’s functionality and aesthetic elegance continue to offer excellent conditions for today’s artistic and exhibition practice. The Vienna Secession is an exhibition space for contemporary art that occupies a unique position in the history of modernism, combining a contemporary, forward-looking program with a building that is an icon of the spirit of innovation and optimism that prevailed around 1900.
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