Vienna - Whisper of the Rotunde
Dear Alexandre,
My search for traces of magic in Vienna brought me to a place of wonder. I went to the Pratermuseum and I really enjoyed it. Magic wasn’t the only topic that let me step inside the small but nicely filled museum in the planetarium in the Prater, right beside the Riesenrad. I was also there in search for a mystical building that appeared in my life in surprising places in form of a whispered shadow: The Rotunde.
The Rotunde, as dreamed through a story
The word itself was and is used for round buildings in general, but one building stood out to the people of Vienna for quite obvious reasons. Built for the world exhibition in 1873, the Rotunde was the heart piece of the Industriepalast called building structure, that housed the sections of the participating countries from east to west. At the time it was the biggest dome in the whole wide world, with a width of 108 meters twice as big as the former record holder, the St. Peters Dome in Rome. As per usual in Vienna the building was first criticized by the locals – I can only assume for being new. It was called Blechhaufen (pile of tin), Käseglocke (cheese dome) and someone said it reminded him of a turtle shell. Even the Mayor dissed the building as “plumpe Überdachung” (crude canopy). But that is the usual response of Viennese people or at least their newspapers to something new and in this slurs can hide real love. And the love for the Rotunde grew fast in the hearts of the locals. The Riesenrad wasn’t built yet, the Rotunde became the second most famous landmark of Vienna (after the Stephansdom) with ease. Still, I only recently learned, how this amazing building looked and what it was used for. I had no idea, how huge it was or how beautiful. It really blew my mind, when I finally found pictures of this Viennese legend, because the whispered shadow, I heard sometimes in conversations as a child was always connected to this word construction: Der Rotundenbrand – The Fire of the Rotunde.
Oh, the mystery, oh, the thrill! What was this mythical place that was so tragically lost? Today I realize that one of the reasons, why this story was only a whisper in my childhood, lies in the year of the fire: 1937. My mother was born in Vienna in the year in 1941, so she also never saw it, but the legend was fresh (but probably clouded through the experiences of the war). I never met any of my grandparents (well, I probably met my father’s mother, when I was a baby, but she died soon afterwards), so I only heard of it from people, who had also only heard of it. This is the only explanation I got for why no one ever told me, how absolutely amazing this building was! Old photographs show an for Vienna quite enormous building with an industrial looking roof dome and a typical Viennese neo-classicisms surrounding. A sort of Viennese steam-punk dream, built under the emperor with awe-inspiring big gates and huge walls, but with a steal constructed roof that bears the scent of art nouveau already, but not celebrating nature in this case, rather celebrating engineering in the breath of a new epoch – amazingly fitting for my fantasy version of Vienna, that I like to put in my stories. The construction was far away from perfect with the main problem being, that the roof leaked quite obviously – but what a flair! On the inside, there was the same mix of the emperor pomp of strong walls and huge pillars underneath the sunlit dome. There exists one picture of the inside, where the three oak trees, that the builders initially promised to not cut down, where still standing (spoiler alert: someone did not keep this promise for long), which amazes me most. Like I have dreamed it before (in old blogposts for example), there it was, the combination of Viennese stone, nature celebration and playfulness – a lion strolling through the picture, was all that was missing… Till I saw another picture and there was a big lion statue in sight – Oh, what a pleasant surprise!
The world exhibition was not a success. And in a way that was good for lovers of the Rotunde. Like the rest of the buildings, it was meant to be torn down after the convention, but there was no money left to do so. This is how Vienna got this amazing hall to keep. It was used for conventions still, but there were also festivities held inside. In the museum, I saw pictures of the “Frühlingsfest” (spring festival), a charity event for the Vienna Rescue Society, with a “Secessionistisches Dorf” situated in the Rotunde. A celebration of Jugendstil, full of flowers and art and beautifully dressed ladies. I also read, that stairs and later a (not that well-functioning) elevator led visitors up to the see through structure on the roof, which was called “Laterne” (lantern). Sadly not in the museum, but somewhere in my research, I found a picture that was taken from the balcony of the Laterne in the direction of Vienna. You can see a lot of green and the Stephansdom is standing as the tallest landmark that it was for so long.
Vienna had enough ideas of how to use the dome. For the emperors 50th jubilee, there was a agriculture, industrial and art fair and for his 80th birthday in 1910 a hunting convention took place in the huge building. Johann Strauß Sohn conducted his Danube waltz at a “monstre-concerte” 1891 in front of 15.000 people (and he also wrote the Rotunden-Quadrille for the world exhibition). In octobre of 1903 a 80 meter long Focault pendulum hung from the ceiling to demonstrate the rotation of the earth. In 1921, a 24-hour bicycle race took place with a winning distance of insane 726 kilometers. Horse fairs and races – even a dog race - were held inside and circuses used the dome as well, for example the famous American circus of Barnum & Bailey. I surely don’t have to explain to you, who P.T. Barnum was, right? 😉
Shortly after the big autumn convention was finished in 1937, there was a fire spotted high up at one of the huge pillars, that held the structure. Everyone was evacuated in time, but although seemingly the whole of Vienna’s fire brigade came early, the building could not be saved. Pictures of the fire are there plenty, painted, photographed - a thick column of white smoke. The big steal ring that held the structure collapsed under the heat. The fire brigade managed at least that the fire did not spread far. In just a few hours that beautiful building was gone and its name became the shadow, I mentioned. It was a pleasure to finally find out more about it. I showed pictures to my Viennese friends and everyone was in awe. It seems unbelievable for us that Vienna once held this treasure. I enjoyed the pictures in the museum very much. Especially those were you can see the trotting race course with the huge building beside it and the ones, where you can see water and boats and restaurants and people having a good time and in the background the Rotunde is watching over the scene. Oh, how I would have loved to visit this legend!
The Pratermuseum has a lot more to show by the way. The history of the green Prater with its restaurants like the Lusthaus that still exists. Pictures of the gallop racing course in the Freudenau, where I spent weekends and lovely mornings as a kid, when my mother had her horse there still. They have beautiful merry-go-round horses, pictures of “Hochschaubahnen”, “Wurstltheater”, strong men, exotic animals, and “freak” shows. They have three Laterna Magica’s in their vitrines, but only one frame about the magic shows of a certain Professor Anton Kratky Baschik. He was originally a musician – a virtuoso on the harmonica, I read. But he bought a theater in the Prater for his physics , magic and ghost shows. I saw an old program there that reads like this: Program for Professor Kratky-Baschik’s amazing magic theater. Daily presentation of amusing physics, magic, music and optics, besides interesting ghost apparitions.
(Programm für Professor Kratky-Baschik’s großartiges Zaubertheater. Täglich Vorstellung interessanter Physik, Magie, Musik und Optik, nebst interessanter Gespenster und Geistererscheinungen)
The photographs from the magic theater are taken in the 1860’s and 80’s. It certainly sounds like an interesting show, probably a broad audience was targeted. I doubt, that his ghost apparitions were dead serious, but it certainly shows again the complicated relationship in magic between “honest” magic and supernatural scams. He had it all on one stage, “amusing” physics, optics and ghosts. For me that is intriguing. Here it is open to see – not mentioned in words though – that the ghosts are part of a magicians repertoire – a game of optics and illusion. The big séance hype of heartless scammers came later – although I never heard about it in relation to Vienna. There is certainly room for more research into the topic!
You can visit the Prater museum till around march 2023, when I am correctly informed. After that, they build a new and bigger one that I certainly will visit again. You can enjoy the room in one hour, I think only people with blogs and stories like me need two. The museum helped me to find out, where the Rotunde was exactly situated and I found out that friends of mine live in the exact spot now, which was a nice surprise. Of course, I found more treasure inside the museum, but that is for another time.
Enjoy Vienna my friend
