Stephansdom and KunstHaus Museum

Lindsay, Beth and Kate at Cafe Leopold
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After a delicious buffet of breakfast food from the hotel, our group departed for a tour of the Stephansdom. The Stephansdom is an extremely old cathedral built around 1136, though constructed lasted for many generations. It's decorated in both an old Gothic style as well as with Baroque influence, since construction spanned several decades. It is significant in that the primary ruling family of Austria, the Hapsburgs, have part of their remains buried here. Inside, like many other European cathedrals, are elaborate carvings, paintings and sculptures. What is perhaps most interesting is that the cathedral caught on fire in 1257, which gives it a two-toned coloring on the outside...both white and charcoal black. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the tour. For lunch a few girls and I went to a local cafe, Cafe Leopold, to sip hot chocolate and coffee. We also took a brief shopping break at H&M, a favorite European store. The rest of our afternoon included a visit of the KunstHaus Museum. Freidensreich Hundertwasser is an Austrian artist whose reputation and fame is based up his unique style. He is known as saying, “The straight line is godless.” Instead of using straight edges, he based his work off nature, specifically the human body, using shapes, curves, and swirls. I absolutely loved his work and was shocked not to have known about him previously. It was an honor and joy to be able to tour the museum, which he not only designed but which houses his artwork as well. Another aspect to his art is his architecture. In his lifetime he designed several buildings, still using the principle of natural curve and movement. Therefore, many of the floors are uneven and the outside edges rounded out. In addition to Hundertwasser’s work, the upper levels of the museum featured a special exhibit of Sante D’Orazio, an Italian photographer who is known for his photos of celebrities and model. It was ironic in that the advertisements showed Pamela Andersen, who is a famous Malibu local! A few of us ended up visiting D’Orazio exhibition as well which was extremely interesting in that he captured the expressions and personalities of his subjects just perfectly. Overall, this particular afternoon was probably the highlight of our Vienna fieldtrip in my opinion.

Ellen Anne and I
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I spent the rest of the evening, picnicking dinner with Ellen Anne and relaxing in the hotel’s sauna as I was sick. I fell asleep fairly early once again, unable to experience Viennese nightlife.

“The straight line is godless.”