Johannes Sachslehner / Robert Bouchal
VIENNA VILLAS
AND YOUR SECRETS
224 pages, Styria Publishing House, 2023
The topography of Vienna apparently represents an inexhaustible field for Viennensia researchers and authors. Addresses have been traced down to the last alley to find out their stories and residents. It goes without saying that this kind of thing has to be particularly profitable for villas, because there is usually a lot of money behind it – and correspondingly well-known people.
Villas are indeed a very beautiful thing, and if they also have secrets, all the better. This is what the book by author Johannes Sachslehner and photographer Robert Bouchal promises – and fully fulfills this requirement. 14 Viennese locations are presented, they are architectural history with some famous creators, but much more than that, namely the fate of people.
Villas are usually hidden behind fences and hedges and are not generally accessible museums (except for the last object in the book, the so-called “Otto Wagner Villa”), so their isolation is a given. However, the authors, who do careful research, apparently managed to visit many of the houses with the permission of the current owners.
The names alone often make you curious because they require explanation – Villa Blaimschein, Villa Dollarprinzessin, Villa Forster, Villa Wassermann, Villa Rittershausen. Although you could imagine something with the “Dollar Princess” if you remember Leo Fall’s operettas, and with Wassermann too, Jakob Wassermann lived in Vienna for a long time and was successful enough as a writer to be able to afford a villa…
You can’t list everything the authors found, but let’s stick with Villa Wassermann, whose architect was as famous as its resident – Oskar Strnad gave the writer his spacious house in the Grinzing vineyards, which, to a certain extent, replaced historicist pomp with airiness . (A photo from half a bird’s eye view conveys the atmosphere.)
However, the chapter is titled: “The House That Brings No Happiness.” As is so often the case, Arthur Schnitzler’s diary is an eyewitness to what happened around him – in 1901, Jakob Wassermann married Julie Speyer, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, a beautiful young girl (as a photo proves). But the relationship, which resulted in four children, soon became unhappy – Wassermann was not particular about fidelity (however, his lover Stephi Bachrach was not a “relative of Schnitzler”, as the author claims), and Julie suffered badly from it.
A house for the family was intended to calm the situation, and Rothschild friends helped with the financing. A property was found in the Kaasgraben, just next to the vineyards. And Oskar Strnad actually conjured up something unusual around a central hall and interesting staircase constructions – “beautiful, cheerful, homely,” as Wassermann thought. In fact – as photos show – the house exudes a lot of that easy charm that also characterized Strnad’s set and costume designs. They moved in in 1915, soon afterwards the fourth child was born, everything could have been good…
But there is a marital tragedy to tell, in fact Wassermann found the villa to be a “prison”. There is to be told about an ambitious woman named Martha Stross, herself a writer, who (although married herself) took it into her head to get Wassermann from his to get away from her family, which she managed to do in 1919. The two moved to Altaussee, and a real war of the roses developed with Julie until their divorce in 1926. Both women wrote about their experiences with Aquarius and didn’t say anything good about their rival – it was one of the saddest, dirtiest relationship stories of the time, and nothing could save the beautiful villa. It was auctioned in 1934, the year Wassermann died. After the following owners, the house stood empty and was in danger of falling into disrepair until it was listed as a historical monument…
Not every story is so dramatic, but at least there are many celebrities in the villa dance. The one who bought “Royalty Croesus” Leo Fall on Hietzing was nicknamed “Villa Dollar Princess”. “The Rosen House” at Türkenschanzpark is connected to the Jewish Familia Schapira (the author can refute the claim that the villa belonged to Maria Jeritza). The Villa Gutmann in Colloredo Alley belonged to a man who was known as the “Coal King” (where the author can then tell one of the great success stories of the monarchy, which, however, did not end well for the Jewish owners).
The Villa Forster in Ober-St.-Veit, built by the famous architects Fellner & Helmer, who famously covered the whole of Europe with their distinctive theater buildings, is considered “the house with an observatory”. It belonged to the owners of the company “Lenoir & Forstee”, which was one of the leading educational institutions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The famous Ringstrasse architect built Villa Ferstel for himself (“a house like a castle”). The Villa Blaimschein on Lainzer Straße, now the Embassy of Iran (apparently you weren’t allowed to take photos in there), tells a piece of Austrian history, and also Villa Blum, Villa Alois Brunner, Villa Beer, Villa Bujatti, Villa Angerer , the Villa Schirach and even the justly famous Villa Otto Wagner, there is a lot to tell.
Once again, author Johannes Sachslehner has (as he has done so often) opened up a piece of Viennese cultural history and filled it with excellent and abundant historical images. But it’s Robert Bouchal’s photos that actually make the book special. If you can’t see the houses yourself, you can at least get very vivid impressions of them – in writing and pictures.
Renate Wagner
2023-09-29 22:58:55
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