Belvedere 21: The Pavilion from Brussels
Why is it significant?
After the gold and marble of the Belvedere, this is a shock, and a good one: a long, flat box of steel and glass floating above the lawn, so transparent that you can see the trees through it. It looks like it belongs to another century. It does.
Key Facts
| Place | Belvedere 21: The Pavilion from Brussels |
|---|---|
| Address | Arsenalstraße 1, 1030 Wien, Austria |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.18580, 16.38380 |
| Part of Walk | Gold, Rebels and The Kiss: Vienna from the Secession to the Belvedere |
| Generated | Generated |
After the gold and marble of the Belvedere, this is a shock, and a good one: a long, flat box of steel and glass floating above the lawn, so transparent that you can see the trees through it. It looks like it belongs to another century. It does.
This building was designed by the Austrian architect Karl Schwanzer as Austria's pavilion for the World Expo of 1958 in Brussels, the fair of the Atomium. It was a small country's way of saying: we are back, modern and open, only three years after the occupation ended. The pavilion was praised, and instead of scrapping it after the fair, Austria took it apart and rebuilt it here, on the edge of the Schweizergarten.
In 1962 it opened as the Museum of the 20th Century, which the Viennese simply called the Zwanzger Haus, the Twenties House. For a city that had lost so many of its artists to exile and murder after 1938, it was a window that opened again: international modern art, new Austrian painting, sculpture and design. Generations of young Viennese saw their first truly contemporary art inside this glass box.
Then the museum moved its main collection elsewhere and the pavilion stood half forgotten for years. After a renovation it reopened in 2011 as the 21er Haus, and in 2018 it took its present name, Belvedere 21, now dedicated to Austrian art from the twentieth century to today. So the walk ends where it began: with artists who refuse to look backwards. The Secession said, to every age its art. This pavilion is that motto, made of glass.
Look around you one last time. Behind you, Prince Eugene's palace of 1723. In front of you, the new towers of the district around the main railway station, Vienna's newest neighbourhood. Between them, three hundred years of the city's taste, from Baroque heroes to Klimt's gold to steel and glass. The main station is a short walk to the south... and the trams to the centre run just outside.