Secession Building
Jugendstil exhibition hall of 1898 with a gilded laurel dome and Klimt's Beethoven Frieze.
The Secession Building was put up in 1897–98 to designs by Joseph Maria Olbrich for the group of artists who had broken away from the conservative Künstlerhaus the year before. Its cubic white masses, sparse ornament and openwork dome of gilded laurel leaves, nicknamed the golden cabbage, made it a manifesto for the new Viennese art. Above the entrance runs the motto attributed to the critic Ludwig Hevesi: to every age its art, to art its freedom.
The association remains artist-run and uses the building solely for temporary exhibitions of contemporary art, chosen by its members rather than by a curatorial director. The one permanent work is Gustav Klimt's Beethoven Frieze of 1902, painted for the fourteenth Secession exhibition and displayed in a purpose-built basement room since 1986. The building was damaged in 1945 and again by fire, and has been repeatedly restored, most visibly in the 1980s.
Highlights
- Manifesto building of Viennese Jugendstil, opened in 1898
- Openwork dome of 3,000 gilded laurel leaves
- Gustav Klimt's Beethoven Frieze shown in the basement
- Still run by its artist members, showing only contemporary art
![Afrique occidentale française : Cathédrale à St Louis / [photogr. Eugène] Gallois ; [photogr. reprod. par Radiguet et Massiot pour la conférence donnée par] Gallois](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Afrique_occidentale_fran%C3%A7aise_-_Cath%C3%A9drale_%C3%A0_St_Louis_-_%28photogr._Eug%C3%A8ne%29_Gallois_%3B_%28photogr._reprod._par_Radiguet_et_Massiot_pour_la_conf%C3%A9rence_donn%C3%A9e_par%29_Gallois_-_btv1b532798828.jpg/500px-thumbnail.jpg)
![[Golestan, Le Salon et Fete de l'equinode, Teheran, Iran (le Pavillion du Trone)]](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/-Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg/500px--Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg)
![Théâtre de la guerre dans l'Inde sur la coste de Coromandel / par M.B.C.T. [Monsieur Bourcet Capitaine ?] ; gravé par Croisey](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg/500px-Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg)
