Secession Building

Why go

The Secession building at Friedrichstraße 12 is run by the artists' association Vereinigung bildender Künstler*innen Wiener Secession, which calls itself 'artist-run since 1897'. Its building page (in German) says the association commissioned the architect Joseph Maria Olbrich, then working in Otto Wagner's studio, that the foundation stone was laid on 28 April 1898 and the building completed on 29 October 1898, and that the dome is covered with 2,500 gilded laurel leaves. The house shows changing exhibitions of contemporary art, and Gustav Klimt's Beethoven Frieze, made for the association's 14th exhibition in 1902, is shown permanently in the second basement level; the Secession says the frieze has been there since 1986 on loan from the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. Its information page says that while the contemporary exhibitions are being changed over only the Beethoven Frieze can be seen, and that tickets can be bought online. This record is the building and its exhibitions, not the association or the art movement.