The Association of Fine Artists Vienna Secession, founded in 1897, sought to create and promote modern art and to present this art in a new way and in a new context. When planning their own exhibition hall, the Secessionists commissioned the 30-year-old architect Joseph Maria Olbrich, then working at Otto Wagner’s firm. His building would later become a key work of Vienna art nouveau, thus marking a turning point when the historicism that shaped the Ring was becoming unfashionably outdated.

Joseph Maria Olbrich developed the building in ten months of planning, repeatedly adapting it to changed conditions, revising and refining his designs. The original site was a plot on the Ringstrasse at the corner of Wollzeile. The radically modern formal language triggered violent protests and controversies in the city council, including the accusation that building would “disfigure the Ring“. Finally, they agreed upon an alternative building site, less prominent, on Wienzeile.

The presentation shows the well-documented history of the building with sketches and detailed plans by Joseph Maria Olbrich as well as historical postcards and documents from Secession’s archive alongside the Beethoven Frieze by Gustav Klimt.