Kahlenberg and Leopoldsberg at Sunset

Yes, this is Vienna! The Kahlenberg (484m) and the Leopoldsberg (425m) are located in the 19th district and part of the Wienerwald (Vienna Woods), a low, wooded section of the Alps in eastern Lower Austria and Vienna. These two mountains are very popular places of Sunday excursions for the Viennese.

Donau City

The construction of the first building of the Donau City, a total area of 17,4 hectares on the banks of the Danube, started in 1995, and as I showed you yesterday the construction of new buildings is still going on. All these apartment and office buildings and research facilities are built on top of panels covering a highway!

Skyscrapers

The works on the Donau City Tower, designed by Dominique Perrault, are advancing speedily (Click here for a photo of the construction site in June 2011). Standing 220m tall, the DC Tower will be Austria´s highest building. The adjacent 100m tall skyscraper "Neue Donau" (the white building in this photo), designed by Harry Seidler and opened in 2002, now looks rather unspectacular.

Lobster Dress

The current exhibition "Reflecting Fashion" at the mumok focuses on clothing and fashion as an essential component of art. One of the exhibits is this "Lobster Dress", designed by the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli in collaboration with the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí in 1937. The dress was famously worn by Wallis Simpson in a series of photographs by Cecil Beaton taken shortly before her marriage to Edward VIII.

Sweet Break

People enjoying frozen yogurt, a popular way to cool down on hot days. I love this store also because of the bright coloured tables and chairs.

Sunday Flowers #46

"To analyze the charms of flowers is like dissecting music; it is one of those things which it is far better to enjoy, than to attempt to fully understand." - Henry T. Tuckerman

Silence

The view from a bridge that I cross during my bicycle tours on the Danube Island. I took this photo last Friday evening when the island was unusually deserted, the air was still and the city and the daily routine seemed to be far away.

Blue, Yellow, Pink

Bright coloured tables and chairs always attract my attention. I discovered this arrangement in front of a high-end furniture store in the city center.

Greenhouse "Bubble"

I have already shown you the bubble-shaped terraces of a new apartment building close to my place last week. One of my readers remarked that these bubbles are the perfect solution for one who wants a greenhouse. Well, one tenant seems to agree...

Millennium Tower at Sunset

The Millennium Tower on the banks of the Danube at sunset yesterday evening - seen on my way home after a bicycle tour on the Danube Island.

Parasols

The white parasols of an Italian restaurant on the top floor of a 4star hotel in the city center stick out against the blue sky. I have never been there, but it´s surely nice to eat up there and enjoy a gorgeous view.

The Future of Fashion?

The current exhibition "Technosensual: where fashion meets technology" at the Quartier 21 presents electronic textiles and wearable technologies created by international haute tech couture designers. The "Circuit Dress" by Nicky Assmann (NL), a wearable instrument based on the principles of circuit bending, plays with the current design trend in which technology is incorporated into fabrics as invisibly and flexibly as possible This dress completely reverses this trend. Twelve coils are incorporated into the dress, each of which is played by connecting them with one another through copper finger plates. In this way new sounds are created. Click here for a video.

Sunday Flowers #45

"The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom." - James Allen

Streetstyle #1: Boy With Suspenders

I love to read streetstyle blogs... At the "History of Fashion" show last week I had the opportunity to finally capture some outstanding outfits myself. This boy attracted my attention with his hair-do, his glasses and the suspenders.

The History of Fashion #3

These girls in their dresses from the 1950s were eagerly waiting for their performance on the catwalk.

The History of Fashion #2

This is what the Greek men have worn according to the fashion spectacle at the MuseumsQuartierWien. The garment may be authentic, but I think the hair-do is a rather stylistic inconsistency.

The History of Fashion #1

The yesterday mentioned event at the MuseumsQuartierWien was a fashion spectacle with almost 200 models showing the history of fashion, starting of course with Adam and Eve.

Event at the MQW

Last wednesday I attended an event at the MuseumsQuartierWien. It was a balmy summer evening, the entry was free, the audience was very large... Tomorrow I will tell you which kind of event it was. In the meantime I´m looking forward to your guesses.

"Bubbles"

Very close to the area I´m living in there is a lot of construction activity going on. Some days ago I discovered this new apartment building with interesting bubbles on the first floor - modern terraces. I like them for their futuristic look, but I´m wondering if they are not heating up too much in summer and I´m not sure if I would like to sit there, being exposed to the eyes of all the neighbours and passers-by.

Sunday Flowers #44

"Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile, some have a sad expression, some are pensive and diffident, others again are plain, honest and upright." - Henry Ward Beecher

Fashion Depot #3

The fashion depot of the Wien Museum comprises not only garments but also the corresponding accessoires, for example hand fans. They were not only beautiful accessoires but also used in a more or less secret, unspoken code of messages. These fan languages were a way to cope with the restricting social etiquette in the 18th and 19th century. Click here for a short vocabulary.

Fashion Depot #2

The textile restorer showed us exemplary garments of different periods. There were soooo many beautiful items!

Fashion Depot #1

This is not my wardrobe, but an insight in the fashion depot of the Wien Museum. Usually it is not open to the public but I recently was the lucky winner of a guided tour through the depot  - a very restricted place, we were told to  keep the address secret and to not photograph the outside of the building (Interestingly inside it was allowed to take photos). The depot comprises more than 22.000 items, the main focus is on women´s fashion of the 19th and 20th century.

Façade Detail #15

An atlas at the Caprara-Geymüller Palace in the city center. Constructed around 1698 by an Italian architect, this building is one of the oldest baroque palaces in Vienna.

The Danube Canal

The Danube Canal is a former arm of the river Danube, now regulated as a water channel. It is 17,3 km long and borders the city center. The paths on both sides of the Danube Canal are regularly used by joggers, cyclists and skaters. In this photo you can see the excursion boat MS Vindobona, the "Badeschiff", a floating swimming pool, and the Urania.

Closed on Sundays

My favourite square in the second district is not very spectacular, but to my mind it has a very Parisian atmosphere. Recently it was innervated by the opening of two restaurants (neither of them is French). Yesterday I went there to take a picture of people enjoying their dinner on the square but both restaurants were closed. So here you have only the chairs and benches of one of them...

Sunday Flowers #43

"Don't send me flowers when I'm dead. If you like me, send them while I'm alive." - Brian Clough

New Collections

It still feels like midsummer but the new collections have already arrived to the stores and the shop windows... Is it only me who doesn´t want to see what we will wear in some weeks?

Shades of Green

The well hidden outdoor area of a French bistro that I have already mentioned here, here and here is a perfect place for lunch on a hot summer day. I love the different shades of green of the tables and chairs.

Reflections #21

The United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV) reflected in another office building. The UNOV was established on 1 January 1980 as the third United Nations Headquarters after New York and Geneva, it performs representation and liaison functions with permanent missions to the United Nations (Vienna), the host Government and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations in Vienna.

August Theme Day: Numbers

The multimedia installation "Pi" by Canadian artist Ken Lum in the Opernpassage, opened in December 2006, consists of a presentation of π with 478 decimal places as well as 16  display cases that convey a variety of statistical data in real time. This photo shows the the number of lovers in Vienna this very morning.