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The Greek Renaissance

Theophil Hansen (1813–1891) went to work enthusiastically. Competition with the Court Opera gave wings to his imagination and fortified him on his way towards a new style, “Strict Historicism”. In contrast to the architects of the earlier Romantic Historicism, including Sicardsburg and van der Nüll, he studied the architecture of the High Renaissance. Consequently he went further and let himself be led back from the “Neo Renaissance” to classical antiquity.

Here, Hansen was literally at home since before the Danish-born architect came to Vienna he had studied in Athens for eight years and also worked there as an architect. His stay in Athens had a profound impact on him. Inspired by Ancient Greece, Hansen became the advocate of, as he liked to call it himself, a “Greek Renaissance”. Hansen’s love of Greece can be seen every step of the way in the Musikverein building.

The caryatids in the main concert hall, the Ionic columns and the temple roof in the Brahms-Saal, Apollo and the Muses as the focal point on the ceiling of the main concert hall and Orpheus on the pediment of the front facade – these are all reminiscences of Greece like the colour of the building, a consummate example of classical polychrome.

Hansen created a truly classical atmosphere for the performance of “classical works”. The music lovers could be proud of their new building. In 1870, three years after construction was begun, they were in joyous mood as they formulated the document for the laying of the keystone: “This building is, and should remain, dedicated to the learning and mastery of the art of music: a work of art in itself, a home of music, a credit to the city and the empire.”