The Austrian Postal Savings Bank building (, ) is a famous building in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, designed and built by the architect Otto Wagner. The building is regarded as an important work of the

Vienna Secession The Vienna Secession (; also known as the Union of Austrian Artists or ) is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian painters, graphic artists, sculptors and architects, including Josef Ho ...

movement, a branch of

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

. It was constructed between 1904 and 1906 using then completely new

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ...

, and was opened on 17 December 1906. An extension was added between 1910 and 1912. The building houses the headquarters of the BAWAG P.S.K. bank, formerly the

Österreichische Postsparkasse Österreichische Postsparkasse (, , abbr. P.S.K.) was a postal savings systems, postal savings bank in Austria. It was owned by the Österreichische Post, Austrian Post Office and thus by the government. It merged on 1 October 2005 with the ...

(P.S.K.) bank before its merger with BAWAG in 2005. It is located at Georg-Coch-Platz 2, in the first district

Innere Stadt The Innere Stadt (; ; "Inner City") is the 1st municipal Districts of Vienna, district of Vienna () located in the center of the Austrian capital. The Innere Stadt is the old town of Vienna. Until the city boundaries were expanded in 1850, the I ...

, next to the Ringstrasse boulevard.

Exterior

Up to eight stories high, the building occupies an entire

city block A city block, residential block, urban block, or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. In a city with a grid system, the block is the smallest group of buildings that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are th ...

. The

façade A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...

is covered with square marble slabs and aluminium applications reminiscent of a money storage. Granite slabs are attached to the lower and upper levels. The rivets with which the marble cladding seems to be fixed to the wall are purely ornamental and articulate the facade. For a long time, it was believed that approximately 10 cm thick plates are kept in place solely by plaster, implying the iron bolts had no supporting function and were merely decorative "dummy nails." However, material analysis has revealed that these bolts were, in fact, "''the means by which the thin marble slabs were secured over a bed of mortar''". The use of marble makes the maintenance and cleaning of the façade very easy and inexpensive, important functional element in Wagner's design. Wagner greatly valued the aluminium, material perfected by Austrian chemist Carl Josef Bayer for industrial production. He used the material not only for the rivets, but also for other decorative elements on the outside and inside of the building, such as the

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

columns and the central heating fans. The 4.3 meters high sculptures, for the first time made of cast aluminium and located on the

attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

of the building are work of Wagner long time collaborator Othmar Schimkowitz. The glass windows are partly a work of Leopold Forstner.

Interior

Postsparkasse Otto Wagner Beamtenstiege 2

Through the main entrance at Georg-Coch-Platz the visitor ascends a flight of stairs to the grand ''Kassenhalle'', where customer services are located. The main hall is thus effectively on the first floor. The hall is designed like an atrium, with a large glass

skylight A skylight (sometimes called a rooflight) is a light-permitting structure or window, usually made of transparent or translucent glass, that forms all or part of the roof space of a building for daylighting and ventilation purposes. History O ...

allowing natural light to enter the heart of the building at all times. Natural light is not used only for stylistic reasons, but also to reduce the cost of electric lighting. Even the floor of the main hall is constructed of glass tiles, allowing natural light to reach further down to the floor below, where the

Post Office box A post office box (commonly abbreviated as P.O. box, or also known as a postal box) is a uniquely addressable lockable box located on the premises of a post office. In some regions, particularly in Africa, there is no door-to-door delivery ...

es and mail sorting rooms are located. Wagner kept decoration in the main hall minimal, using only glass and polished steel as materials. The decorative effect is created by the simple but elegant use of the material itself. The

frosted glass Frosted glass is produced by the sandblasting or acid Glass etching, etching of clear sheet glass. This creates a pitted surface on one side of the glass pane and has the effect of rendering the glass translucent by scattering the light which ...

skylight is pierced by steel

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

s, their slim design making them as unobstructive to the falling light as possible. The hall is one of Otto Wagner's famous works, and one of the finest examples of the Viennese Secession. The building's office space is divided according to the axis of the outside windows, again making use of natural light as much as possible. The interior walls are non-load-bearing, and can therefore be re-arranged according to need, a feature that has become standard in modern office buildings.

Current state

Spared any damage during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the building is still in its original state and since 2005 includes a museum devoted to its creator, Otto Wagner.

References

Literature

* Otto Wagner. ''Die österreichische Postsparkasse''. Falter Verlag, Wien. 1996. * Carl E. Schorske. '' Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture''. Vintage, London. 1980. * Willis, H. Parker (1897).
The Austrian Postal Savings-Bank
. ''Journal of Political Economy''. 5 (4): 505–506.

External links

* ttp://www.psk.at/ow_tour/ Virtual tour through the building {{Vienna Secession Art Nouveau architecture in Vienna Commercial buildings completed in 1906 Buildings and structures in Innere Stadt Art Nouveau commercial buildings Bank buildings in Austria Otto Wagner buildings 1906 establishments in Austria Postal savings system 20th-century architecture in Austria