August 20-21

August 20 Thursday

Today began in the slow Viennese fashion to which I had come accustomed. Starting my day a little later than normal as we didn't have to meet until 2 today for our tour I had my regular chai latte at the nearby cafe O'Pal. After sitting for a couple hours I made the 20ish minute walk down to the museum quartier for our tour at the Leopold museum. The Leopold museum was founded in the late 20th century at the behest of the Austrian government when they partnered with the couple Rudolf and Elisabeth Leopold in order to create a permanent home for their collection. With over 5000 pieces in their personal collection it was decided the best investment would be a dedicated museum hall for the storage, preservation, and ultimately the display of the collection. Today the museum holds nearly 9000 pieces of beautiful works including a display dedicated to the Vienna succession movement, one of the main parts of our day there today.

To truly appreciate the modern art of the Leopold, particullar the included Secessionist pieces, one must also appreciate the succession movement. Founded at the turn of the century by a group of artists including Gustav Klimt this group had turned away from the imperial academy for their rigidty and desires to aspire to the work of a single artists more than a century dead at that time. The Leopold museum is also the world's single largest collection of piece's by artist Egon Schiele. All in all the museum in of itself is a work of modern art that elegantly captures the spirit of modernism in Vienna lending credence to the excellence of the modern art movement.

Stamp of Franz I at the Leopold Museum

August 21 Friday

Today was a free day and since my plan is to do our prep for Mauthausen and the UN tomorrow and Monday respectively I decide to use today to indulge in my Viennese routine a little longer than usual spending upwards of four hours on the patio enjoying one Chai than another. With nothing going today I made my way directly from a cafe brunch to the nearby Indian restaurant a group of us have come to love called Bombay. After enjoying masala their I took a couple hours to ride the public transit around the ringstrasse to take in some of the baroque architecture of the ringstrasse era. My favorite buildings are easily the parliament, the national theater, but above all the arsenal of Vienna. One of three structures purpose built in the later 19th century as a series of military fortifactions within the city specifically made to crush public uprisings. Today only two remain, the purpose built museum of the arsenal, (the oldest museum in Vienna) and the Rossauer Kaserne, while the third the Franz-Joseph-Kaserne was demolished as part of Franz Joseph's urbanization plans.

What I truly find fascinating about these massive military structures is that their primary role was not actually defensive, or even really related to warfare at all, their entire focus was to have the Austrian army concentrated in Vienna so that 5-10,000 men could be deployed from the triangular layout of the barracks across the city to anywhere within the city in a matter of minutes. The height of the barracks and the altitudes they were built at also facilitated opitical telegraphy which meant a direct line of communication to further coordinate the rapid deployment of troops and artillery strikes. I mean the simple amount of investments of money and time and research on crushing rebellions is fascinating when much of those resources could have gone to meeting the demands of those people or at least creating appeasement.