Theophil Hansen. Architect and Designer. Exhibition celebrating Hansen’s 200th birthday

Opening : Thursday, 19.09.2013, 7 pm, Aula
Welcome address: Andrea B. Braidt, Vice Rector for Art and Research, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Introduction : Cornelia Reiter, interim director of the Graphic Collection, Robert Stalla, chair of art history, Vienna University of Technology

Born and trained as an architect in Copenhagen, grown in maturity as an artist in Athens, and working in Vienna from 1846 on, Theophil Hansen rose to become the decisive architect of the city’s “second society” and the whole Ringstrasse era within only a few years. As a representative of Historism, he influenced the architecture of the period with his stylistic models. The city owes a number of prominent monumental buildings to him, among them the Musikverein Concert Hall, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the Stock Exchange on the Ringstrasse Boulevard, the Museum of Military History in the Arsenal, the Protestant School on Karlsplatz, and the Parliament Building.
The anniversary year and the imminent general refurbishment of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna have provided the opportunity to present Hansen’s plans for the Academy in the context of these buildings in an exhibition realized by the Graphic Collection of the Academy in collaboration with the Art History Department of Vienna’s University of Technology.

Comprising more than 1,300 sheets, which include a lot of 186 designs for the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Theophil Hansen’s estate of drawings constitutes one of the key assets of the Graphic Collection. The insight the lot offers is rounded off by plans from the Archives of the Vienna Parliament, new architectural models, as well as historical photographs documenting Hansen’s buildings in different phases of their construction or shortly after their completion, which are confronted with new photographs in the presentation.