Otto Wagner

Otto Wagner (1841-1918) was an Austrian architect, born in Penzing, now part of Vienna. He studied at the Vienna Polytechnic, the Royal Academy of Architecture in Berlin and the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, and for decades designed buildings in historical styles. In 1894 he became professor of architecture at the Vienna Academy, where his students included Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich and Jože Plečnik. His 1896 book Moderne Architektur argued that "only that which is practical can be beautiful."

From 1894 to 1901 he designed the stations, bridges and viaducts of the Vienna Stadtbahn, the city railway. The two Karlsplatz station pavilions have steel frames filled with thin marble panels and painted sunflower ornament. His apartment buildings on the Linke Wienzeile (1898-1899) include the Majolikahaus, whose facade is covered in glazed ceramic tiles with a flower pattern. He was a member of the Vienna Secession until 1905.

The Austrian Postal Savings Bank in Vienna (1904-1906) is faced with thin slabs of marble and granite held by bolts with aluminum caps left visible on the facade. Aluminum is also used for the entrance columns and the warm-air vents of its banking hall, which has a glass roof and a floor of glass blocks that lets daylight into the level below. His Church of St. Leopold am Steinhof (1903-1907), built for a psychiatric hospital, has a gilded dome.