July 13 is the birthday of Austrian Art Nouveau architect OTTO WAGNER (1841-1918).
Otto Wagner (1841–1918) was a pioneering Austrian architect whose career helped Vienna’s transform from a traditional imperial capital to a hotbed of modern design. Trained in the classical and eclectic traditions that shaped the Ringstrasse, he gradually broke from revivalist styles in the 1890s, becoming a central figure in the Vienna Secession, Austria’s principal expression of Art Nouveau. His major works, from the elegant stations of the Vienna Stadtbahn to the radically spare Postal Savings Bank have a crisp, proto‑modern clarity that influenced generations of European architects.
Perhaps Wagner’s magnum opus is the Church of St. Leopold (1902-1907) (Kirche am Steinhof), built to accompany a large new psychiatric hospital constructed on the edge of Vienna.
