Vienna, October 2013

Wien Museum Karlsplatz, Karlsplatz, 1040

THE AUSTRIAN RIVIERA VIENNA DISCOVERS THE SEASIDE

Press conference: Wednesday, 13 November 2013, 10 a.m. Opening: Wednesday, 13 November 2013, 6.30 p.m. Exhibition venue: Wien Museum Karlsplatz, 1040 Vienna Duration: 14 November 2013 – 30 March 2014 Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday and public holidays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Press photos: www.wienmuseum.at/en/press

Some of Wien Museum’s exhibitions of the last few years have focused on "Viennese" places that are located outside the city: There was a show on the Neusiedlersee, eastern Austria's largest lake and the "ocean of the Viennese", and another one on the formerly fashionable lido at Kritzendorf on the river Danube. Now we continue our travels further afield, taking the Südbahn railway southwards for a visit to the Adriatic, where the "Austrian Riviera" was developed for in the 19th century. The region's boom years lasted less than a quarter century, from 1890 to 1914; its centres were Abbazia (today's ), and Grado, as well as seaside cities further south, including Split und Dubrovnik. Tourism meant different things in different destinations: At first, the focus was on the therapeutic benefit of spa cures; journeys of exploration through the region, family holidays and mass tourism came later. The exhibition takes visitors on a round trip, presenting cities and areas as they rose to prominence in the context of tourism development. Among the approximately 450 items on display are previously unpublished photographs of and Dalmatia around 1900, items from the Wien Museum collections (some of them also on public display for the first time), pieces of hotel furniture, contemporary tourism advertising materials and works of art, including pictures by Egon Schiele, Rudolf von Alt and Albin Egger-Lienz. Many museums around the Adriatic (Trieste, Rijeka, Split, Opatija, to name but a few) have kindly loaned items from their collections for this exhibition.

The beginnings: patients and treatments

Historic picture postcards from the "Austrian Riviera" may trigger nostalgic associations today, but the beginnings of tourism infrastructure had a sombre background. The earliest visitors from Austria were sick or ailing people who came hoping for the curative and reviving effects of sea air and salt water. Apart from the small group of the wealthy who could afford a trip to a spa, the majority of patients at first were small children suffering from tuberculosis – from about 1870 onwards, they were sent to stay in seaside hospices, usually set apart from local settlements. An extensive medical infrastructure then evolved around the core group of patients that constituted the first clientele of the health resorts, and the term "Riviera" probably began to be used in the context of health tourism as well. Meteorological measurements had shown that the region's climate resembles that of the . The common topographical features of the two regions are steep cliffs along the coastline, climate-regulating forests, evergreen shrubs and exotic plants, such as eucalyptus and mimosas.

Used at first to advertise trips to the area around Abbazia/Opatija only, the term "Austrian Riviera" was soon extended to suit the marketing purposes of the Austrian Lloyd and other tour operators. At the Paris World Exposition of 1900, the entire region down to Dubrovnik (Ragusa) in the south was promoted under this heading, and the Österreichische Riviera-Zeitung ("Austrian Riviera Newspaper"), first published in 1904, also subsumed the flat and sandy beaches of Grado in the north under the term. Tourism development focused on the seaside towns and cities, while the hinterland was seen exclusively as a source of supplies. Austrian investors brought architects and head waiters with them, the menus featured Austrian cuisine, and the resorts' orchestras played waltzes. "Spa commissions" or "improvement associations" often assumed responsibility for communal functions such as street cleaning and public lighting, making tourism centres relatively autonomous.

Nobility in Abbazia, families in Grado

Abbazia is a prime example of how tourism development was planned and driven from Vienna. In 1889, it was the first town of the Austrian Littoral on which Emperor Franz Joseph I conferred the official status of a health spa. Like many other places in the region, Abbazia benefited from the construction of a rail link between Vienna and Rijeka which passed nearby. The Southern Railway Company (Südbahn) under director Julius Schüler was a major player in Abbazia's development, following up its earlier investments in the Semmering region with huge injections of capital on the Adriatic. The classicist hotels, promenades and parks of the posh resort attracted members of the royal family, nobility from all over Europe and other wealthy patrons.

But there were also less glamorous towns where more modest guest-houses – albeit with grand names – tried to woo visitors. A more differentiated tourism market evolved: while Abbazia was best known as a winter health resort, Grado's flat and sandy beaches turned it into a summer holiday destination for families.

A special case was that of the island of Brioni (today's ). Formerly deemed uninhabitable because of endemic malaria, the island was bought by industrialist Paul Kupelwieser who converted it into a holiday resort for an affluent clientele. Kupelwieser built hotels and an underwater freshwater pipeline from the mainland, imported exotic plants and animals (including monkeys, antelopes and flamingos) and offered visitors excellent sports facilities (tennis, sailing, etc.) plus a wealth of other recreational pursuits.

From homeland to foreign parts

Travelling south along the coast, one could feel Austrian influence recede (except for major cities, such as Split/Spalato or Dubrovnik/Ragusa), and the perspectives of visitors changed likewise. Travellers in Dalmatia saw themselves as explorers in search of vestiges of antiquity and Byzantine relics, they enjoyed the untamed natural environment and the exoticism of it all. One tourist guidebook praised the "peculiar population in whose veins flows Greek, Roman, Slav and Ottoman blood and which is therefore one of the most interesting nations on this globe". Ethnographers, art historians and archaeologists conducted in-depth research, and interested lay persons followed in their footsteps. However, their journeys were not always free of irritations – complaints about the unfamiliar food, less- than-comfortable lodgings and allegedly hostile locals were quite frequent. "To take up permanent residence here would not occur to any one of all those lovers of this country, unless he were forced to stay put," noted Katharina von Bukowska von Stolzenburg, wife of a geologist, in her diary. Rising political tensions could not be ignored, either. When Vienna's Mayor Karl Lueger led a delegation on a visit to Spalato/Split in 1909, they were booed by demonstrators – allegedly "foreign elements, outsiders", according to Lueger's embarrassed local counterpart, Mayor Vicko Mihaljević. "Overall, city dwellers' relationships with the coast and its towns and cities remained fragile, distant and contradictory," say the curators of the Wien Museum exhibition, Nadia Rapp-Wimberger and Christian Rapp: "Interestingly, the most lasting relationships developed in an area where they were simultaneously the most volatile and superficial – in tourism."

Before ended the era of the Austrian Riviera, it was showcased one last time in a grand Adriatic Exhibition which took place at the Prater in Vienna in 1913. A 40-metre model campanile and the narrow streets of Abbazia were recreated for the theme park, an artificial lake added seaside atmosphere, and visitors could dine in a holiday-like environment aboard a replica steamship. Open from May to October, the exhibition was seen by more than two million visitors, despite many rainy days. The story of this colossal project, a remarkable final chapter in the multi-faceted relationship between Vienna and the South, concludes the round trip through the exhibition.

"In recent years, people have increasingly been picking up traces and reconnecting with traditional knowledge, and cultural historians are also taking a renewed interest in the region, both in Austria and in . So our exhibition stands on a broad foundation of up-to-date research," says Wien Museum Director Wolfgang Kos, who underlines the wide thematic range of the exhibition and catalogue (published by Czernin Verlag), including "the importance of military and political domination, the development of transport in the northern Adriatic and the decisive role of medicine in promoting health resorts such as Abbazia; it presents artists' new perspectives on the region and ethnographers' journeys of exploration into one of the poorest regions of the ."

The exhibition will be accompanied by a 300-page catalogue, published by Czernin Verlag, and a programme of events which includes an "urban expedition" and guided tours, as well as lectures on many of the exhibition's themes, including "The art of living and building on the Adriatic" (Boris Podrecca), the imperial grand hotels (Desirée Vasko-Juhász), Modernist architecture in Yugoslavia (Michael Zinganel / Marko Lulić) and "The Empire of Paul Kupelwieser on Brioni" (with Hans Kupelwieser and others).

Vienna, October 2013

Wien Museum Karlsplatz, Karlsplatz, 1040 Vienna

THE AUSTRIAN RIVIERA VIENNA DISCOVERS THE SEASIDE

Press conference: Wednesday, 13 November 2013, 10 a.m. Opening: Wednesday, 13 November 2013, 6.30 p.m. Exhibition venue: Wien Museum Karlsplatz, 1040 Vienna Duration: 14 November 2013 – 30 March 2014 Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday and public holidays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Press photos: www.wienmuseum.at/en/press

Admission: Adults: EUR 8 / reduced EUR 6 Children and young people up to age 19 – free entry! Every first Sunday of the month for all visitors – free entry!

Visitor Information: Tel. (+43 1) 505 87 47-85173, www.wienmuseum.at; e-mail: [email protected]

Guided tours: Sunday and public holidays, 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Booking for groups: Tel (+43 1) 505 87 47- 85180

Idea / project development: Christian Rapp, Nadia Rapp-Wimberger

Curators: Christian Rapp, Nadia Rapp-Wimberger, Astrid Göttche Alexandra Hönigmann-Tempelmayr, Wien Museum

Exhibition design: Polar÷

Graphic art (exhibition): Larissa Cerny

Graphic art (catalogue): Haller & Haller

English translation: Vera Ribarich, Angela Parker

Catalogue: Österreichische Riviera. Wien entdeckt das Meer, Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2013, 304 pages, EUR 29

Main sponsor: Wiener Stadtwerke (Vienna Public Utilities)

Exhibition sponsor: Hotel Miramar**** Opatija

Press: Peter Stuiber, Wien Museum Tel (+43 1) 505 87 47 - 84019, Fax (+43 1) 505 87 47 - 7201 e-mail: [email protected]

Barbara Wieser, Wien Museum Tel (+43 1) 505 87 47 - 84068, Fax (+43 1) 505 87 47 - 7201 e-mail: [email protected]

www.wienmuseum.at