Kirche am Steinhof

Interesting facts

Archduke Franz Ferdinand disliked Wagner's style so much that he refused to acknowledge the architect at the opening and never gave him another commission.

A Viennese newspaper reviewing the opening remarked on the irony that the first sensible Secession building in the city had been built for the insane.

Instead of stoups of still holy water, the entrance had continuously flowing water, a hygienic measure for a hospital church.

The dome cannot be seen from inside: a lower ceiling hides it, yet the nave still has a reverberation of about six seconds.

Among the saints in the altar mosaic is Dymphna, patron of people with mental illness, chosen for a congregation of psychiatric patients.

The pulpit can be reached only from the vestry, and there are almost no visible crosses or sharp edges anywhere in the church.

Wagner also planned a Protestant chapel beneath the church and a synagogue for the hospital, but they were never built for lack of money.

Contemporaries compared the building to the tomb of an Indian maharaja.

During the restoration completed in 2006 the dome was regilded with about 2 kilograms of gold leaf only a hundredth of a millimetre thick.

Unusually, the church is aligned north to south rather than east to west, placed at the head of the hospital's symmetrical layout.

Why it is worth it

On a hilltop above the western edge of Vienna, a white marble church with a copper-and-gold dome crowns the grounds of a psychiatric hospital. The Kirche am Steinhof, dedicated to St. Leopold, is Otto Wagner's masterpiece and one of the most important Art Nouveau churches anywhere. Wagner was in his sixties when work began in 1903; the church was completed in 1907 and opened that October in the presence of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Wagner treated the building as a piece of modern engineering as much as a sanctuary. The facade is clad in some 3,000 thin plates of Carrara marble, and the dome is copper with gilded decoration. The leading artists of the Vienna Secession worked on it: Koloman Moser designed the stained-glass windows, executed by Leopold Forstner, Othmar Schimkowitz made the angels over the entrance, and Richard Luksch carved the statues of the saints Leopold and Severin on the twin towers. The interior is bright and white, with gold accents and a large mosaic by Forstner above the high altar.

Everything about the church was shaped by the people it was meant for, the patients of the Steinhof asylum. The floor slopes gently towards the altar so that everyone can see, corners are rounded and sharp edges avoided, materials were chosen to be easily cleaned, and there were separate entrances for men and women along with side exits so that staff could lead a patient out quietly. The pews vary in width for different groups of patients. About 800 people could be seated.

The church stands at the top of the hospital's terraced, symmetrical grounds in Penzing, Vienna's fourteenth district, where the city gives way to the wooded hills of the Wienerwald. From the terrace in front of it there are wide views back over the city.

Getting there

The church lies in the Steinhof hospital grounds in Penzing, about 1.5 km from the district centre and on the western side of Vienna. Vienna International Airport (VIE) is about 24 km to the south-east. The hospital grounds are reached by city bus.

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Kirche am Steinhof

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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