I‘m lucky to live close to one of Vienna’s brutalist icons, Wotrubakirche. It‘s located on the outskirts of Mauer, which is a neighborhood part of one of Vienna‘s largest districts, Liesing.

At home in Mauer, Vienna

Mauer used to be a small, independent village until it joined the city of Vienna in 1938. Today it still seems rather like a small, independent village than being part of a metropole region. It is dominated by private garden properties, villas and single family houses, as well as by parks and „Heuriger“, typically Viennese wine taverns. Those wine taverns sell homemade wine grown in one of the few vineyards also located in the outskirts of Mauer.

A story of Hope and Gratitude

Wotrubakirche is situated on Georgenberg, where Vienna transitions into the woods of Wienerwald. It is a fairly young church and was built between 1974 and 1976 based on designs of famous Austrian sculptor Fritz Wotruba.

The initiative to build the church came from Margarethe Ottillinger, a senior civil servant, who was abducted by Russians into the Soviet Union in 1947. Soviets accused her of espionage for the United States and imprisoned her in Soviet labour camps in Siberia from where she could not be freed until 1955. It was in Siberia, that she took a vow to build a church in Austria, if she’d ever make it back.

And so she did. Upon release from the Soviets and returning to Vienna in the year of the Austrian State Treaty in 1955, she recovered and became an influential person in Austrian society, politics and economy. Under her initiative, a consortium of the Catholic Church, the city government and economy gave Fritz Wotruba the task for a church design.

Wotrubakirche monument – a Brutalist icon consisting of 152 blocks of concrete

Fritz Wotruba came up with a brutalist design. The architectural style evolved in the 1950s in Europe and features minimalist principles as well as open display of building materials and underlying constructions. The term translates to “rough concrete” (béton brut) and describes the style’s preference for rough, untreated materials, especially for concrete.

Wotrubakirche consists of 152 blocks of concrete in varying sizes. Concrete blocks are stacked upon each other almost reminding us of children’s Lego bricks, forming a massive and seemingly heavy structure. But if you walk around the building or walk inside the church, it’s surprisingly transparent and flooded with light.

The massive amounts of concrete blocks and the overall roughness of the building impede with the hope and festive atmosphere of the place.

Fritz Wotruba summarized his work by saying that he “wanted to create something that shows that poverty does not have to be ugly, that renunciation can be in an environment that is beautiful despite its utmost simplicity and also brings happiness.”

Beauty in the Ordinary

I especially love that the building changes its overall appearance depending on weather and light conditions. It’s almost a different building when wet after rainfall, or on a hot and dry day.

To me, it’s fascinating, that a building entirely made of concrete – the epidome of artificial and industrial material – and absolutely abstract in style, fits so perfectly into the surrounding nature. I have walked by Wotrubakirche so many times, when going on a small hike from my home into the Viennese parts of Wienerwald.

If I’d have to select a few of my favorite places in the world, Wotrubakirche and this part of Georgenberg would probably be among them, even though I’m not religious at all.