The Savings Bank Hall
1906 · Postal Savings Banking Hall · Work 731 of 1,871
The new banking hall of a postal savings bank in Vienna in 1906, a three-aisled hall under a vaulted ceiling of milk-white glass panes, two rows of slender white pillars tapering towards the floor, the pale grey floor crossed by long strips of square glass blocks, along the side wall warm-air columns of matt silver aluminium, each a smooth tube about two and a half metres tall with a ring of louvres near the top, counters of black-stained wood, on the nearest counter ledge a closed booklet in plain grey cloth, a woman in a hat and fur collar seen from behind, shadowless winter daylight from above.
- What it was used for
- The great banking hall of the Austrian Postal Savings Bank on Georg-Coch-Platz in Vienna was the counter room of an institution for small savers. Otto Wagner set it as a three-aisled hall inside a courtyard: a glass floor, above it a suspended steel-and-glass ceiling, and behind it the small banking hall. It was built in 2 phases, 1904 to 1906 and 1910 to 1912; the plan is pentagonal with 5 courtyards. Wagner designed the fittings too, down to the hot-air blowers of the heating system that stand free in the hall. According to Austria-Forum the building served as a bank until 2017.
- What was new
- What was new was the material, and that it was shown. Aluminium, then new as a building material, carries - according to wien.info and vielfaltdermoderne.de - the canopy, the roof figures, the door fittings, the hot-air blowers in the hall and the heads of the studs that fix the white marble slabs, only 2 cm thick: the fastening became the view. In the competition, some 20 years after the savings bank was founded in 1883, there were 32 entrants; the jury chose Wagner by 10 votes to 2. The barb is in the furniture: Austria-Forum records Thonet chairs made in different versions according to rank in the hierarchy. The house built for small sums sorted its own officials right down to the seating.