the two faces of old houses
During my forays through the city, one detail of Vienna’s many beautiful old houses in particular aroused my interest: the contrast between the presence and absence of ornaments and decorative stucco. You don’t notice them immediately, but if you walk through the streets with open eyes, you will find them, the unequal pairs of buildings.
The houses, often closely related, share a different fate: one with a sleek, unfussy facade sits side by side with a lavishly decorated and magnificently stuccoed building. Sometimes even one and the same house has two faces. You can get a pretty good idea of the past splendor of these bare houses if you only have to look at the neighbors. And yet they are the ones who tell the more remarkable stories.
This photo series was published in the magazine “Zoll+ Landschaft und Freiraum” 2020. More information can be found at https://zollplus.org/
If you stumble upon such buildings, I’d love to know where they are! Please contact me!
