A century later, it still functions as Vienna`s primary public psychiatric institution, known among the Viennese as a rambling complex on the outskirts harboring the disturbing psychiatric legacy of the Nazi period and containing one of Otto Wagner`s major works, his domed church (Fig. The Lower Austrian Provincial Institutions for the Care and Cure of the Mentally and Nervously Ill 'am Steinhof' opened on October 8, 1907, two days after Hevesi`s column was published in the Fremdenblatt. He was spellbound, and Hevesi gratefully reported the astonishment of the Parisian confronted with the accomplishments of a city usually known for its attachment to the past: 'He stared, incredulous: `You`re so far advanced in Vienna?`'2 The intercity train sped by, allowing the Parisian sculptor, an anonymous witness from the center of modern European culture, to absorb the impact of the largest mental hospital on the continent-for that is what this 'white city' was (Fig.

Now the farmland above it had sprouted a 'white city,' itself crowned by a domed church designed by the architectural archmodernist Otto Wagner. Baumgarten, the tiny old village in the hills to the west of Vienna, in the beloved Vienna Woods, had given birth to Gustav Klimt, who would revolutionize the visual arts in Vienna. His anecdote wove together past and future, local and international, the fine arts, technology, and medical science. Thus did Ludwig Hevesi, art critic and advocate of all things modern in Vienna, begin his newspaper column on October 6, 1907. 'That, I have to see.'-Ludwig Hevesi, 'Otto Wagners moderne Kirche,' 1907(1) 'That is something very special,' said my Frenchman. Crowned by the golden dome of a white marble church. As we approached the outskirts, he suddenly pointed to the view on his left and exclaimed in astonishment: 'What is that?!' There, on the long slope above the tiny village of Baumgarten-Gustav Klimt was born there, an omen of modernity-was a white city, sparkling in the bright summer sun.

A sculptor from Paris was sharing my compartment. A few weeks ago I was returning to Vienna by train from the west.

Farsky design and illustration