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Urania, Vienna

1910 establishments in Austria20th-century architecture in AustriaArt Nouveau architecture in ViennaArt Nouveau educational buildingsAstronomical observatories in Austria
Austrian building and structure stubsBuildings and structures completed in 1910Buildings and structures in Innere StadtEducation in ViennaEuropean school stubsMax Fabiani buildingsScience and technology in Austria
Urania 3904 Christian Michelides
Urania 3904 Christian Michelides

Urania is a public educational institute and observatory in Vienna, Austria. Urania Observatory (German: Urania Sternwarte) was built in 1909 according to the plans of Art Nouveau style architect Max Fabiani (a student of Otto Wagner) at the outlet of the Wien River and was opened in 1910 by Franz Joseph I of Austria as an educational facility with a public observatory. It was named after the Muse Urania who represents Astronomy. During World War II, the Urania was severely damaged and the dome with the observatory was destroyed. After its reconstruction, it was reopened in 1957. The observatory itself has been continually improved technically over the years. Though it now serves different functions, the Urania continues to be a public observatory. Presently the Urania also has seminar rooms in which wide-ranging classes and lectures are given, a movie theater that screens at the annual Viennale movie festival and a puppet theater created originally by actor Hans Kraus. The Urania moreover contains a memorial room for the Kindertransport organized by the Dutch resistance fighter and humanitarian Mrs Gertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer, who early December 1938 managed to rescue the first 600 Jewish children from Vienna after direct negotiations in Vienna with Adolf Eichmann. It also hosts a restaurant, and is the oldest public observatory in Austria. The highly awarded Austrian writer Carl Julius Haidvogel once worked there as an editor.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Urania, Vienna (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Urania, Vienna
Wolfgang-Schmitz-Promenade, Vienna Innere Stadt

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Latitude Longitude
N 48.211666666667 ° E 16.383611111111 °
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Wolfgang-Schmitz-Promenade (Rotenturmufer)

Wolfgang-Schmitz-Promenade
1010 Vienna, Innere Stadt
Austria
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Urania 3904 Christian Michelides
Urania 3904 Christian Michelides
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Carltheater
Carltheater

The Carltheater was a theatre in Vienna. It was in the suburbs in Leopoldstadt at Praterstraße 31 (at that time called Jägerzeile). It was the successor to the Leopoldstädter Theater. After a series of financial difficulties, that theater had been sold in 1838 to the director, Carl Carl, who continued to run it in parallel to his Theater an der Wien until 1845. Two years later, the building was partially demolished and rebuilt following the plans of architects August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll, who would later design the Vienna State Opera. The theatre was opened under the name Carltheater in the same year, 1847. Many Alt-Wiener Volkstheater pieces by Johann Nepomuk Nestroy premiered here; between 1854 and 1860, Nestroy was the director of the theatre. In subsequent years, many well-known Viennese playwrights wrote pieces for the Carltheater and reinforced its reputation as the favoured opera house for Viennese folk-pieces and operettas. After a rapid changeover of directors in the 20th century, the theatre became unprofitable, and was finally closed in 1929. In 1944, the auditorium of the theatre was almost entirely destroyed in a bomb attack. The artistically valuable facade was, however, still remarkably intact after the war. In 1951 it was demolished, with neighbouring building which had not been damaged in the war. Nowadays, the site is host to the "Galaxy"-building. A few years ago there was a plaque in Praterstraße, marking the former location of the theatre, but this is gone too now.