Origami in Heldenberg

architects Peter Ebner, Franziska Ullmann
project The Heldenberg Museum, Klein Wetzdorf, Heldenberg, Austria
written by Roman Höllbacher

 

In Kleinwetzdorf, in Lower Austria, a half hour’s drive from Vienna, there is an unusual monument to be found. A monumental landscape, which one parvenu who got rich as a purveyor to the Imperial and Royal Army, built from the perspective of 19th century patriotism, or something that is implied by that notion. This private initiative is a kind of Kakanian Valhalla, dilettante-like in its idea, and attractive for this reason, lacking the beat of the parade ground march which usually accompanies such constructed epic poems. In the case of Heldenberg, it is about a monumental area which could only have come into existence in the 19th century – and without being grandiloquent, only in multinational Austria.