Postsparkasse (Post Office Savings Bank)

Postsparkasse (Post Office Savings Bank) Review

One of modern architecture's greatest curiosities, the Post Office Savings Bank was designed in 1904 by Otto Wagner, whom many consider the father of 20th-century architecture. In his manifesto Modern Architecture, he condemned 19th-century revivalist architecture and pleaded for a modern style that honestly expressed modern building methods. Accordingly, the exterior walls of the Post Office Savings Bank are mostly flat and undecorated; visual interest is supplied merely by varying the pattern of the bolts used to hold the marble slabs in place. Later architects embraced Wagner's beliefs wholeheartedly, although they used different, truly modern building materials: glass and concrete rather than marble. To see how Wagner carried his concepts over to interior design check out the building's museum, which contains a permanent exhibition with over 200 photos, plans, models, and documents.