Starting out at the beautiful pavilion at Karlsplatz, we lay a foundation for our discussion by visiting the small Wagner Museum.
From here we walk to the Stadtpark station, the best preserved of the original metro stations still in use. Here we will start to delve into some of the design elements. One of the most remarkable features of this station is the adjoining artificial riverbed constructed for the little Vienna river, since the waterway needed to be rechanneled when the city train was built and one of the major issues was how to integrate the realigned river into the new city landscape.
Our next metro stop visit will be Kettenbrücke station. On our way we visit and explore the famous Sezession art building, the icon par excellence of Viennese Jugendstil, as well as two beautiful apartment houses by Otto Wagner. Here we will flesh out the philosophy behind Jugendstil and consider the symbols and materials favored by its practitioners. From Kettenbrücke station we will step onto the metro for our last stop, a visit to the imperial station. This outstanding building was erected outside the Schönbrunn castle solely for the Emperor to use. The crown jewel of the line, this station had a symbolic meaning as well, namely to show critics of Vienna’s metro that the emperor supported the line. In this small but dynamic building, we will recognize all the elements that we encountered throughout the walk and at the other stations, while also noting the methods used by Wagner to translate the generally bourgeois style of Art Nouveau into an aesthetic with imperial grandiosity.
Annelie was a great tour guide! The sound system for the tour in a noisy city was comfortable and amplified her voice in my ear perfectly. She is smart, very knowledgeable and passionate about her subject. Highly recommended!
Excellent tour and knowledgable guide. Very pleasant and accommodating. Would definitely recommend. .
My husband and I had never been to Vienna before, and had one day to do something special there. I had heard that Vienna was rich with a unique kind of Art Nouveau architecture, Vienna Secession Architecture, so we booked a tour on Viator for June 2, 2026. Annelie was our guide - and she was great, providing us with in-depth info about the Secession Movement and taking us to see numerous gorgeous buildings across Vienna, on foot and on public transportation (Vienna's great subway). It was a spectacular tour: the Secession architecture that we saw was literally breathtaking, unlike anything else we'd ever seen, and Annelie had in-depth knowledge about it and Vienna's art and architecture in general. What incredible fun! Perhaps One of THE best tours ever! We now want to return to Vienna to explore that lovely city more.
This was a great tour! An in depth look at the art nouveau movement in Vienna. Got to see the city from a different perspective. Our tour guide, Ilsa, had great information and insights! Highly recommend!
We wanted a tour to help us understand some of the history and culture of Vienna. Jan shared his expertise and answered our many questions. My understanding of Vienna was greatly enhanced by this experience. I highly recommend it!
Our guide’s name was Isis and she was extremely knowledgeable and interesting. We learned a lot about the artists at the forefront of this movement and how it impacted Vienna - culturally, historically, musically and aesthetically. Isis did a wonderful job of explaining and connecting many details. I recommend this tour wholeheartedly, especially after touring museums dedicated to the Hapsburgs. The contrast between “old” and “new” becomes clearer.
We love art and architecture, and it was so helpful to have a knowledgeable guide take us around to various places in the city to show us the world of Viennese Art Nouveau. Our guide, Gerti, was an energetic delight. She also patiently answered a zillion additional questions about Austrian society that had nothing to do with our tour topic. Highly recommend!
My husband and I were absolutely delighted with this fascinating tour. Our cultural guide, a charming and incredibly knowledgeable lawyer with a keen affinity for architecture and Austrian history gave us one of the best visits in a long traveling life. We've been to Vienna multiple times and visited quite a few of its stunning Jugendstil monuments, but he still managed to show us buildings we didn't know, share new insights and anecdotes, and make us forget the cold and damp weather in the process. It was a memorable experience that we strongly recommend.
Jan was very interesting and passionate about Vienna. The blight was the succession building and the Beethoven frieze. Highly recommend
Can’t say enough great things about our Art Nouveau tour with Ilse. Her knowledge of the topic as well as her ability to put art nouveau in Vienna in the context of the political and architectural development of the time and the city was extremely informative and interesting. She also went above and beyond to show and share so many examples and interesting facts. Absolutely LOVED this tour! Wish we had arranged a similar tour with Insight Cities in Budapest as we also found beautiful art nouveau there. Also did the Vienna City of Music tour with Annelie. Insight Cities has amazing guides and very special tours… highly recommended!
Can’t say enough about our guide Ilse. Very knowledgeable… and such a pleasure to listen to… provided great context of the history of art nouveau in Vienna relative to the political and architectural development of the city. AMAZING… don’t miss it! Start with this tour as you will want to explore even more on your own afterwards! Enjoy!
It was a pretty cold and rainy day and we weren’t super excited to be out in the weather. Fortunately our guide called and offered to take us by car so we wouldn’t be soaked and that was greatly appreciated. We loved seeing the Klimt in Secession Museum and learning all the bldg and the movement behind it. Learning about Otto Wagner and getting to see many different examples of his work was so wonderful.
Stephan was a wonderful guide! He was very knowledgeable about the city and about art and art nouveau. He was willing to adjust the tour to accommodate the travelers in our group and provided us with suggestions of places to visit/eat during our stay. An added bonus: as a result of the tour, we learned how to navigate the public trains and transportation system in and around Vienna!
Our guide was absolutely perfect : passionate and highly competent! Incredible knowledge, she had a pertinent and adapted answer to all our requests or questions
I don't think I ever met a tour guide as educated and well versed in the history, art, geography and social life of the place we're visiting as Annelie Pichler. Will be sure to book her next time we are in Vienna! Thank you so much for the tour and caring for us for three hours in Vienna, Annelie!
Angelina was a perfect guide- very friendly and prepared. She was willing to go the extra mile to make sure we saw everything we wanted to see!
Very individual guidance. Profound information about culture, art and history. Now you feel very well informed and educated.
I took Insight Cities Prague Art Nouveau tour last year. It was terrific and whetted my appetite to take their Vienna Art Nouveau tour as a follow-up, but COVID put a halt to that. It is wonderful to finally get there. I really enjoy this design movement. The Vienna guide was just as good as our Prague guide last year. The Wagner Pavilion is still closed but our guide took us into the Secession Building. We were practically alone there, enjoying the Klimt frieze. Great tour with such beautiful buildings and artwork.
We took the Art Nouveau Tour in December with Reinhard (I believe a former University Professor). Although it was cold and we were the only ones on the tour (two adults and a 14 year old boy), we had a fantastic time and have very fond memories of it. Since it turned out that some of the tour’s itinerary we already covered, Reinhard improvised on the spot and showed us many other interesting corners of Vienna that we otherwise would not have ventured to. We felt we had a personal (very knowledgeable friend!) showing us his city, all the while having a fascinating conversation about Vienna’s politics, literature and art. An unforgettable experience!
Suzanne was extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about Viennese architecture. We learned a lot from her, and it has formed the core of my understanding of Vienna circa 1900, the Secession, and how those themes live on to this day. We met at the Museum Cafe and walked to the Secession Building, where she talked about Otto Wagner and the city under construction. Lots of specifics, too many to mention. She tailored the tour to our needs as we were the only clients. We took the U4 train line to save on walking and warm up between discussions. We had a day pass so it worked well.
Ilse was a wonderful guide - knowledgeable, entertaining, flexible. The tour was an absolute highlight of our visit to Vienna!
<p>I thoroughly enjoyed my walking tour of the Art Nouveau buildings of Vienna. It gave me a greater appreciation of the wonders of the city, as well as made me aware of this style of architecture in other cities I visited afterward, especially in Budapest.</p>
Die profunde Kenntnis der wienerischen Kultur und Geschichte, die kompetente Art der Vermittlung, die Flexibilität und sympathische Art unseren Führerin haben uns einen hochspannenden Morgen beschert.
Wir trafen den sehr freundlichen und sehr kenntnisreichen Herrn Augsten, der uns in drei unvergesslichen Stunden durch das Thema des Vortrags im wunderschönen Wiener Zentrum führte. Vielen herzlichen Dank dafür!
Wolfgang Augsten hat uns sehr schön durch die Geschichte Wiens geführt mit seht interessanten Entdeckungen.
With my family I took a trip to France. All the way to Paris on the Frecciarossa, all right. The problems started when we took a Nomad train from Paris to Pontorson which after about two hours of travel broke down. Inevitable change of train with stop in Caen, next change and arrival at destination with more than two hours delay. This inevitably delayed our visit to Mont Sant Michel which we had to do with paid taxis. But it didn’t end there: another stop from Pontorson to Ruen : about halfway through the route an interruption on the line blocked the train for about three hours and our arrival in the city was so delayed late in the evening even here our plans were disrupted. Obviously, it was very hot on the train and we were not given any comfort except a bottle of water when we left. What to say? We criticize, sometimes rightly, our transport but ... the whole world is country!!
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