The Votivkirche in Vienna

The Votivkirche in Vienna, Austria, is one of the most important neo-Gothic religious architectural sites in the world.

Located on Ringstraße in the district of Alsergrund close to the University of Vienna, the origin of the church has an unusual history derived from a knife-attack on Emperor Franz Joseph by Hungarian nationalist János Libényi. The emperor was taking a stroll with one of his officers Count Maximilian Karl Lamoral O'Donnell von Tyrconnell on a city-bastion, when Libényi approached him. He immediately struck the emperor from behind with a knife straight at the neck. Franz Joseph almost always wore a uniform, which had a high collar that almost completely enclosed the neck. It so happened that the collar of his uniform was made out of very sturdy material. Even though Franz Joseph was wounded and bleeding, this collar saved his life. Count O'Donnell struck Libényi down with his sabre.[3] O'Donnell, hitherto only a Count by virtue of his Irish nobility, was thereafter made a Count of the Habsburg Empire, conferred with the Commander's Cross of the Royal Order of Leopold, and his customary O'Donnell arms were augmented by the initials and shield of the ducal House of Austria, with additionally the double-headed eagle of the Empire. These arms are emblazoned on the portico of no. 2 Mirabel Platz in Salzburg, where O'Donell built his residence thereafter. Another witness who happened to be nearby, the butcher Joseph Ettenreich, quickly overwhelmed Libényi. For his deed he was later elevated to nobility by Franz Joseph and became Joseph von Ettenreich. Libényi was subsequently put on trial and condemned to death for attempted regicide. He was executed on the Simmeringer Haide.

After the unsuccessful attack on February 18, 1853, Franz Joseph's brother Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph, the later emperor of Mexico, called upon the community for donations to a new church on the site of the attack. The church was to be a Votivgabe (a thank-you present to God) for the rescue of Franz Joseph. It was to be "a monument of patriotism and of devotion of the people to the Imperial House".

The church plans were established in an architectural competition in April 1854. 75 projects from the Austrian-Hungarian empire, German lands, England, and France were submitted. Original plans included to include the neighbouring Allgemeines Krankenhaus and create a campus fashioned after the plans of Oxford and Cambridge University. Another plan was to create a national cathedral for all the people of the empire. However because of spiralling costs and the changing political situation, this plan had to be downsized. The jury choose the project of Heinrich von Ferstel (1828-1883), who, at the time, was only 26. He chose to build the cathedral in the neo-Gothic style, borrowing heavily from the architecture of Gothic French cathedrals. Because of this concept, many people mistake this church for an original Gothic church. However, the Votivkirche has not become a servile imitation of a French Gothic cathedral, but shows a new and individual concept. Furthermore it was built by one single architect, supervising the whole construction, and not by several generations, as the cathedrals in the Middle Ages.

Construction began in 1856, and it was dedicated twenty-six years later on April 24, 1879, the occasion of the silver jubilee of the royal couple.

The church was one of the first buildings to be built on the Ringstraße. Since the city-walls still existed at that point, the church had no natural parishioners. At that time it was meant as a garrison church, serving the many soldiers that had come to Vienna in the wake of 1848 revolution. The church is not located directly on the boulevard but along a broad square (the Sigmund Freud park) in front of it. The Votivkirche is made out of white sandstone, similar to the Stephansdom, and therefore has to be constantly renovated and protected from air-pollution and acid rain, which tends to colour and erode the soft stone.

The church has undergone extensive renovations after being badly damaged during World War II.

Since its architectural style is quite similar to the Stephansdom, it often gets mistaken for it by tourists. In reality more than 700 years lie between the two churches.

The design of this church has been closely imitated in the Gedächtniskirche in Speyer, Germany and the Sint-Petrus-en-Pauluskerk in Oostende, Belgium.

The Votivkirche has the typical form of a Gothic cathedral :

a façade with two slimline towers and three gabled portals with archivolts and a gallery with statues above the portals,

central portal twice as wide as the side portals

a rose window, crowned by the roof gable of the nave

belfries and a transept spire

buttresses, abutments and flying buttresses

The interior consists of a nave and two aisles, crossed by a transept. This transept has the same height as the nave, while the aisles are only half as high and half as wide as the nave. The side chapels in the transept are as high and wide as the aisles. The choir is surrounded by an ambulatory with apsidioles and a Lady chapel.

This imposing church constitutes a harmonious whole through the proportions, arrangement, spaciousness and unity of style of all the elements.

The Emperor window, donated by the City of Vienna, depicted the delivrance of the Emperor, saved from assassination by Maximilian Graf O'Donell von Tyrconnell, but this original theme was lost when the windows were destroyed during World War II. The replacement window was restored by the City of Vienna in 1964, albeit modified to reflect the changing times. The detail of the actual moment of the Emperor's deliverance was lost, and although otherwise faithful to the original design, the replacement took on a less monarchical and more religious tone.

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