Karlskirche Audio Guide

Karlskirche: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Karlskirche

   Welcome to Karlskirche, the Church of Saint Charles, standing on Karlsplatz in Vienna. Take a moment to look at it before you go any further. A temple-like porch, two tall columns, and a great dome all sit together in one composition, and few churches in Europe look quite like it. The church is dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo, a leading figure of the Counter-Reformation. It stands right on the border between Wieden and the Innere Stadt, the historic city centre, so you are literally at the meeting point of two parts of Vienna. Over the next few minutes we will follow its story from a desperate vow made during a plague, through the architects and artists who gave it form, to the details you can look for with your own eyes. Think of it as a monument that began as a promise and became a landmark.

2. 02

   A Vow in a Time of Plague

   The story starts in 1713, when Vienna, the imperial residence city, was struck by what was to be the last great plague epidemic to reach it. In October of that year, Emperor Charles VI knelt in Saint Stephen's Cathedral and made a vow: if the city was spared, he would build a church dedicated to his own namesake, Charles Borromeo. That saint was also known as a patron against the plague. The epidemic died out in 1714, and the emperor kept his word. He announced an architectural competition for the new church. Building work began in 1715 and the church was consecrated on the twenty-eighth of October 1737 by Cardinal Sigismund Graf Kollonitsch. In all, construction took 21 years. The money came from many hands. The estates of the hereditary provinces and many private donors contributed, and so did Spain, the Netherlands, Milan, Italy and Bohemia. This was a church paid for by a wide imperial network, not just by one ruler. You can still read the vow on the building. Under the front pediment, in golden letters, runs a verse from Psalm 22, verse 26: Vota mea reddam in conspectu timentium deum. It means, "I will fulfil my vows in the sight of those who fear God." That is the mark of a votive church.

3. 03

   Fischer von Erlach and an Architecture of Borrowed Worlds

   The architect behind this design was Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, the great master of the imperial style of Baroque Vienna. Karlskirche was his last church building and is regarded as his main sacred work. It is often called the most important Baroque church in Vienna. What makes it so unusual is how many ideas he united. The central front, leading to the porch, corresponds to a Greek temple portico. Beside it rise two freestanding columns, inspired by Trajan's Column in Rome. Their reliefs were carved by Johann Christoph Mader, working with Johann Baptist Straub and Jakob Schletterer, while Lorenzo Mattielli made the eagles crowning the columns between 1724 and 1730. Some also read the pair as an echo of the Pillars of Hercules, a symbol of imperial power. Fischer did not live to see the church finished. His son, Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach, took over the project after his father's death. A short walk away, the Palais Schwarzenberg, which the son completed in 1732, shows the same family story in stone. So as you look up at the dome and across at the columns, you are looking at Greece, Rome and imperial Vienna combined in a single skyline.

4. 04

   Sculpture, Frescoes and Living Parish Life

   The sculpture on the facade tells its own story. Franz Caspar carved the two angels at the ascent, one for the Old Testament and one for the New. Giovanni Stanetti created Charles Borromeo in the pediment, and above him the saint's apotheosis at the very peak of the gable. Inside, painters took over. Johann Michael Rottmayr created the frescoes in the dome and in the vaults of the transept arms between 1725 and 1730. Gaetano Fanti painted the architectural illusions at the foot of the dome and in the diagonal chapels. The altarpieces are by artists including Daniel Gran and Martino Altomonte. The stucco in the choir dome is by Alberto Camesina, from 1725 onward, based on designs by the two Fischers. The church is still a working parish. It became an imperial patronage parish in 1783. The Knights of the Cross with the Red Star cared for it until 1959, and since then Premonstratensians from Geras Abbey in Lower Austria have done so. Today it also hosts concerts, which take advantage of its acoustics. And one more story: in 1933 the actress Hedy Lamarr, then Hedwig Kiesler, married Fritz Mandl in the church's small chapel. A Hollywood legend began here at a Baroque altar.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Before you move on, step back and take in the whole composition once more: the portico, the two columns with their spiralling reliefs, the great dome behind. Let your eye follow the golden lettering under the pediment and think of an emperor's promise made in a plague year. Then look for the small things. Find the angels at the ascent, then the figure of Saint Charles Borromeo in the pediment, and see how the sculptors placed them to be read from the square below. The church even travelled in the imagination. Its architecture is said to have influenced the mosque in the palace garden at Schwetzingen in Baden-Württemberg. You might wonder what else in the city echoes Fischer von Erlach's vision. The Palais Schwarzenberg, close by, is a good place to start asking.