Pfannsches Bad

A private spa once stood in Meidling, the twelfth district of Vienna. The story began in 1819 when warm sulphur water was found during well-digging on Josef Pfann’s land in today’s Niederhofstraße. Official tests confirmed the water’s healing power, and the local landlord granted permission to build a bathhouse in July 1820. Josef Michael Freiherr von Ehrenfels, owner of a nearby spa, tried to block it but failed. At first the water was served in a small hall at the corner of Mandlgasse and Arndtstraße. As word spread, the site grew into a larger complex with a swimming pool that closed around 1896. A horse-drawn carriage service ran from the New Market in the city centre to bring visitors to Meidling. For those who could not travel, the water was bottled and sold at the pharmacy Zur goldenen Krone on the Graben. In 1868 the Meidling Workers’ Education Association opened the district’s first reading room in a rented room near the spa. By 1910 the old building had been demolished and replaced by a new structure designed by Franz Quidenus. The modern spa offered steam baths, hot-air and steam chambers, showers, hot and cold pools, rest rooms and ninety-seven private bath cubicles. The spa treated rheumatism, gout, sciatica, joint inflammations and nervous disorders. In 1930 it passed to a new company, but by the mid-1970s it no longer met modern standards. The city bought the site, demolished the buildings and turned the land into Hermann-Leopoldi-Park, opened in 1984. Today the park stands where the spa once welcomed visitors seeking relief from aches and pains.