Church of the Holy Ghost

The Heilig-Geist-Kirche stands in Ottakring, the 16th district of Vienna, on Herbststraße. It is a Roman Catholic parish church built in a historicising style and is the first iron-reinforced concrete church in Austria. The parish is run by the Dehonian order. The church was designed by the architect Jože Plečnik between 1911 and 1913. Its patron was Sophie von Hohenberg, wife of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Plečnik used iron-reinforced concrete to create a single large space rather than separate aisles, with two long-span beams over 20 metres. The building was criticised at the time, with Franz Ferdinand calling it a mix of Russian bath, stable and temple of Venus. Inside, the raised altar area has a crypt beneath it, where masses were celebrated as early as July 1911. The crypt contains three small grottoes representing Bethlehem, Gethsemane and the Holy Sepulchre, with works by Ferdinand Andri and Josef Engelhart. The main space features a high altar showing the Holy Spirit, side altars to St Joseph and St Boniface, and a carved Stations of the Cross by Josef Ruchala. Six stained-glass windows depict scenes from Genesis to Pentecost, with figures of the Evangelists and Isaiah on the other windows.