Goethe monument, Vienna

The Goethe monument stands in a narrow side street off the Ringstrasse in Vienna’s first district. It commemorates Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German poet who lived from 1749 to 1832. The bronze figure was designed by Edmund Hellmer in the neobarock style and unveiled in December 1900. The work began with a competition in 1889. Viktor Tilgner’s design was rejected for technical reasons, leaving Edmund Hellmer to carry out the commission. The statue was paid for by the Vienna Goethe Society, founded in 1878 by the Goethe scholar Karl Julius Schröer. The bronze figure sits on an Italian granite pedestal that itself stands on a broad three-step base. Behind the monument Schröer arranged a small semicircular lawn with three trees so the seated poet looks into greenery. Visitors find a life-size bronze poet seated in an ornate chair on a curved granite plinth. The granite contains uranium and gives off slightly more radiation than the surrounding air. Across the Ringstrasse on Schillerplatz stands the Schiller monument, erected in 1876. The Goethe statue’s green backdrop and the nearby literary monuments create a quiet corner for reflection.