Goethe monument, Vienna, Bronze statue in Innere Stadt, Vienna, Austria
The Goethe monument is a bronze figure of the poet seated in a broad chair on a three-tiered pedestal of Italian granite, set on a wide, flat three-step platform. The pedestal bears the inscription GOETHE. The whole monument is 5.55 m high, with the base at 2.62 m and the figure with chair at 2.93 m. It stands on Goethegasse at the corner of the Opernring.
A competition for the design was announced in 1889, but the commission reached no final decision; Viktor Tilgner's entry was excluded on technical grounds because it did not match the prescribed proportions, and the contract went to Edmund von Hellmer. The monument was financed by the Vienna Goethe Association, founded by the Goethe scholar Karl Julius Schröer on 4 January 1878. The model was finished in 1895, the casting was done at the Berndorfer Metallwarenfabrik, and the unveiling took place on 15 December 1900.
The monument was financed by the Wiener Goethe-Verein, founded on 4 January 1878 by the Goethe scholar Karl Julius Schröer. Schröer also insisted on the small semicircular green area with three trees behind the monument, giving the seated figure a green backdrop.
The monument stands on the Goethegasse side at the corner with the Opernring, on a paved area open to passers-by. The three-step plinth and the rounded granite base can be walked around; the seated figure faces the street. The Schiller monument lies across the Ringstrasse on Schillerplatz.
The granite of the pedestal is radioactive because of its high uranium content; radiation levels right beside the monument reach about four times the surrounding background level. Behind the statue, a small semicircular green area with three trees, requested by Karl Julius Schröer, gives the seated figure a green backdrop.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,643 contributors worldwide.
