Secession Building

In 1897 a group of artists led by Gustav Klimt broke from the conservative Künstlerhaus and formed the Vienna Secession, and the following year Joseph Maria Olbrich built them this hall - a white cube with a gilded openwork dome of laurel leaves that the Viennese immediately nicknamed the golden cabbage, and the motto over the door reading that every age should have its own art and art its own freedom. It is still an artist-run exhibition space showing contemporary work. In the basement is the Beethoven Frieze, painted by Klimt in 1902 for an exhibition around Max Klinger's Beethoven statue, some thirty-four metres of allegory in gold, silver and pigment on plaster, removed, stored for decades and reinstalled here in 1986.

What you actually see

• The golden cabbage dome - Olbrich's gilded laurel openwork over a white cube.
• Klimt's Beethoven Frieze - thirty-four metres of 1902 allegory in the basement.
• The Secession motto - the inscription over the door about art and its age.
• Contemporary exhibitions - the hall still run by artists for current work.

When to go

All year. An hour or two.

Honest expectations

The frieze is the reason most people come and it is in a basement room that gets crowded. The upstairs shows contemporary art, which is not what everyone expects. Closed Mondays.

Nearby

The Naschmarkt is across the road; the Karlskirche and the Ring are close.