Friday 11 September 2009

Pictures of where I work ... White Staircase

I figured it was about time that I posted some impressions of the place where I'm currently working, in other words, the place that is to blame for the utter lack of posts that has recently dominated this blog.

It's the third September that I spend working at the Esterházy palace in Eisenstadt, as a tour guide, tourist-information-cum-gift-shop employee and doer of everything that needs to be done. The place is so familiar now that I hardly see its beauty any more, but beauty is to be found there, even - or should I say especially - in those places that you don't see glaring down from every other postcard in the shop.

The pictures that I want to post today were taken in the White Staircase, situated in the north-east corner of the palace, the part that faces the park and most noticably bears the traces of the neo-classical renovation and extension that was begun in the early 19th century. Around this time, people had grown tired of the garish colours and affected flourishes of the baroque style, and longed for plain shapes and pure colours - or, in the case of the White Staircase, for a composition of delicate shades of white.

Even stripped of its original function and context - the staircase leads up the 3 floors to the rooms that today serve as the offices of the palace management - with its simple purity, it has an impressive and awe-inspiring effect on the unsuspecting but attentive visitor.









I'm afraid more in a similar vein is probably to follow during the rest of September until I can escape the social seclusion of this provincial town and reclaim my normal life in Vienna.

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