I loved our recent trip to Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary (mostly traveling along the Danube River in Eastern Europe). I have worked and traveled in the area before but this was my most in-depth experience. Some of my observations included some sights that were funny or quirky but others were sad. Following up on my long-term interest in civic ironwork, I include photos of street iron that present a city’s symbolic view, starting with the vanishing hole pattern from Prague. The Dancing House and Franz Kafka head (by David Cerny 2014) also seem representative of Prague’s charming sense of humor. Here is a video of the Kafka head in motion.
We started our journey in Prague but found other cities that shared their sense of fun, including Passau which has a medieval stone head they call “the Fool of Passau” as its civic mascot. John and I enjoyed a class in which we tried to sculpt the fool’s head in marzipan.
Vienna (“Wien”) was full of very serious palaces and monuments but I did spot the local Bitzinger Würstelstand, a popular street sausage and champaign stand with a green rabbit and wine bottle on the roof hinting that the city had a funny side. The green rabbit refers to the “Young Hare” painting by Albrecht Dürer in a nearby museum and is apparently only one of several colorful giant rabbits in Vienna. Unfortunately, Vienna’s street iron in was too serious to display civic symbols and all I found were company names.
The city that seemed most enthusiastic in embracing public silliness was Bratislava with its collection of funny statues effectively designed for tourist engagement. Bratislava’s prominent bridge includes a UFO Restaurant on its tower – an unidentified flying object that seems to have settled in place.
Our final destination for this trip was the delightful city of Budapest in which I saw two funny instances of public art: a giant inflated moon and a bronze statue of a man holding chicken and an egg in the Great Market Hall. Budapest is also where I began to consider the sadder aspects of the cities through which we had traveled.
The saddest sights in several cities were beggars. America has nothing to be proud of in its abundance of poor and homeless people, often found begging on the street. However, I had never before seen anyone in full prostration, almost obeisance, posture while begging. I saw this abject begging posture in most cities during our European trip: men stretched at full length on the sidewalk with their hands cupped, or holding a hat, begging for a donation. I started to watch and unfortunately found it common. When I asked a local, they said the beggers were just looking for attention. Having worked for ten years with incarcerated persons who are frequently poor, homeless, and/or begging before or after their jail time, I found the self-abasing posture disturbing. I found articles about begging in the cities I visited which included pictures and more information.
The second saddest sight for me was beautiful but deteriorating buildings. When out of the well-cared-for central city areas, we sometimes saw notable examples of elegant architectural design and execution in advanced disrepair. Many of these old buildings would be cherished gems if they were in America but seem to have fallen to the combined attacks of war, neglect, poverty, and lack of maintenance funds. Below are four magnificent Art Nouveau images of women representing the seasons, on the crumbling facade of an apartment building. I was glad to find a Hungarian article indicating that this trend of architectural deterioration in not locally acceptable.
Street iron is not limited by geography as a form of civic expression of pride and identity. I saw this manhole cover here in the San Francisco Bay Area yesterday.
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