Culture
The first exhibit delivered to the Wien Museum today is a whale around ten meters long. The sculpture was the mascot of the “Zum Whale” inn in the Prater for more than sixty years.
Due to the size of the object, the whale is already being brought to the Wien Museum during the construction work. The whale is almost ten meters long and weighs 1,700 kilograms. The whale, wrapped in transport film, is lifted past the building in front of what will later be the entrance using a crane. The sculpture is then installed. The whale gets new packaging and is hung under the ceiling of the hall using a cable winch.
The whale was the mascot of the “Zum Walfisch” inn in the Vienna Prater. After the renovation of the Wien Museum, the sculpture will be on display as one of the large objects in the new hall. The other 2,000 objects will be brought in in the summer of 2023 following the interior design has been completed. The permanent exhibition also includes the original figures of the Donnerbrunnen, the mayor’s gala carriage, the model of St. Stephen, the Waldheim horse and the Südbahnhof script.
Inn rebuilt in the 50’s
A map of the Prater from 1782 already shows an inn called “Zum Walfisch”. It has been repeatedly remodeled and expanded by various owners. After the great fire in the Prater in spring 1945, the inn was rebuilt in the 1950s. The architect and then young graduate of the Academy for Applied Arts Maria Benke designed the whale sculpture as part of the overall design of the restaurant. The whale was then displayed above the inn’s entrance for more than 60 years.
The transport of the object via the Ringstrasse and past the Karlskirche to the Prater was captured in a promotional film by the Gösser brewery. The brewery was the inn’s beer supplier. The whale, made of wood and sheet copper, also had some technical finesse. The sculpture’s eyes shone in the darkness, and every now and then he blew a fountain of water into the air.
2016 Transfer to Wien Museum
In 2013, the “Zum Whale” inn was demolished. The owner of the construction and demolition company then stored the whale on the company’s premises. After Prater entrepreneurs discovered the sculpture there in 2016, following brief negotiations it was donated to the Wien Museum as part of the “Save the Whale!” campaign. The whale has been restored in the museum depot in Himberg in recent years.