Some stories are too good to be true – or to be true. And still want to be told. Mario Terzic, for example, emeritus professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, dreams of completing St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Exactly: the St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the center of the Austrian capital, nicknamed “Steffl”, landmark, national shrine, seat of the archdiocese, tourist highlight of every city tour.
Strictly speaking, the steeply towering church is a fragment. To the right of the main portal is an architecturally very impressive south tower, to the left of which is an unfinished north tower. That releases fantasies, that could be changed, and yet it will probably never happen. When has the structure and aesthetics of a centuries-old cathedral ever been dramatically interfered with – if there was no need for construction to begin in 1137, if it wasn’t about reconstruction or restoration after destruction by war or the forces of nature? For someone like Terzic, to anticipate this, traditional thought patterns are there to be overcome.
In any case, the Metropolitan and Cathedral Chapter of St. Stephan in Vienna, a kind of ecclesiastical administrative body, wrote Terzic a friendly but definite three-line letter at the end of May: After detailed deliberations, it was unanimously decided not to pursue the project any further.
The Franziskus-Garten as a warning against the climate catastrophe
Terzic had submitted it there, had advertised it, had included enthusiastic comments from other artists and architects; He is disappointed by the cancellation, but only partially impressed. The 76-year-old professor and artist, who taught graphics and landscape design in Germany, Austria and China and made landscape design his life’s work in general, does not appear to be easily discouraged. If you visit him in his studio in Vienna’s old town and have climbed many dozen worn, stone steps in a medieval staircase to under the roof, you will find an exceptionally cheerful person in a colorful and yet very well-ordered studio. He is surrounded by memories of some realized and numerous never realized objects, exhibitions, projects. In the middle of the room, however, clearly visible, is the model of the completed cathedral. The walls all around dominate a dozen lovingly drawn designs of his great idea.
Airy green oasis: This is how Mario Terzic imagines the future north tower of the “Steffl”.
(Photo: Cathrin Kahlweit)
It is unmistakable: Terzic, advocate of the motto “It’s the landscape, stupid”, who among other things built a gigantic wooden ark from living trees, is continuing his plan. He thinks at least a feasibility study should be in there, right? After all, in his eyes this is a project of great importance, in every respect. His dream is called “Franziskus-Garten” and goes like this: The north tower of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, which – unlike the 136 meter high Gothic south tower – was never completed, now as a 68 meter high stump with a Renaissance hood and not a large one in the ensemble as a whole Plays a role, should get a steel point. This in turn would be hung with textile modules, and they would be planted. The result: a vertical garden. An airy, green oasis full of plants striving towards the light. The widely visible greening of a city, which, in Terzic’s opinion, only claims to be particularly liveable and green – in reality, however, it is downright wounded by “brutal overuse and unbroken building frenzy”.
If he has his way, an artistic installation will rise in the city center as a warning against the climate catastrophe. And of course, by the way, a tourist attraction. “It would be a minimal intervention with a huge effect”, exclaims Terzic, and above all a “consistent, garden-architectural implementation of the radical message of the Pope”. And then he emphatically quotes the environmental encyclical “Laudato si ‘” by Pope Francis, who in 2015 addressed “every person of good will” who “lives on this planet” – and warned creation to avoid environmental damage to preserve and for this also to fall back on the cultural riches of the peoples.
Archbishop Christoph Schönborn liked the idea
Mario Terzic sees St. Stephen’s Cathedral as a cultural wealth and its green north tower as a sign of the ecological turnaround. The vertical garden would remain standing for twenty, thirty years, if its inventor had its way, “until mankind, what one hopes, has achieved the reversal of climate policy”. Actually, “the church should come to me in the name of Francis, right?”, Thinks Terzic.
It is no coincidence that he named his project “Franziskus-Garten”. Originally it was supposed to be a lure for the archdiocese so that it can identify the spiritual source of ideas right away. Terzic says that he also phoned Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, who found the idea likeable, but referred him to the cathedral chapter. The letter of rejection came from there. Investigations with the signatories, with the custodian and dean, how a leafy north tower was theoretically discussed and why it was rejected, petered out after several emails and phone calls. Finally, cathedral builder Wolfgang Zehetner willingly provides information.
Zehetner has been an architect and master builder of the cathedral in St. Stephan since 1993. And he is not fundamentally against artistic interventions in the beloved building, which he praises as “symbolically charged”. It was not until Easter that a “ladder to heaven” made of neon light tubes was installed in St. Stephen’s Cathedral as a “sign of hope”. The work of art by Billi Thanner from Vienna leads from the baptistery inside to the vault and then outside to the top of the south tower. It is, however, the first art project that the cathedral chapter of twelve and the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Schönborn, unanimously approved. The intervention is temporary and manageable.
For Terzic, a garden is “a festival, a teacher, a source of strength
As far as the green structure on the north tower is concerned, things are different. In the eyes of the cathedral builder, the south tower, the jewel, has something “unique, sky-storming, it is the actual city center and gives the building its dynamism. Two such centers would be much weaker than one”. Above all, however, there are practical concerns: the statics, the watering, the risk to passers-by from falling parts of the plant and also, of course, the costs. “It takes a lot,” says Zehetner, “just to maintain the substance.”
Terzic is 76, pragmatic, gifted with humor and not megalomaniac, but stubborn; he doesn’t like to give up, not yet. The packaging artist Christo, he says, had been planning on wrapping the Berlin Reichstag for about twenty years. When Christo died, Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters wrote that he had “taught people around the world to see in a new and clearer way”. Now the Viennese want to bring a new sharpness of vision to Vienna and build a towering index finger that reminds mankind of the transience of creation. He thinks big: Hasn’t the climate catastrophe started long ago? And a little smaller: aren’t more and more houses being planted with climbing plants and trees that cool, bind moisture and purify the air? Isn’t urban gardening a trend of the times? Isn’t a garden a “festival, a teacher, a source of strength”?
If the project doesn’t work out for the time being, he says thoughtfully, then at least “the virus” of the idea has to be spread across the city. Finally, on the fifth anniversary of the publication of the environmental cyclical, the Archbishop of Vienna also called for greater commitment to climate protection. As before, it could not go on, “it all depends on us if we really want it,” said Cardinal Schönborn. Tower dreamer Terzic nods vehemently. He would be there.