Time and Vienna - hidden treasures and photographic revelations

For the photo book "Time and Vienna" Ronnie Niedermeyer has chosen places with the magic of the mundane and yet the charm of the unusual. A travel guide above all for the Viennese but also for those who love Vienna and are willing to risk taking a second look.

100 locales with their own (hi)story

The pictures by the young photographer Ronnie Niedermeyer are simple and yet full of poetry: snapshots of familiar and less familiar locales in Vienna preserved for eternity. Empty beer bottles in a former company swimming pool bravely refusing to perish, passages full of nooks and crannies, steep steps and odd collections - 100 Viennese locales with their own (hi)story sought out by Niedermeyer and put together for this unusual photo book.

From worms to stars

The book contains black and white photos of objects above and below the ground - from coffins in the crypt of the Michaelerkirche and ethnographic collections under the roof of the Natural History Museum to the main cupola of the university astronomical observatory. This lovingly chosen mixture of locales is completed by photos of places that many Viennese have almost certainly walked past without a second glance, such as the unadorned picture of stairs on a platform at the Südbahnhof that inevitably raises the question: "Why haven't I noticed that before?"

People and animals in time and space

The main characters in the book - the ones that make it so interesting - are people who are connected over time with the locales. One of them is Edeltraud Kamprath, who runs an organic farm in the 23rd district. Another is Ferry Ebert, also known as the 'vending machine king' of Vienna, who spent years travelling around Vienna installing vending machines. In "Time and Vienna" he talks of the initial difficulties he faced when installing condom machines or suggesting that they be installed in restaurants and bars.

There is also a page for Sepperl, the watchdog owned by junkshop owners Annelies and Helmut Ganz. And when Sepperl's time is up, the animal crematorium pictured a few pages on will be waiting for him.

A travel guide to marvel at

"What kind of book is it? Is it a travel guide with full-page photos and apposite quotations? Or is it an art book in which every illustrated scene can be reconstructed by reading the visitor information?" asks Johann Hallwirth from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Or is it more important that the photos help us "simply to marvel"?

It is certainly a book that you will pick up again and again, one that will incite you to look further. If for a moment it seems that Niedermeyer has managed to stop time, on closer inspection it is clear that it is in reality fading away.

Book tip:

Niedermeyer, Ronnie: Time and Vienna. A Travel Guide for Viennese. Vienna: Christian Brandstätter Verlag GmbH & Co KG 2008. 363 pages. €49.90. ISBN 978-3-85033-137-1