10. Gobelins
After the Second World War, as part of the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, the former administrative wing of the Opera House was turned into a new, public intermission room 45 meters long: the Gobelin Hall.
Since 1955, the walls of this room have been adorned with 13 tapestries designed by Rudolf Eisenmenger, who also designed the Iron Curtain, with motifs from Mozart’s Magic Flute. The large-format and elaborate tapestries were made by the Viennese Gobelin Manufactory over a period of six years. The motifs depict the central characters of The Magic Flute, i.e. Tamino, Pamina, the Queen of the Night, Papageno and Papagena.
In 1997, the Gobelin Hall was renamed the Gustav Mahler Hall. The occasion was the 100th anniversary of the beginning of Mahler’s court opera directorship, whose office was located in the area of today’s intermission room - exactly in front of the second window on all sides. Other directors of the Vienna State Opera - among them Richard Strauss or Clemens Krauss - also used these directorial rooms.
In memory of the great director, conductor and composer and of his work in the Haus am Ring, a Mahler portrait created by R.B. Kitaj and a bust of Gustav Mahler by his daughter Anna can be seen in the hall.
