A station for a single passenger

This white pavilion with the dome is a station, and it was built for one traveller.

 

When Vienna laid out its city railway at the end of the nineteenth century, the architect Otto Wagner was commissioned to design a private stop for the emperor at Schönbrunn. What he created was a waiting salon crowned by an octagonal dome, with its own carriage drive, silk on the walls and a painted ceiling, and from that salon a private staircase led down to the platform.

 

As far as the stories go, Franz Joseph used it only once or twice. He was sixty-two when the line opened, preferred to travel by carriage, and thought this new way of getting around was mostly something for other people.

 

The little building survived all that indifference and is a museum now, so you can look around the salon inside while the metro rumbles along right under your feet.

 

A hundred metres on you reach the gate where the park begins.