The Wüstenhaus Schönbrunn (''Schönbrunn Desert House'') is a

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

botanical exhibit in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. It is located in the Sonnenuhrhaus ("Sundial House"), which was built in 1904 as the newest of the four botanical houses in Schönbrunn Palace Park. The desert exhibit opened in 2004 as a counterpart to the "Rainforest House" that opened in 2002 in the nearby

Vienna Zoo Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

History

The Sundial House stands opposite the Schönbrunn Palm House (''Palmenhaus''; another botanical exhibit), directly between the

Hietzing Hietzing () is the 13th Districts of Vienna, district of Vienna (). It is located west of the central districts, west of Meidling. Hietzing is a heavily populated urban area with many residential buildings, but also contains large areas of the Vi ...

Gate and the Zoo. The unprepossessing building owes its name to the

sundial A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...

(''Sonnenuhr'') located in the gardens to the south. It was built with the encouragement of

Charles von Hügel Charles von Hügel (born Carl Alexander Anselm Baron von Hügel; 25 April 1795 – 2 June 1870), sometimes spelt in English Huegel, was an Austrian nobleman, army officer, diplomat, botanist, and explorer, now primarily remembered for his tr ...

– diplomat, explorer and founder of the Vienna Horticultural Society – to replace an earlier greenhouse which could no longer meet its plants' needs. At first, it housed the plants of the extensive “New Holland Collection”, which Hügel had assembled and had been acquired by the Imperial Court in 1848, and later expanded with plants from

southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

and the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

that required similar conditions. The architect of the 1904 building was Alphons Custodis.Wüstenhaus
Home page on the Zoo website. An air raid in February 1945, which almost totally destroyed the windows of the nearby Palm House, left the bulk of the Sundial House's glazing intact, probably because the Palm House stood between it and the bombed area, and because the Sundial House had windows which were roughly parallel to the spreading blast waves (unlike the Palm House). A number of plants from the Palm House were therefore brought here for safekeeping, where space allowed. The Sundial House again served as a refuge between 1986 and 1990, while the Palm House was renovated. In April 1990 the first

butterfly zoo A butterfly house, conservatory, or lepidopterarium is a facility which is specifically intended for the breeding and display of butterflies with an emphasis on education. They may also be used to support local populations through butterfly rel ...

in Austria was established in the Sundial House, but it was transferred to the greenhouse in the Burggarten in 1998.

Rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH) ...

on the steel framework caused the building to be closed in 1998 and renovated from 2000 to 2003. The Desert House was finally established here by a joint project between the Zoo and the Austrian Federal Gardens (''Bundesgärten''), which have managed the building since 1918 as successor to the Imperial and Royal Court Gardens. The exhibition includes

succulent plant In botany, succulent plants, also known as succulents, are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions. The word ''succulent'' comes from the Latin word ''sucus'', meanin ...

s from the Federal Gardens, and small animals under the care of the Zoo, such as

desert jerboa The genus ''Jaculus'' is a member of the Dipodinae subfamily of dipodoid rodents (jerboas). ''Jaculus'' species are distributed in desert and semi-arid regions across northern Africa, the Sahara, the Horn of Africa, Arabia, the Middle East, and ...

s, reptiles and birds.

Notable features

* Two ''

Welwitschia ''Welwitschia'' is a monotypic genus of gnetophytes containing only the species ''Welwitschia mirabilis''. It is named after the Austrian botanist Friedrich Welwitsch, who documented the plant in the 1850s. In common use, it is sometimes ref ...

s'' (one male and one female), the rare and endangered desert plant discovered in 1859 by the Austrian

Friedrich Welwitsch Friedrich Martin Josef Welwitsch (25 February 1806 – 20 October 1872) was an Austrian Empire, Austrian exploration, explorer and botany, botanist who in Angola was the first European to describe the plant ''Welwitschia, Welwitschia mirabilis ...

. They can live up to 2,000 years; the two individuals in the Desert House, however, stem from the Frankfurt University Botanic Gardens and are no more than 40 years old.Wüstenhaus als Beispiel für gelungene Kooperation der Bundesgärten mit dem Tiergarten Schönbrunn
Austrian Government (''Lebensministerium''), 14 July 2004. Retrieved 30 August 2010. * The distinctive, rose-like cactus ''

Pereskia ''Pereskia'' is a small genus of about four species of cacti that do not look much like other types of cacti, having substantial leaves and non-succulent stems. The genus is named after Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, a 16th-century French bot ...

''.

Architecture

300 ft. long, 45 ft. wide and 50 ft. high, the building is fully glazed on the roof and the south face, while the north face is walled up. With a total floor space of 14,000 sq. ft., the interior is divided lengthwise into three sections; there are two annexes to the central section, namely a plant-rich east wing which serves as the entrance hall, and a west wing used as a coldhouse.

Notes

External links

Home page on the Zoo website

The Desert Experience House
From the Schönbrunn Palace website.

History

Notable features

Architecture

Notes

External links

Further reading