The timeliness may be attributable to the fact that the departure was from Heathrow's new Terminal 5. I believe one of the promises, before they blew their first few weeks in a PR disaster of cancelled flights and lost luggage, was that the new terminal would give them the logistical space they needed to run on time. Still worried by the spectre of those 25,000+ lost bags being sent to Milan to be sorted (yup, it's the Italians you automatically think of when it comes to tackling difficult operational challenges), I made sure I only had carry on bags. Thus I whisked through check in, greeted by unusually cheerful and helpful staff, and headed off to security.
This was a little less efficient. For some mysterious reason the security station next to the functioning check in desks was closed, so we had to walk all the way to the other end of the terminal. It is a very big building. Once there, we were greeted with a jolly group of workers handing out plastic bags, advising on security issues and organising us into ever more complex queue configurations as the crowd tailed back. All because some genius had scheduled copious staff everywhere but at the actual security scanning stations, where only one was open to take the daily 6am rush. Even so, within 30 minutes of arriving at the airport I had cleared into the lounge.
And what a lounge it is.
Terminal 5 is basically the nicest shopping mall in Britain, with some departure gates tucked on. Every luxury brand is here. Harrods has two locations, the larger a full department store in miniature. Dining options are rife, lounge areas are comfortable and expansive. All spread out over two floors beneath a gasp-inducingly large sweep of roof and a three-story wall of glass overlooking the runways. It was clean, efficient, filled with light and would have been terribly civilised if it hadn't still been an hour and a half before I normally get out of bed. Once on board the plane, lots of coffee, contact lens insertion and some quiet time with the FT completed my transformation to human.
I'm here in Vienna speaking at a conference on branding in the telecommunications industry. My strategies on "marketing in the grey zone" between advertising and PR are generally considered pretty innovative and go down well with audiences. But you don't read this blog for mundane work stuff. So let's forward to the end of day one of the conference. 5:30. Sun shining. Kuntshistoriches (Art History) Museum open 'til 9 on Thursdays. Ergo I ditch my fascinating colleagues from telcos around the world, lace up my walking shoes and head out for culture.
How time flies. I was last here on my "grand tour" the summer after graduating from Northwestern. Twenty two years ago. I remembered it as one of the world's great art museums, and if anything the impressions of my youth were too modest. This place is a wonder.
Whole rooms full of Bruegel, Rembrandt, Velazquez and Rubens When the writhing flesh of all those fat Rubens babies, and even more generous Rubens women, gets too much, you're just steps from Vermeer's painting of the artist's studio: a masterpiece of calm. When the rooms of Italian baroque masters all start feeling a bit artificial, you stumble on the Caravaggios with a gasp and are reminded how drama is really done. Someone with a keen yet subtle sense of contrast laid out these galleries.
If I only had five minutes here, I'd head for the Bruegel room. Most of the masterpieces you've seen from this father and son duo are here, from the Peasant Wedding to the fascinating Tower of Babel. Five minutes would be a criminal visit however, not only because there's so much to see, but because you've just shelled out 10 euro to do so. So you keep wandering, looping through European art history and bumping into one image after another that have become iconic in the history of art. Raphael's achingly beautiful Madonna of the Meadows. Correggio's disturbing Jupiter and Io, where she's in the middle of making love to the dark cloud. Caravaggio's menacing David with the Head of Goliath. Bosch's Christ Carrying the Cross, a showcase of all that is most venal in mankind, providing a striking contrast to the innocent god. Rubens' adoring portrait of his second wife, naked save for The Fur. Less famous, but perhaps my personal favourite, is Jan Steen's Beware of Luxury, a warning of what happens when people let rules and propriety slide. I find the spaniel standing on the table helping himself to dinner particularly evocative.
Just as impressive is the building itself. I clearly have a Victorian soul, because I've never been able to warm to clean, plain display spaces that let the art hang there in splendid isolation. No, give me the now deeply unfashionable practice of displaying art in magnificent rooms meant to complement what's on display within them. Here, the old masters hang in lofty rooms with ceilings encrusted with lavish plasterwork and gold leaf. The entry foyer, processional stair and upstairs lobby are marble fantasies fit to rival any palace (and, indeed, have stood in for Versailles in films). The Egyptian galleries spread beneath polychromed skies and walls encrusted with pharaonic imagery. And the Greco-Roman collection is in rooms that couldn't have been bettered by the most enormously rich, newest monied Roman upstart building a new villa with desire to impress and no perception of subtlety. Sensory overload, yes, but bloody marvellous.
And that, in a phrase, pretty much sums up Vienna. I have from 4pm tomorrow and most of the day Saturday to see how much I can pack in. We'll see how much my body and my brain can pack in.
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