Saint Charles Borromeo Church

The Cemetery Church of St Charles Borromeo stands at the centre of Vienna's vast Central Cemetery in Simmering and is one of the most important Jugendstil churches in the city. Built between 1908 and 1911 to designs by the just-25-year-old Max Hegele – a pupil of Otto Wagner – it counters conventional church-building of the time with a strictly geometric modernism enriched by bronze ornament and gold-ground mosaics. The church is named for the Archbishop of Milan Charles Borromeo, patron saint of mayor Karl Lueger, who is interred in the crypt below – hence its second name, the Lueger Memorial Church. The copper dome, the twin towers, the golden mosaics all echo Wagner's nearby Steinhof church, completed shortly before. Enter the cemetery and follow the central avenue and you see the church from far off; inside, a cool, almost metallic Jugendstil space awaits.