Residents of our Townhouse – Arthur Schnitzler
- dasroosevelt
- Oct 27
- 2 min read
Few authors are as closely associated with Vienna around 1900 as Arthur Schnitzler – physician, writer, and subtle observer of Viennese society.
Born in 1862 in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt district, Schnitzler studied medicine and first worked at the General Hospital. Early on, he began writing — about the uncertainties of love, about appearances and morality, and about the subtle cracks in the self-image of the bourgeoisie. Works such as Liebelei, Reigen, and Fräulein Else made him one of the central voices of Viennese Modernism. His psychological precision earned him the reputation of being a literary counterpart to Sigmund Freud — the two knew each other only briefly, and Freud is said to have remarked that Schnitzler had “through intuition discovered everything that I have had to uncover through laborious analysis.”
From 1893 to 1903, Arthur Schnitzler lived at Frankgasse 1 — today’s Roosevelt Townhouse. There he had not only his apartment but also his private medical practice. He received patients, wrote literary texts, and kept his famous diary, in which he recorded medical observations, encounters, and personal reflections.
His rooms were designed by Adolf Loos — one of the most important architects and cultural critics of his time. Loos furnished them in a simple and functional manner, in stark contrast to the prevailing opulence of the era. Contemporaries reported that Schnitzler felt especially at ease there, as the apartment “was not a stage, but a retreat.”
The surroundings suited him well: the neighborhood between the Votivkirche, the University, and the Alsergrund was shaped by intellectual life and bourgeois stability – ideal conditions for someone like Schnitzler, who studied the psychology of everyday Viennese life. In his diaries, he noted walks along Währinger Straße, evenings at Café Griensteidl or Café Central, and encounters with Peter Altenberg, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and other key figures of Viennese Modernism.
A well-known episode recounts how Hofmannsthal, after years of friendship, suddenly broke off contact – out of discomfort with Schnitzler’s unflinching openness. The writer who laid bare the innermost motives of his characters did not spare himself either: for decades, he kept a diary of almost complete honesty, recording encounters, dreams, doubts, and affairs.
Schnitzler’s significance for literature extends far beyond his own time. He was among the first to place the unconscious, self-perception, and the inner conflicts of his characters at the center of his work. His precise language, his affinity with psychology, and his clear-eyed view of society influenced generations of writers – and continue to inspire theater and film directors worldwide. Stanley Kubrick, for instance, adapted his Traumnovelle in 1999 as Eyes Wide Shut, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
Arthur Schnitzler died in Vienna in 1931. His former apartment on Frankgasse has been preserved to this day and stands as a testament to an era in which literature, architecture, and psychology were closely intertwined in Vienna.
