The leaves appear much like the stylized crown of foliage at the top of a tree that seems as if breaking through the roof of the building - much like the Secessionists were themselves breaking free of the mold of the display spaces that literally contained (and constrained) art in Vienna - as also emphasized by their journal Ver Sacrum (Sacred Spring), whose title appears to the left of the entrance and references the ancient Roman rituals of the founding of new communities from old ones. Its somewhat unconventional appearance led detractors to nickname it "Mahdi's Tomb" or the "Assyrian Convenience," but its location on the former site of a vegetable market also led to the nickname of "The Golden Cabbage" for the lattice of leaves in the dome. Designed by Josef Maria Olbrich, a young architect and former student of Otto Wagner, the building, located in a culturally vibrant part of Vienna, needed to hold its own against several larger institutional structures. The Secession Building in Vienna is the movement's physical and spiritual home and its permanent visual form. It still exists and its famed building still functions as both an exhibition space for contemporary art and a location that displays the work of its famous founding members. Since the Secession was founded to promote innovation in contemporary art and not to foster the development of any one style, the formal and discursive aspects of its members' work have changed over the years in keeping with current trends in the art world. It gave a physical form and geographic location to designers committed to narrowing the gap in prestige between the fine arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture and the decorative and graphic arts, along with encouraging the exchanges between these genres.
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