Sigmund Freud’s private rooms in Vienna opened on Saturday for the public. However, the small museum has no that famous couch, on which the great psychiatrist diagnosed his patients.
Freud’s private rooms are open for the visitors from Saturday, The Local Austria reported. The bitter moment is premises are devoid of any furniture since the Jewish founder of psychoanalysis took everything with him when he fled to London during World War II.
“We are dealing with an exhibition showing that there is nothing left here,” architect Herman Czech told journalists this week ahead of the Sigmund Freud Museum’s re-opening after 18 months of renovations.
As Mr Czech explained, bringing back the sofa from London would have been a falsification of history. Surely, visitors want above all to see the legendary couch, on which great Freud diagnosed his patients.
Following renovations, the private rooms of the Viennese doctor are increasing the exhibition space from 280 to 550 square meters. The museum situated in a bourgeois building in Vienna’s posh ninth district and contains only a few personal items like books, tanned satchel and a box of chess and tarot games in light wood.
Austria keeps memory on Freud
Siegmund Freud was not only famous Viennese doctor and theorist, but he also was an art collector, publisher and writer. He stayed at Berggasse 19 between 1891 and 1938 with his home on the first floor adjoining his practice.
Only the waiting room, which could already be visited previously, still has its original furniture.
When he left for exile in London in 1938, threatened by the Nazis because he was Jewish, Freud took away most of the other furniture — the absence of which reflects “the loss of culture and humanity” of the Hitler-annexed Austria, according to Mr Czech.
Freud died at the age of 83 in 1939. The museum first opened in 1971 with the blessings of Freud’s youngest daughter, Anna.
