(b Vienna, June 19, 1804; d Steyr, July 13, 1869).
Austrian architect. He was classically trained at the academies of Vienna and Rome, where he also acquired a solid knowledge of medieval and Renaissance church architecture. Although sensitive to modern trends in architecture, he became a Romantic architect and tried to combine elements of the Byzantine, Early Christian and Romanesque styles, although it proved difficult to realize these new ideas in pre-1848 Vienna, with its rigid architectural norms and its ideal of utmost economy. In 1836, however, Rösner was given the chance to build the church of St John Nepomuk, Vienna. In its artistic intention and importance it is comparable to Friedrich von Gärtner’s Ludwigskirche in Munich, although smaller in scale and less opulent. Rösner’s architecture, with its incorporation of non-classical motifs and its generous use of figural and ornamental wall painting, was innovative in Vienna, and it made a particular impression on the young architects who, after the revolution of ...
