646 years, reawakened. The essence of a residence.History? Written. The past: made present.One of a kind, defined. You may call it art.
A residence with provenance: documented since 1380. Until the 18th century, the Bishops of Passau’s seat in Vienna. Connected to the Gothic church of Maria am Gestade by an arched passageway.
On 130 square metres on the third floor of an 1897 building on Passauer Platz, Thomas Bonstingl is creating a concept apartment true to one credo: Viennese origin. Italian perfection.
On Passauer Platz, a period building is being completed – by someone who knows how: Thomas Bonstingl is returning this 1897 original to its substance. With stucco, colours and surfaces true to the original, a rigorous Molteni&C interior and fittings by Gessi. We will repeat ourselves just once, and gladly: you may call it art.
Bonstingl – Meister des Altbaus
“The substance was always there. The master recognises it, lays it bare and completes, in the spirit of his muses, a work begun long ago.”
The idea was born in Milan: not to fill an apartment with individual pieces of furniture, but to create architecture, materials and interior as one. Molteni&C has been crafting furniture masterpieces in Giussano since 1934 and was taken with the project from the start. At Salone del Mobile 2026, Gessi came on board – whose fittings have left their mark in the finest bathrooms in the world.
The architectural spirits of the past meet a modern living concept built to the highest international standards: Molteni as a layer, Gessi as an island in the bathroom.
26 m² – The handleless designer kitchen disappears behind dark fronts and only steps forward when it is needed. The fluted island with fine lines of light divides kitchen and dining area without separating them. Cooking comes with a view of stucco.
26 m² – High ceilings, double doors, stucco that still breathes: the living room is the apartment’s salon. Green marble and warm wood frame the fireplace, and indirectly lit shelving takes the place of any display cabinet. The windows open onto the Gothic façade of Maria am Gestade.
17 m² – Quietly placed, in muted tones, with an adjoining dressing room: the bedroom is the quietest room in the apartment. Green velvet, stucco and herringbone parquet are all it needs. The house itself provides the calm.
16 m² – The bathroom is the apartment’s private spa, with a bathtub, fittings and an island by Gessi. For everyday use, a second bathroom with shower and WC is at hand. Bathing here is unhurried.
14.5 m² – A generous hallway with indirect lighting — the first impression, setting the standard for the whole home.
Passauer Platz 2, 1010 Vienna
Tiefer Graben, Hoher Markt, Rotenturmstraße, Stephansplatz, the Danube Canal: all within a few minutes' walk. And yet Passauer Platz lies hidden away: a small, quiet idyll in the shadow of Maria am Gestade. Here the city centre stands still for a moment.
Where Passauer Platz lies today, the ground once fell steeply to an arm of the still untamed Danube. Ships carrying salt and goods moored at its bank – the Gestade; the nearby Salzgries still recalls them. Above the water stood the boatmen’s church: around 1200, Maria am Gestade is first explicitly recorded. Rebuilt after the city fire of 1262, it became the heart of the riverside quarter.
In 1380 the house at today’s Passauer Platz 2 is first mentioned in records. In 1415 it was acquired by the Bishop of Passau, whose diocese Vienna still belonged to. As the Passauer Renthof it remained episcopal property into the 18th century. The Passau officials worked next door to Maria am Gestade, linked to the church by an arcade. The best known of them, the later Cardinal Melchior Khlesl, lived here from 1590 to 1600.
Joseph II’s church reforms and the end of the Prince-Bishopric of Passau in 1803 closed the Passau era; early in the 19th century the house passed into private hands. In 1897 a new apartment building by the architect Hermann Stierlin replaced the old Renthof – a Gründerzeit building with high ceilings, stucco and a stately corner façade. Five years later, in 1902, the small square before the church was officially named Passauer Platz.
Today the house brings both worlds together. On the third floor, Thomas Bonstingl is returning a 130-square-metre apartment to its substance: stucco, colours and surfaces follow the original, complemented by a Molteni&C interior and fittings by Gessi. Outside the windows rise the Gothic tracery windows of Maria am Gestade – more than six centuries of city history within sight.
A screen shows you the proportions. But not how the light falls through the windows at four in the afternoon. Arrange a viewing in person.