National Railway Station Restaurant, Vienna X, Josef Pohl (Restaurant Staatsbahnhof, Wien X, Josef Pohl) 1911

Gustav Kalhammer made this small image of the National Railway Station Restaurant in Vienna, probably as a postcard. It looks like it was made with stencils or printing blocks. I'm drawn to the pale green tiling around the walls. It's a funny colour, almost like a bathroom, but the dark lines give the room a sense of order, of structure. It reminds me a bit of the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi, who painted very quiet paintings of empty rooms. You can almost smell the floor wax. Look at the chandelier in the centre, it’s like a big fuzzy cloud, and the tiny flowers on each table, each mark doing the work to evoke detail and atmosphere. The art embraces a certain level of ambiguity, inviting multiple interpretations rather than being fixed to one meaning.