GROOVIDO and Blumen Weisz bring the increasingly rare craft of wreath-making into focus, reinterpreting the traditional funeral wreath and its place within Viennese funeral culture.

Directly opposite Hietzing Cemetery, Rotterdam-based design studio GROOVIDO – Gianmaria Della Ratta and Giorgio Gasco – collaborates with the traditional Viennese florist Blumen Weisz for Passionswege. The project takes wreath-making as its starting point: a specialized practice within floristry whose particular skills and knowledge are today preserved by only a small number of businesses.

A distinctive feature of the Viennese wreath-making tradition lies in its construction. While wreath bases made of straw are commonly used elsewhere, funeral wreaths in Vienna are traditionally built on reusable metal frames. Flowers and greenery conceal the structure that supports the wreath and can be used again after the flowers have faded.

GROOVIDO takes precisely this usually invisible structure as the starting point for ILLUSION OF FOREVER. Together with the wreath makers and florists of Blumen Weisz, the studio explores the relationship between the ephemeral and the enduring – between flowers that fade and a structure that remains. Established rituals and craft knowledge meet a contemporary design perspective.

The location itself forms part of this story: opposite Blumen Weisz lies Hietzing Cemetery, the final resting place of Otto Wagner, Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Hertha Bucher, and Hans Hollein – some of the most significant figures in Vienna’s architectural, artistic, and design history.