The relief “Empress Elizabeth” (allegory) in the reception room was by the late Rudolf Weigl, sculptor.

Sandor Jaray had been intrusted with the interior decorations and fittings.  The carpets were delivered by J. Ginskey, Maffendorf, and the ornamental locksmith work by Alexander Nehr.

The mosaic and artistic work was done by Max Freiherr von Spann and Johann Kappner; the fancy needlework by Carl Giani; the inlaid work (intarsia) by Michael Kehl, Josef Duchoslav, and Franz Makienec, and the bronze works by Johann Hastach, Carl Kratky, J. Schubert, and A.T.  Lange.  On account of the beauty of its furnishings and the harmonious color schemes of the interior the pavilion was especially attractive to women visitors to the fair.

Austria is the home of the European alpine railways.  The oldest, the Semmering Railway, constructed in 1848-1854, lies on the South Railway main line from Vienna to Trieste and is the first mountain railway conducted exclusively on the adhesive principle.  Then followed the Brenner Railway (1864-1867), the shortest railway communication between central Germany via Tyrol to Italy (Verona), and the Arlberg Railway (1880-1884), which opened up the route via Tyrol and Vorarlberg to the west (Switzerland and France).  Four great panoramas in the exhibition showing the above-mentioned alpine railways were witness to Austria’s prominence in this special field of railway technique.  One room in the pavilion was devoted to the models of alpine railways.  There were also plans of the lines, photographic views of buildings and of the tracks of the first three mentioned lines, which are in full working order.  The lines in course of construction were further illustrated by models of tunnels, scaffoldings, foundations of arched bridge (with span of 80 meters) over the Isonzo (littoral lands of Austria), with statistical calculations and charts of the largest vaulted bridges ever built, and photographic views of the working in the Karawanken and Wocheiner tunnels.  Among the other exhibits in this department may be mentioned a model of the groundwork of the Austrian State railways for express trains, photos of the imperial court train and of the newest locomotives and passenger carriages of the Austrian State railways, as well as plans for iron bridges, groundwork, locomotives, and passenger carriages of the State railways.  The work published for the Emperor’s jubilee, “History of the Railways of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy,” together with a number of other publications on the statistics, pedagogy, and technique of railways, were exhibited.  Finally, there was a chart of the railways of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy on a scale of 1:1000000.