Architek­turzen­trum Wien

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I also visited Vienna Archi­tec­ture Centre- I’d never been inside this small museum before, but the entry was thrown in free with the bundle tick­et I bought for the other exhib­i­tions.

Compar­is­on of city popu­la­tions in 1900.

Austria’s Archi­tec­ture Hall of Fame

Plan for a TB Sanit­ori­um, Lower Austria 1905

Luxury flat interi­or, 1905 but look­ing extremely 60s. I liked the exhib­i­tion style of lots of photos pinned to a board. Living room interi­or for the same peri­od

Plan for a new 22nd district of Vienna. It was never built. In fact a lot of the area is only really being developed lately (Aspern and Seestadt) and looks completely differ­ent- the stand­ard style of modern flats and shops with glass and wooden surface areas that’s popu­lar at the moment

Art Nouveau church. I forgot to photo­graph the caption, but I think it was destroyed in the Second World War.

Assor­ted build­ings from the “Red Vienna” era of the 1920s. The coun­cil built large amounts of public hous­ing, all of which are still publicly owned and still being success­fully rented out. Around 30-40% of flats in Vienna are publicly owned to this day. Architect’s model of a 1960s semin­ary. It gave me the creeps. The Priestly Panop­ticon.

The Cent­ral Priest can see all your sins. Even when you’re sleep­ing.

1970s artist flat in Vienna. It was created from a tall narrow space, with differ­ent balconies hold­ing areas like the bedroom and studio.

Rest area of the museum.

Inside the museum.

Austri­an pavil­ion at the 1937 Expos­i­tion Inter­na­tionale in Paris. The exhib­i­tion looks extremely 60s to me again.

Modern­ist moun­tain chalet near Kitzbühel. The moun­tain in the back­ground, the Hahnen­kamm is one I’ve walked up a couple of years ago. You can see my photos here.

1950s church near Salzburg

The outside.

Brutal­ist church just outside Vienna designed by sculptor Fritz Wotruba.

The smal­ler gallery was dedic­ated to modern build­ings in the Austri­an state of Vorarl­berg on the border with Switzer­land. I often go there for work. It’s a strange place, although I like visit­ing there. It’s very moun­tain­ous and flat space is at a premi­um, so build­ings are often plonked down in strange places, and there’s a lot of creat­ive uses of terraced layouts and dramat­ic­ally wind­ing roads. There’s a flat bit! Stick the hospit­al in there.

They are very Swiss, speak­ing with a Swiss accent rather than an Austri­an one, and being much more fussy about rules and timetables than the rest of Austria, and a little bit more reli­gious (but still Cath­ol­ic rather than Calvin­ist like the Swiss). The local dialect uses gehörig- prop­er, belong­ing to mean good or nice. There’s a right way to do things, and we approve of doing things the right way. They call them­selves Das Ländle– the little coun­try, and there’s a local super­mar­ket chain Sutter­lüty which proudly slaps stick­ers on lots of their products that it was grown or made in Vorarl­berg. (Sutterlüty’s own brand stuff is also very nice). It’s very much Heidi­land.

Despite being a little conser­vat­ive and fussy in many ways, they do love creat­ive modern archi­tec­ture there though. I have often been to schools in the region that look like the Barbican. Not expens­ive private schools, just the normal local schools that any student can go to. (Albeit that private schools and visible poverty are rare in Austria, and Vorarl­berg is one of the most pros­per­ous and success­ful provinces of all). 

Terraced house in Vorarl­berg.

Outside of the hous­ing estate.

Kinder­garten build­ing. I have defin­itely been in schools in the area that look like this.

There was also a mini-exhib­tion about exper­i­ment­al 60s archi­tec­ture. Here’s some archi­tec­ture zines from the time.

Mind control via archi­tec­ture.

Spon­tan­eous happen­ings at the art school.

They also had a section of inter­est­ing modern build­ings in Steier­mark, the south­ern province of Austria where Arnie comes from. Welcome to my UFO. (Actu­ally part of a Cath­ol­ic school near Graz).

Conver­sion and exten­sion of a former monas­tery near Graz into an arts centre.

Inside the arts centre.

The Univer­sity of Graz’s plant house.

There was also an exhib­i­tion of how Vienna dealt with hous­ing prob­lems in the imme­di­ate post-WW2 peri­od. In the 1930s Austria had a home-grown Cath­ol­ic fascist dictat­or (Engel­bert Doll­fuß) who seized power in a coup, but was allied to Mussolini and rivals with the Nazis, and ended up assas­sin­ated by the Nazis in a failed coup. His deputy Kurt Schuschnigg stepped in, but also even­tu­ally failed in stop­ping the Nazis invad­ing in 1938 and absorb­ing Austria into the Third Reich.

In the Spring of 1945 the USSR entered Austria from the east, and the Amer­ic­ans and Brit­ish from the West. For the next 10 years Austria was caught in a Cold War dead­lock of differ­ent regions being run by the French, Amer­ic­ans, Brit­ish and USSR until the death of Stal­in allowed a new state and govern­ment to be finally agreed in 1955.  

Guide­book for French soldiers stationed in Austria

In compar­is­on with current UK polit­ics, this makes you want to cry. In compar­is­on Austria held on to their coun­cil houses, and spent money on main­ten­ance and build­ing more. Vienna is one of the few big cities in West­ern Europe that is still doing ok for hous­ing for the ordin­ary people as a result. Which is one of the things that frequently puts it at the top of Livi­bil­ity lists. 

Liter­ally a paid up member of the Commun­ist Party

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