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The order of Emperor Franz Joseph I in December 1857 to raze the city wall ostensibly made the construction of the Vienna Ringstrasse possible, and subsequently was also the starting signal for Vienna's major urban expansions.
As early as 1836, the construction of the Northern Railway represented the first major intervention in the city, as Renate Banik-Schweitzer notes at the beginning of her large-format work "Planning Atlas Vienna 1867–1918", which, with 528 pages and twelve large-format plans in a slipcase, proves to be a magnum opus in the truest sense of the word. Banik-Schweitzer (born 1939), a doctor of architecture with a research focus on urban development and planning history in cities such as Vienna, Berlin and Budapest, is a proven expert. She edited the Historical Atlas of Vienna and was part of the scientific management team for the major project.
In the introductory part (up to page 29) a compact overview of urban development in Vienna from 1848 to 1918 is given. The architect Friedrich von Stache (1814 to 1895) was singled out from the numerous plans and visions from the Ringstrasse competition of 1858. He envisaged five belt roads for Vienna. Viewed from the inside: A boulevard (Ringstrasse) with the quay, then Esplanadestrasse (Lastenstrasse, "two-line"), followed by a suburban ring and Beltstrasse along the line wall that still existed at the time and finally an outer ring in the outer suburbs. (page 17).
The most important source for the book, which from page 31 is divided into four regions, Vienna Center, Vienna West, Vienna South and Vienna East, is the estate of the former Vienna city planning director Heinrich Goldemund (1863 to 1947).
The book consists mainly of plans, which usually concern several streets - Grätzel, as they say in Vienna. The existing structure is shown, along with approved and applied building lines. The city planners' unmistakable goal is to create straight streets with uniform rows of houses, which hardly existed in historic Vienna. There are also quotes from official administrative reports and from Goldemund's estate.
On page 62 we learn that the civil engineer Alfred Riehl had in mind "a straight continuation of the Praterstrasse" into the inner city via the Laurenzerberg to Stephansplatz. Goldemund's comments (page 362) about the expansion of the Türkenschanzpark in Vienna-Währing are interesting. "However, I remained firm because my suggestion to create a garden district had been approved by the mayor [Carl Lueger]. After my lengthy negotiations and partial concessions regarding the size of the garden, which I initially planned to be even larger than it was actually implemented, an agreement was reached and I managed to obtain the approval of the local council with great applause for this transaction."
In their book "Vienna. A city is changing" with the telling subtitle, "The Danube metropolis and its construction sites", Matthias Marschik & Edgar Schütz, both competent authors of numerous Vienna books, a series of rare construction site photos.
In the introduction they note: "In this book, the focus is not on the buildings, but rather on the construction sites, which in historical comparison only existed for a short time, as a promise for the future." Seen in this way, this daring but well-done book approach falls into the category: "Vienna as you never knew it." Or, to use the words of Marschik & Schütz: "Sometimes these images provide an insight into the - figuratively speaking - innards of these prominent buildings, which were never seen again later."
The book is chronologically divided into eleven sections and begins with "Building before 1860", which is followed by an inset chapter ("Workers, Builders, Architects") with the architect and later city planner Roland Rainer (1910 to 2004) in a trench coat, as well as Mayor Franz Jonas, who opened the newly designed Floridsdorfer Hauptstraße in 1962. In the style of a working class hero, a worker drinking beer is depicted (page 20). The caption reads: “The bricklayer and his Schwechater”.
The "First Wilhelminian Period (1860–1890)" brings pictures from the cottage settlement under construction in Währing and Döbling, the rotunda and the Reichsbrücke. This is followed by an extra about the Ringstrasse, then sections from the fin de siècle and the pre-war period (1890–1918). There are also pictures of the arch of the Vienna River (page 48) and the two Stadtbahn stops under construction at Karlsplatz, which were designed by Otto Wagner.
"Republic and Red Vienna (1919–1929)" brings together images of the Karl Marx Court in Vienna Döbling, which was scaffolded in 1928, as well as of the Amalienbad in Favoriten. Prestige buildings such as the Reichsbrücke or Höhenstrasse can be found in the chapter “Vienna in Crisis (1929–1938)”. "National Socialism and War (1938–1945)" shows the Eastern Railway bridge under construction over the Danube Canal (page 92), as well as on page 94 a picture dated 1939 with test drillings for a subway (!).
The final part consists of the chapters “Occupation Period and Reconstruction (1945–1955)”, “Affluent Society (1955–1975)” and the “Outlook (2000–2020)”. Numerous buildings and structures under construction can be seen, without which Vienna would be unthinkable, including the Stadthalle, the Donauturm, the Südosttangente and the Neue Donau. The U5 construction site can be seen as a look into the future.
Conclusion: The large and detailed “Planning Atlas of Vienna 1867–1918 – Local Regulatory Plans and Contemporary Analyzes” will appeal to those who want to understand the city’s development step by step. "Vienna. A city is changing - the Danube metropolis and its construction sites" provides short-lived insights into the construction of numerous buildings in the city that shape Vienna today. (Thomas Hofmann, January 9, 2026)