Serenity, Splendor, and Permanence

In the prehistory of Vienna, when power and prestige were represented through style, the nascent burg’s progress and prosperity were indicated most concretely through the growing number and magnificence of its churches and palaces. Power was not an economic engine for Vienna, as it was not founded principally on commerce. In the progression toward true city status, Vienna was established first and foremost as an ecclesiastical center; having been occupied as early as 976 by the Babenbergs, who were heavily religious and enthusiastic founders of monasteries.[1] For this reason, the city was attractive as much for its brilliant gothic structures (the soaring St. Stephen’s cathedral, for example) as it was for trade. In its early years, Vienna’s urban development was stunted, and yet simultaneously stimulated, by an unusual set of historical circumstances. The first city walls were constructed as early as 1200, but in the years of Vienna’s blooming political influence when the wall might have been torn down for further expansion, it could not be. The rise of the Hapsburg dynasty in Austria and the establishment of Vienna as the capital of the Holy Roman Empire in 1483 coincided, unfortunately, with a series of attacks by the Turks in 1529. The city was forced to turn to heavy fortification within only fifty years of coming to power, and the possibility of urban expansion was, for the time, effectively obliterated. A new, stronger wall was built and the Alstadt, or inner city, was officially created. This small bubble of urban life, deprived of room to spread outwards in those critical years as it matured, grew instead in splendor to become the much praised, universally acknowledged core of Vienna. Even after the city became a political and administrative power for Germany, the significance of the numerous evolving churches and monasteries encapsulated in that inner circle remained clear—though after the threat of the Turks abated major construction (and reconstruction) commenced in the suburbs beyond the Alstadt, the wall was not torn down, and when Napoleon destroyed it in 1809, the rubble was allowed to continue isolating the section for years after.

As the site of the original Roman castrum Vindobona in the first century AD, and thanks to the building of the first wall around 1200, the Alstadt, smartly settled adjacent to a branch of the Danube river, was the heart of Vienna from the very beginning. Symbolically, the universally acknowledged crown of the Alstadt even today is St. Stephen’s Cathedral, or Stephansdom, which was built as early as 1144-47, before even the first true wall (indeed, Vienna at this point was hardly more than a town). The cathedral itself ranges in styles—originally built in the early Romanesque fashion, it has been transformed countless times by gothic and baroque additions. The most distinctive aspect of the cathedral is its single, 445 ft. tall spire, which would have had a twin were it not for financial difficulties during construction.[2] With its enormous roof and single spire, the silhouette of the cathedral is instantly recognizable and became at once an object of Viennese pride, as well as an excellent draw for foreigners. Directly following the construction of St. Stephen’s—that is, around 1150—Austrian margraves (princes of the Holy Roman Empire and, at the time, dukes of Bavaria) were drawn to Vienna. Once there, they founded the city’s oldest monastery, Sankt Maria zu den Schotten (St. Mary of the Scots). The connection with the sovereign brought by the princes attracted more prosperity to Vienna, which, with this new development, would soon be on its way to becoming a city.

The Turkish sieges on Vienna during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries would be one of, if not the, most important landmarks in the city’s urban growth. The Hapsburg Dynasty had ruled the Austro-Hungarian empire since 1273, and in 1483 made Vienna their capital, and thus a key figure in world politics as well as an enemy target. When the Turkish hit, first in 1529 and then at various times through 1683, the old, useless city wall (which had, at that point, been expanded past in many places) was replaced with a new, all-encompassing barrier to protect the city.[3] Under more peaceful circumstances, the city may have simply grown exponentially as its fame grew. The increase in prestige would result in great economic prosperity, which would in turn lead to rapid expansion and development. The city, thus restricted and unable to expand out, instead increased in density; The streets are narrower, the buildings taller, and the urban life livelier, all because of those necessary boundaries. Works of architectural mastery exist in great abundance in Vienna just as in any urban center where artists flock to exhibit their skill, but these are often dexterously inserted in whatever space could be found, hidden amongst normal buildings or on side-streets.

In the middle of the 17^th century came the counter reformation, a religious movement hugely responsible for the shaping of Vienna as well as the emergence of the immensely popular Baroque style. Started by Ferdinand I in attempt to recapture Austria from the Protestant majority, the reformation resulted in Austria being swarmed by countless Catholic orders. Vienna itself was occupied by at least nine. Many of the religious characters had come from Italy—practically speaking, this was the court’s intention; non-German speaking Catholics were less likely to be seduced by Protestant ideas. With the Italian influence, of course, came Italian taste, and when each Catholic order built their own churches and monasteries most of them were constructed with the drama and grandeur of the Baroque style.[4] Baroque would be the dominating style of Vienna from the mid-17^th century through the mid-18^th, when most of the movement’s crowning achievements would be completed.

Not until after the Turkish menace had abated could Vienna’s development pass outside the city walls. The suburbs were a site of not only reconstruction, but a huge amount of new construction as well—with the early 18^th century came the “building boom of the Baroque Age,” being the cause (and possibly effect) of both population growth and a rise in aristocratic power.[5] Building was dominated entirely by the church, court, and aristocracy. Members of the Hapsburg court built summer residences in the suburbs, the most famous being architect Johnann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach’s gigantic Baroque Schönbrunn Palace. Construction for this beacon of imperial and aristocratic power began in 1696, and was designed, huge symmetrical gardens and all, to rival Paris’ Versailles. It was remodeled in the Rococo style in its later life (1744-1749) to please the royal Maria Theresia, and although it lost some of its architectural distinction, the building retained its unique yellow ochre exterior and sweeping Baroque park. Schönbrunn palace, in its time, was an extremely clear reflection the ownership situation of the city—although the urban area was held mostly by many landlords, few of whom were connected to the city’s administration, during this period the focus was truly on development outside the Alstadt facilitated by the upper classes. As the importance and respectability of the area around the walls increased, in 1705 the legal boundaries of Vienna were expanded to include the suburbs as well, triggering the construction of a customs barrier, the Linienwall.

The period of late Austrian Baroque spans from about 1710 to 1750, corresponding with the Rococo period in France. It encompasses the works of Fischer von Erlach and another architect, Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt, who are considered to be the great masters of 18^th century Austrian Baroque.[6] Fischer von Erlach’s second great achievement, the Karlskirche, was built from 1715 to 1749 (finished by his son, Joseph Emanuel). The church is dramatic and impressive, complete with large oval rooms, arched pavilions, a high dome, and a wide façade. Most importantly, the work is “a peculiar combination” of the Italian, French and Austrian Baroque, praised for an eclecticism “so uninhibited that it produces a unique, original architectural vision carried out with admirable self-confidence.”[7] The church was conceptualized by the Emperor Karl VI to be a memorial to the 8000 victims of an epidemic in Vienna which had finally abated in 1713, and “to create a symbolic focus for Vienna as the ‘new Rome’, the seat of the Holy Roman Emperor.”[8]

In the 1780s, the emperor Joseph II became quite taken with the ideas of French Enlightenment, and started a reform movement by himself—as he said, “everything for the people, nothing through the people.”[9] An absolutist, Joseph took it upon himself to enact change within the church system, which in fact owned about three eighths of his land. Surveying each of around 2000 monasteries, he shut down about 17% which he saw as “wealthy and useless.”[10] The incredible amount of space left behind by those that were closed, much of it within the closely-packed Alstadt, was put to a variety of other uses. Meanwhile, the emperor set himself to the task of installing a new network of parishes in the city.

Although by the end of the eighteenth century many European cities began to break through their confining walls, Vienna instead chose to remain fortified. This proved basically useless, however, as the Napoleonic wars began and Vienna was captured by the French emperor in 1809. In a show of military prowess, Napoleon demolished most, if not all, of the Alstadt wall, leaving only rubble behind. Although the wall was torn down, still the ruins stood as a barrier between the Alstadt and the outside world. Although eventually the remains of that wall would be removed and the building of the Ringstrasse would commence (mirroring the period of accelerated urban construction after 1683), the Alstadt still remains easily distinguished and the most cherished piece of the city.

Donald J. Olsen describes Vienna as “a magnificent denial of objective historical reality: a product of the human will and imagination, a triumph of art over reality,” and points out that “whether challenged by the Turkish or the Prussian or the Napoleonic army . . . Vienna adopted a pose of serenity, splendor, and permanence.”[11] To the Viennese, each piercing spire of a Gothic cathedral and every grand façade of a majestic Baroque palace symbolizes as much a part of the city’s capacity to rule as economic strength would. Today, with Vienna all but entirely stripped of its political importance in world affairs, one remembers a time in the very beginning of the city’s rise to stardom, when it’s elegance and grandeur gave the place enough dignity to ensure itself a role as the seat of one of the largest and most important empires in history.

Bibliography:

1) Vienna – The Making of a Capital. Wien.at: Vienna City Administration. 14 May 2002 <http://www.wien.gv.at/english/history/>

2) Karlskirche. Great Buildings Online. 1994-2004

<http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Karlskirche.html>

3) Trachtenberg, Marvin, and I. Hyman. Architecture: from Prehistory to Post-Modernism. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., and Prentice Hall, Inc., 1986.

4) Janson, H. W. History of Art, Fifth Edition. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995.

5) Fodors, LLC. Vienna and the Danube Valley, Fifteenth Edition. New York: Random House, Inc., 2003.

6) Blue Guide. City Guide, Vienna. Second Edition. London: A & C Black Publishers Limited, 2002.

7) Olsen, Donald J. The City As A Work Of Art. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986.

[1] Blue Guide, City Guide, Vienna. Second Edition. (London: A & C Black Publishers Limited, 2002). p.46.

[2] Fodors, LLC. Vienna and the Danube Valley, Fifteenth Edition. (New York: Random House, Inc., 2003). p. 21

[3] Vienna – The Making of a Capital. Wien.at: Vienna City Administration. 14 May 2002 <http://www.wien.gv.at/english/history/>

[4] Blue Guide, City Guide, Vienna. Second Edition. (London: A & C Black Publishers Limited, 2002). p. 54.

[5] Blue Guide, City Guide, Vienna. Second Edition. (London: A & C Black Publishers Limited, 2002). p. 57.

[6] Trachtenberg, Marvin, and I. Hyman. Architecture: from Prehistory to Post-Modernism. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., and Prentice Hall, Inc., 1986). pp. 370-2

[8] Blue Guide, City Guide, Vienna. Second Edition. (London: A & C Black Publishers Limited, 2002). p. 168

[9] Blue Guide, City Guide, Vienna. Second Edition. (London: A & C Black Publishers Limited, 2002). p. 58.

[11] Olsen, Donald J. The City As A Work Of Art. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986). p. 4