Intro: zinger à description à thesis

Sara Kendall

Prehistory: City Plan of Vienna

A city brings together people as a civilized society, united in a common space. The physical properties of the city become critical factors in the social interactions of a given society. The urban planner, therefore, is faced with a challenge: the layout of a city not only reflects the social order of the city, it also creates the social order of the city, and it ultimately symbolizes the social order of the city. In viewing any urban plan over the course of time, the city can be understood as an evolving social construct. A map of Vienna clarifies more than simply the organization of streets: it is an insight into the culture and history of Vienna, telling the story of the successes, falls and reformations of the city. It makes clear the way in which the plan of a city imposes a social order onto its people, and how the people affect the city in which they are living. Through its history of city planning, Vienna can be understood as a defensive city, a socially stratified city, and, finally, as a cultural city.

Vienna was initially built by the Romans in the first century AD as a defensive city. Established by the Romans as Vindobona, a military camp, Vienna was created to serve as a border fortress on the northern frontier of the Roman Empire[1]. Located on the edge of the Danube River, Vienna felt the constant threat of invasion. In 1526, Sulayman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire had made a forceful advance into Europe. Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary were united under the Hapsburg Empire, situated in Vienna. The Turkish threat on Vienna and the Hapsburg Empire remained present through the 16^th and 17^th centuries. Walls were built surrounding the city of Vienna, setting up its first defensive system. The fortification consisted of multiple, outward pointing bastions along a wide city wall, which was then surrounded by a fire zone, a cleared space to stop enemies from “smoking out” the city. This protective barrier allowed the city to successfully resist the Turkish attacks of 1529 and 1683. The fortifications created a small, compact central city. The area was limited and the city could not expand but only grow denser[2]. As a city that developed to meet its defensive needs, Vienna was forced to evolve socially in response to this imposed and constrictive layout.

The existence of defensive walls encircling Vienna reinforced the social hierarchy of the city by allowing for a physical separation of the classes. The original walls built around the old city served to define the social ladder of the city, with the nobility and the Hofburg within the walls, and the artisans, manufacturers, and bourgeoisie outside[3]. The clear distinctions between the classes were represented and enforced by these city walls, and being inside the encircled central city became a sign of wealth and power. As the city grew beyond the original walls, the nobility were forced to create small suburbs outside the walled city limit. Faced with the problem of a growing city within a limited space, the city boundaries were relocated with the construction of the Linienwall in 1704. The Linienwall, built after the second Turkish Siege of 1683, served to structure and protect the new suburbs, but again excluded the lower classes, keeping the rich inside and the poor outside, vulnerable to attack. The physical separation of the Hofburg from the outer city created the perfect absolutist environment[4]. The Hapsburgs had control over its immediate surroundings, held within walls, as well as the suburban districts that were continuously forming outside the Linienwall. These districts had no self-government, relying heavily on the power of their monarch. The fortified layout of the city not only reinforced a social stratification, but also served as a symbol of power and success of the Hofburg. This power went unchallenged until the 19^th century, when the threat of foreign invasion again became real and the city plan finally began to take in the needs of the people in the form of the Ringstrasse.

The construction of the Ringstrasse in the place of the previous walls surrounding the city in the late 19^th century allowed for a new social mobility, which resulted in the emergence of Vienna as a cultural center. In 1809, the city’s well-built defensive system was destroyed with the invasion of Napoleon. For the first half of the 19^th century, the city remained defenseless. Finally, Emperor Franz Josef I held a competition for the new city plan of Vienna, and architects submitted their ideas for not only the city layout, but how they saw the city evolving socially. “In planning a big city it would be entirely feasible for the architect to take as his point of departure the ‘happiness’ of the inhabitants. Only he must then be in the position to say what that happiness is.”[5] The design for the Ringstrasse was proposed in 1858. The Ringstrasse was a wide road that encircled the entire inner portion of the city, once surrounded by walls. It still defined a central core, but for the first time the inner city was made accessible to all the people[6]. The social mobility brought by the new city plan for Vienna inspired an emergence of cultural activity inside the city. Those involved in the Revolution of 1848, who had fought for the liberalization of Vienna, responded to this new urban form and brought themselves closer to the city core, still trying to challenge the Hapsburg Empire[7]. The construction of the Ringstrasse also brought in the middle class from the outer suburbs, which resulted in a new culture of bourgeois art, music, and entertainment, as well the establishment of Vienna as a tourist destination. Vienna became a pedestrian city, with all the tourist attractions along the Ringstrasse. While the development of a road as opposed to a wall surrounding the inner city resulted in a change of social structure, the physical layout of Vienna was by and large the same. The radial plan of Vienna extended beyond the Ringstrasse and into the suburbs, which were divided into districts. The suburban districts were then encircled by another ring road, the GurtÁl.

The history of the layout of Vienna tells the story of the complicated and continuous relationship of the people of a city to its physical properties. Originally serving a primarily defensive purpose, the limits created by the fortifications around the old city separated the people of Vienna. The radial organization of the city, with the cultural core at the center, is one that is accessible to all as well as ideal for the constant flow of tourists. The roads that now define the boundaries of Vienna successfully separate the city into distinct sections, while not having the negative effects on the social order of the preexisting walls. The development of the Ringstrasse as the city boundary allowed the people of Vienna to finally use the city to its full potential, and represented the rising power of liberals in the city[8]. The Ringstrasse signified this growth of a new liberalism, taking on a more socially significant form, and finally bringing Vienna into the same leagues as London and Paris in terms of cultural value and popularity to tourists. While there was no real change of power, the Ringstrasse had physically connected the different classes and allowed Vienna to develop into the cultural landmark it is now known for. The history of Vienna, in particular, illustrates the entangled relationship between a city’s physical and social histories.

Bibliography:

Benevolo, Leonardo. The History of the City. Great Britain: Scolar Press, 1980.

Geretsegger, Heinz and Max Peinter. Otto Wagner: The Expanding City; The Beginning of Modern Architecture, New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1964.

Mumford, Lewis. The City In History: Its Origins, Its Transoformations, and Its Prospects. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Inc., 1961.

Olsen, David. The City as a Work of Art, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

The Social Geography of Vienna. Abe Streep. 2001. <http://www.ecfs.org/bome/cities/vienna/hband/streep/index.html>

[1] Heinz Geretsegger and Max Peinter, Otto Wagner: The Expanding City; The beginning of Modern Architecture, (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1964), pp. 38-40

[2] Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transoformations, and Its Prospects. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Inc., 1961), pp. 355

[6] David Olsen, The City as a Work of Art, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 74-76