Residences

            The apartments built to house the bourgeoisie that populated the Ringstrasse came to be called "Mietpalast," or "rent-palace."  While these houses paled in comparison to the grandiose aristocratic mansions called "Adelspalais," they were king size in relation to the Mietkaserne" or "rent-barracks" that were built for the laboring class.  Besides the size discrepancy and army-themed name given to the suburban apartments, the divide between the middle and lower classes was further accentuated in the architecture of their houses.  The design of many Ringstrasse houses reflected the aspirations of most of its residents.  They were all about projecting an aristocratic façade; the more affectations of nobility a building had, the more prestigious its residents seemed.  Although this design is based on falsity and pretension, the lower classes houses didn’t even attempt to hint at such aspirations.  The rent barracks have been described as "monotonous multi-story tenements,[i]" and while the Ringstrasse houses are comparable in style to the aristocratic palais, the working class houses call to mind imperial soldiers quarters.

            By the late eighteenth century, the mid-evil, the flat had largely replaced palatial residences of the Alstadt, despite maintaining their affluent core.  The flat was almost always a multi-family dwelling, with the owner occupying the most spacious and prestigious bottom floor and the other tenants filling in according to their economic (which often entailed social and familial) status, with the least well-off occupying the highest floors.  But these setups, while practical, were not prominent indicators of their owners’ affluence.  As evidenced time and again throughout history, the upper class feels the need to perpetually remind those below them of their wealth.  This is a flaw in the human being that is supported by logic: if a man has a gold chain and he does not wear it, how will those who pass by him know that he is capable of owning a gold chain?  Writing about Viennese architecture in 1847, Ludwig Von Forster supported this point, pointing to a "significant piece of architectural evidence-the failure of a single mid-evil dwelling house, or indeed any earlier than the elate seventeenth century, to survive into the mid-nineteenth century-for the victory of the court, church and aristocracy over bourgeoisie for mastery of Vienna.[ii]"  The creation of the Ringstrasse to a certain extent remedied this problem for the elite and, somewhat ironically, evened the playing field for the bourgeoisie.

            The vast width of the Ringstrasse (relative to the finite boundaries of the inner city) permitted the old aristocracy to recreate their former palaces in the form of country houses and in some cases, entirely new residences.  And since the bourgeoisie, in the name of upward mobility, made every attempt to affect the style of those above them, the old palaces become the governing architectural models.  Despite their large numbers, the bourgeoisie didn’t exist as a wholly unified class because they were constantly trying to mimic the aristocracy that, in turn, affirmed the dominance of the elite.  Architecturally this was most obvious along the Ringstrasse where, Olsen points out "they [bourgeoisie] went out of their way to build and occupy residential blocks whose form and structure glorified aristocratic values and posited a lifestyle contemptuous of thrift, sobriety, diligence, the single-minded pursuit of gain and every other conceivable bourgeois virtue.[iii]"  Even if this was not always indicative of a bourgeoisie mans inner values, it nonetheless held true for his accommodations and the sacrifice he was willing to make in terms of infrastructure in order to obtain a dazzling façade.

            The Mietpalast of the Ringstrasse are somewhat similar to a Hollywood movie set.  The facades are striking, oozing affluence and trendiness at every corner yet inside the walls, while not empty like a movie set, lay an apartment that was cramped, sparse and usually undeserving of the décor that adorned its front.  Describing the buildings of the Ringstrasse to the Congress of French Architects in 1884, Paul Saedille said, "behind their rich decoration there is very little.  Plan hardly exists.  There are none of those niceties of distribution which render life so easy and comfortable in our Parisian interiors.[iv]"The disparity in style between the facades and comfort between the interiors of Parisian and Viennese flats is a question of priorities.  The Viennese bourgeoisie often subordinated comfort to style, so much so that apparently one family, containing the mother, two sons and three daughters all slept in the same room with beds pushed up next one another in order to create a salon room.  In this salon, the family received guests, displayed their busts of Schiller and Goethe and their collection of poetry, and was thus able to meet a requisite for existing in well to do society[v].  And while it is easy for the French and English to condescend to Viennese triage, lauding instead their spacious yet less ornate homes, consider Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  If the Bennett’s had not had a sitting room in which to accommodate Darcy, Bingley and their entire party (the only room, aside from the dining room that Darcy and Elizabeth ever conversed in) Elizabeth and Darcy might never have been able to exchange flirtatious barbs, and therefor missed out on their entire romance.

            The "palace" part of Mietpalast is prefaced by "rent," thereby placing perameters on the application of the word "palace."  The Mietpalast is not a full-fledged palace, and by choosing to live in one a person both gained and lost.  The facades, in their pretensions to aristocracy did actually bring their tenants that much closer.  But in return, the tenant sacrificed many amenities that today are seen as essentials such as lighting, space and ventilation.

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