Mid- late 20th Century: Vienna, Austria

Between the two World Wars, Vienna involved leading architects in social housing projects that came to dominate the character of some Viennese neighborhoods. World War II caused major damage to the city, and the reconstruction phase lasted well into the 1960s.

State Opera House                                                                                                                                            http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.photo.data.text.fw32/fw17366h.hts;internal&action=_setlanguage.action?LANGUAGE=en

Burgtheater                                                                                                                                                   http://klio.uoregon.edu/ViennaCity.html

After the war, Vienna was part of Soviet-occupied Eastern Austria until September of 1945.  During this time, Vienna was divided into sectors by the four powers: USA, UK, France, and the Soviet Union.  This four- power control of Vienna lasted until the Austrian State Treaty was signed in May 1955.  That year, after years of reconstruction and restoration, the State Opera and the Burgtheater, both on the Ringstraße, reopened to the public.  Although the Treaty of Vienna permitted economic and political consolidation after a decade of division into four zones of occupation, the city still lacked a real migration field and lost much of its international character since it could no longer draw on a spectrum of ethnic migrants: the city’s population became more “provincial’ in the post-war era.  Vienna occupies the position of a very complex irregular border for the transfer of capital, information, and people.

In Austria, there is a long tradition of measures for the preservation of historical buildings and townscapes.  Major activities in this field started early in the 1960s in Vienna.  There were two trends: renovation and remodeling.  First of all attempts were made to beautify the facades of the most ancient building stock, and to restore staircases, corridors and courtyards

 In the 1970s, Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky inaugurated the Vienna International Centre, a new area of the city created to host international institutions.  At the same time a new approach to preservation evolved, and the old town was legally protected in 1972.

From the 1960s, quite different economic projects were financed, such as the development of industrial sites and the establishment of shopping centers.  During the following decade a reorientation of housing policy took place.  After a half century of municipal housing programmers this task was transferred to cooperatives, while the municipal authorities revived their priorities of the late Founders’ Period: urban design and development of the technical infrastructure.  Ambitious large scale projects were carried out, such as refuse incineration plants, power stations, gas works, the construction of a second channel for the Danube, and , together with it, the creation of Vienna’s largest ever recreation area the “Danube Island”. 

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Austria/Bundesland_Wien/Vienna-320332/Things_To_Do-Vienna-Ringstrasse-BR-1.html

The construction of the underground railway system is still under way.  It has been claimed that urban design ought to be ‘social urban design’ where about half of the city area meanwhile is municipal property.

Olsen, Donald J. The City as a Work of Art: London, Paris, Vienna. New Haven: Yale UP, 1986. Print.