Autor: Michael Würzelberger

Completed in 1933, Karl-Seitz-Hof in the Jedlesee district of Floridsdorf is considered one of the most architecturally significant municipal buildings in the city of Vienna. Hubert Gessner built the complex in typical superblock construction with a striking central front, a multitude of inner courtyards and staggered towers.

Originally designed as the „Garden City Jedlesee“ with more than 2,500 apartments (today around 1,700), the complex was also the scene of the civil war in February 1934 and was named in 1951 after Vienna’s mayor and first Austrian head of state Karl Seitz, to whom the central monument in the cour d’honneur is also dedicated.

The depictions of Emperor Charles IV and his first wife Queen Blanca of Valois are located on the south tower of St. Stephen’s Cathedral and can be viewed in their original form in the Lower Belvedere. To emphasize the dynastic representative function, Duke Rudolf IV („the founder“) commissioned these Gothic masterpieces – the so-called princely figures.

The artists from the 14th century are unknown, but the statues are made of one cast and impress with elegant hip swing. The lions on which they stand represented their power. The two representations of Emperor Charles IV and his first wife Queen Blanca of Valois are located on the South tower of St. Stephen’s Cathedral and can be seen in original in the Lower Belvedere.

The water reservoir iput into operation together with the 2nd Viennese high spring water pipeline in 1910. With its neo-Romanesque-secessionist architectural style it still represents an exceptional example of the transfer of representative architecture to a utility building.

With a capacity of 11,800 m3, the plant is still part of the Vienna water supply and a popular destination on the Hackenberg.

The Allied Courtyard, built in 1897 for the textile industrialist Julius Leon von Wernburg, replaced the building „Zu den drei Allierten“ („To the Three Allies“) that had been there before. The name refers to the ceremonial entry of the 3 emperors Franz I, Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia and the Russian Tsar Alexander I on the occasion of the opening of the Congress of Vienna on September 25, 1814 in Vienna. As a reminder, on the 1st floor you can still see the clearly visible relief of the allied rulers.

The building – erected by Ludwig Tischler, a busy architect in Vienna – impresses with its strikingly structured facade in the form of bay windows and balconies. An originally existing dome – today indicated by a metal construction – and the prominent location make the Alliiertenhof a real eye-catcher in Leopoldstadt.

The water tower in Vienna-Floridsdorf is part of the tractor factory built in 1905 by industrialists Nathaniel Clayton and Josef Shuttleworth. Agricultural machinery was produced at the factory site until 1944 but the plant was then severely damaged by 2 bomb hits in 1944/45 and taken over by Elin-Union in 1968.

Besides the landmark water tower, only the former machine magazine from 1913 (now used as a coworking space „creativ cluster Floridsdorf“) reminds of the industrial plant today.

Vivid statue of Maria Theresa in the Great Festival Hall of the University of Vienna by Josef Pechan (1886). Maria Theresa was an important reformer of the University of Vienna and initiator of the former assembly hall building at Ignaz-Seipel-Platz (from 1857 Academy of Sciences).

At the turn of the year, the traditional New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the Großer Musikvereinssaal.

The Stallburg in Vienna was built in the 16th century by order of Emperor Maximilian II by the Italian architect Pietro Ferraboscu in the Renaissance style as part of the Hofburg. The stables, built on the ground floor of the residence according to the Spanish model for the emperor’s personal horses, are still used today by the Spanish Riding School. In winter, the Lipizzaner horses – in addition to daily training and performances in the Winter Riding School opposite – also warm up in the unheated stables, alternately under heat lamps.

The flying Lipizzaner of the artists of Artforart consists mainly of styrofoam and comes to a weight of about 500kg, for the festive sparkle provides a coating with crystals.

On 10.10.1433, Hans von Prachatitz, Bohemian-Austrian architect and master builder of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, placed the two-armed cross on the top of the Gothic south tower. At that time, St. Stephen’s Tower was the second largest church tower in Europe after Strasbourg. The square base of the tower gradually tapers to an octagon at the top through ever-widening slopes. From the small pedestal grows a four-part finial and the double-headed eagle with the inscription „Viribus Unitis“ – the motto of Emperor Franz Josef I.

Karl Renner stood as State Chancellor at the cradle of the First and Second Republics, and from 1945-1950 he then was also the first Federal President of the Second Republic. The portrait head of Alfred Hrdlicka in the City Hall Park in Vienna stands in the center of a stone podium made of green labrador surrounded by a six-meter-high steel frame construction. For this reason, the monument earned derision from the Viennese, who said that the „chancellor was trapped in a birdcage.“

On closer inspection, it is noticeable that the bust is not in the center, but is slightly shifted toward Parliament and the Ring. Renner’s recommendation in March 1938 to vote for the annexation of Hitler’s Germany allegedly prompted Hridlicka to create this asymmetrical design.