THE RINGSTRASSE

A preliminary guide and history

Note: This is a work in process. It has grown out of my course Fin-de-Siecle Viennese Culture and the Coffeehouse. Offered Spring II, 2001. It is a work in progress and in no way put forward as complete.

Bob Corbett
April 2001

Primary early source: This first version of comment on the Ringstrasse is based exclusively on Carl Schorske's version in his chapter on the Ringstrasse in his book: FIN-DE-SIECLE VIENNA: POLITICS AND CULTURE.
I have hopes of extending the comments and data from other sources as time allows.

1. SOME GENERAL COMMENTS:
   • The buildings suggest magnifying horizontal space without confinement.
   • 1859 plan focuses on the circular flow.
   • There is a certain irony about the ground itself. The three buildings on the outer ring -- university, rathaus and parliament -- are built on the area of the old military marching grounds, the champ de Mars. This area of over 500 acres was reluctantly given up. Even the architecture of the Parliament strongly suggests a style quite at odds with the militarism of the ground's history and reflects much more pacific dreams of liberalism.

2. RATHHAUS QUARTER:
   • OVERVIEW

     Four central buildings in a quadrilateral shape: Theme: Recht and Kultur: Law and Culture.

     1. University -- function: educational.
     2. Rathaus -- function: political
     3. Burg Theater -- function: cultural
     4. Parliament -- function: political

     The four buildings suggest four central liberal values:

     1. Parliamentary government
     2. Municipal autonomy
     3. Higher learning
     4. Dramatic arts

   • UNIVERSITY
     • architect: Heinrich Ferstel (1828-1883)
       built between 1873-1878
     • primary style: Renaissance
       A symbol of the liberal culture.
     • As the citadel of secular the university had a tough political road to go to exist at its location in such an important spot.
     • The style proclaims its historical affiliation between modern rational culture and the revival of learning after the dark ages.
     • Ferstel spent time in the universities of Padua, Genoa, Bologna and Rome to gather ideas for his building.
     • The tremendous debate and furor surrounding the three paintings for the university which Gustav Klimt was to do (philosophy, medicine and jurisprudence) not only caused a sensation in Vienna in 1897-98, but dramatically changed Klimt's entire life and mode of painting.

   • RATHAUS
     • architect: Frederich Schmidt
       built between 1872-1883.
     • primary style: Gothic
       Shows its tie to the free medieval commune, as the city itself has great autonomy from Austria itself.

   • BURG THEATER
     • architects: Gottfried Semper and Carl Hasenauer.
       built between 1874-1888.
     • primary style: Baroque
       Tied to the tradition Austrian arts. This is the unified art form for clerics, courtiers and commoners.
     • Gustav Klimt (with his partner Franz Matsch) did the ceiling as a history of theater in Austria and decorated the grand stairway.

   • PARLIAMENT
     • architect: Theophil Hansen (1813-1891)
       built between 1874-1883.
     • primary style: Classical Greek
     • Hansen worked hard to create an illusion of height.
     • Along the ramp are statues of 8 classical historians including Thucydidas and Polybids.
     • Athena, the central figure is not the warring Apollo, but the protectrix of the polis and the goddess of wisdom. All were safe and gentle liberal symbols. The status itself was done by Karl Kundmann between 1876 and 1902 and not actually erected until long after the liberalism it reflects was quite dead in both Parliament and the Rathaus.
     • The Danish architect Theophil Hansen built 4 other Ringstrasse buildings:
       1. Hall of the Music Society
       2. Academy of Fine Arts
       3. Stock Exchange
       4. Evangelical School

   • GENERAL NOTES ON THE RATHAUS QUARTER:
     • This was the area of the GROSSBURGERTUM.
       The social pillars of ascendant liberalism lived here including the financial and business leaders, rentiers, university professors and many high government officials of both the nation and city.

3. MUSEUM DISTRICT
   Museum of Art History and Museum of Natural History
   • architect: Gottfried Semper
   • theme of unity and splendor.

   Gustav Klimt decorated the main lobby with female figures of each era of art. This was in his early period before the radicalism of his "post university" paintings period.

4. OPERA
   • architects: August von Siccardsburg and Eduard van der Null.
   • The housing in this area tended to be aristocratic rentiers and the business elite.

5. SCHWARZENBERGERPLATZ AREA
   • Early: in the 1860s. This was held by the highest social quarter who invested in this area.

6. TEXTILE QUARTER
   • located in the northeast corner of the Ringstrasse.
   • includes Concordiaplatz.
   • the dominant owners here were textile manufacturers, members of the bourgeoisie.

7. SOME TIME AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION LINES:
   • First Wave Of Building: Karntnerring: 1861-1865 Middle income housing. Smaller, uniform units. Classical uniformity in the façade.
   • Second Wave of Building: In Rathaus quarter: Eg. Reichsratsstrasse (behind Parliament). Emphasizes differentiation in both façade and interior and accepts the stratification of society and accepts upward mobility.
   • Theophil Hansen opened investment to wider circles with the Gruppenzinshaus. This was a block-size building which was actually 8 connect multiple-dwelling entries, each of which could be sold to different owners.
     This sort of housing helped to create a rapprochement of aristocracy and bourgeoisie because of the proximity of living quarters.

8. SOME NOTES ON OTTO WAGNER AND THE RINGSTRASSE.
   • An early and unfamous Otto Wagner participated in the Ringstrasse- related architecture, made a great deal of money and then, much later, became a critic of Ringstrasse architecture and moved far beyond it.
   • For nearly 25 years he worked on buildings of the Ringstrasse period, but off the ring itself. He was at first pushed by his mother, who owned several Ringstrasse buildings, and pushed by his own driving sense of economic upward mobility. He emerged from this period of his life a quite wealthy man.
   • Later he emerged as a stern critic of Ringstrasse architecture but was involved in one extremely famous building that, while not ON the ring technically, is visible from it and usually considered part of the ring.
     
     This is the Postal Saving Bank Building.
     • Wagner built this building between 1904-1906.
     • There are some ironies connected with this. Wagner was a champion of progress and modernism. Yet the building itself if for a quite right wing conservative organization.
     • The bank was conceived for the "little man" and had the concept of many small depositors uniting together to create a financial institution which could rival the big banks and the power and control of Jewish bankers. It was conceived by the Christian Socialist Party and was conservative and anti-Semitic.
     • Mayor Karl Lueger engineered the placing of the bust of Georg Coch in the square in front of the bank headquarters and itself on the ring. Wagner agreed to this. The irony is that Coch was a great hero to the anti-Semites and conservatives.
     • Despite the fact of this political conservative connection with the building, Wager was free to construct as he saw fit and the building is one of the great triumphs of his period of progressive architecture.
     • This Postal Savings building is just across the ring from the massive War Ministry building. These two bastions of conservativism are just diagonally across the ring from Dr. Karl Lueger Ring near the Votive Kirche. This area symbolized the rise of conservative power and thus two points on this rough circle emphasize the contrary political emphasis as many of the other Ringstrasse buildings.

9. SOURCES ON THE RINGSTRASSE IN ADDITION TO SCHORSKE'S BOOK
   • Grimschitz, Bruno. DIE WIENER RINGSTRASSE. Bremen and Berlin: 1938.
   • Lichtenbeger, Elizabeth. "Wirtschfsfunktion und Sozialstruktur der Wiener Ringstrasse." In, Wagner-Rieger, VI, 24-26.
   • Lorenz, Reinhold. "Politische Geschichte der Wiener Ringstrasse," in DREI JAHRHUNDRETE VOLK, STAAT UND REICH. Vienna: 1944, pp. 487-489.
     The allocation of glacis land for the church anticipates the general edit of 1857 releasing the area.
   • Wagner-Rieger, Renate
     • 1969: Editor: DIE WIENER RINSTRASSE, BILD EINER EPOCHE. Vienna, 1969.
     • 1970: WIENS ARCHITEKTUR IM 19. JAHRHUNDRET. Vienna, 1970.

HOME