Friel, A. L., Pfaffeneder, E., Carolin Poulin, Pregesbauer, P., Schnabl, G., Sherman, A. C., Tamburelli, P. P., & Yersin, G. (2023, February 28). The Ringstrasse is not what it seems. Area, 186(Wien), 126–126.
E253-06 - Forschungsbereich Gestaltungslehre und Entwerfen
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Published in:
area
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Date (published):
28-Feb-2023
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Number of Pages:
1
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Keywords:
Wien; Ringstrasse; Heldenplatz
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Abstract:
Heldenplatz and Ringstrasse are sort of twins. While Heldenplatz is an evidently
unsolved, problematic case, the Ringstrasse appears at first sight as a perfectly
realized, world-renowned piece of urbanism, the Wunderkind that doesn’t even need
to be looked at. Yet Heldenplatz is part of the Ringstrasse (actually it was intended as
its main element, the Kaiserforum) and so, at least for this reason, the system is not as
perfect and defined as it might look.
Heldenplatz and Ringstrasse are two parts of the same puzzle, the puzzle of the
identity of Vienna: the city that is no more the capital of an empire (where the
representative core of that empire has evidently been left unfinished), no more the
center of a socialist experiment, no more the jubilant stage for Hitler’s comeback, no
more the apparently quiet stage for the spy-game of the Cold War, and yet which still
did not embrace its new post ‘89 identity as a fast growing multi-ethnic metropolis.
