Karl-Marx-Hof

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Middle wing of the Karl-Marx-Hof, flag towers

The Karl-Marx-Hof is one of the most famous municipal buildings in Vienna and is located in the 19th district of Vienna, Döbling . It was opened in 1930 and, with a length of around 1050 meters, is the longest continuous residential building in the world . The community building was named after the philosopher, economist and critic of capitalism Karl Marx . The building is considered an icon of “ Red Vienna ”.

description

The farm is located on an elongated area between Heiligenstädter Strasse in the west and Boschstrasse in the east, which is closed off by Grinzinger Strasse in the north and Geistingergasse in the south. The Halteraugasse , Mooslackengasse, Josef-Hindels-Gasse and Felix-Braun-Gasse cross the area from north to south , and between Mooslackengasse and Josef-Hindels-Gasse there is also the 12.-Februar-Platz. The residential complex has 98 staircases, with the odd numbers along Heiligenstädter Strasse and the even numbers on Boschstrasse, each ascending from south to north.

The facility consists of two inner courtyards: a smaller one between Geistingergasse and Josef-Hindels-Gasse and a larger one between Mooslackengasse and Grinzinger Strasse. A distinctive wing of the building, which is equipped with 16 meter high arches, connects the two courtyards along Boschstrasse. Only 23 percent of the 150,000 square meter and 1,000 meter long area was required for the structures, the rest is used as play and garden space. The generous green spaces spread out in the courtyards between the residential wings, with the oldest courtyard in the east being significantly smaller than the rest. In accordance with the principle of classic courtyard architecture, this resulted in fresh air, the containment of warmth and a feeling of togetherness, which corresponds entirely to the ideals of Red Vienna. The versatile integration of infrastructural facilities into the building is also typical, which elevates it to a city within the city.

history

The area in front of the Heiligenstadt train station in 1899 - thirty years before the Karl-Marx-Hof was built.

The Karl-Marx-Hof was built on a site that had been a navigable arm of the Danube until the 12th century . In 1750 only a few ponds remained, which were filled in under Emperor Joseph II . In the period that followed, nurseries were operated on the site. In the mid-1920s, the nurseries began to be relocated, as the social democratic housing program had planned the construction of Vienna's third largest residential complex in the First Republic .

With its housing policy, the Social Democrats ruling Vienna from 1919 to 1934 wanted to put an end to the general housing shortage . A housing census carried out in 1917 showed that 92% of all existing apartments at the time did not have their own toilet and 95% of all apartments were without water pipes. Workers' apartments in Vienna had an average area of ​​20 m², correspondingly 58% of people in working-class families did not have their own bed ( sleepers ). It was also tight in the area, because the basic construction was 85%, with a 4- to 5-storey construction. Those who did not have to live in one of the many “hall kitchen houses” where there were neither windows nor direct ventilation were considered lucky.

Built from 1927 to 1933 by Otto Wagner pupil and city architect Karl Ehn on affordable land along the Franz-Josefs-Bahn and officially opened on October 12, 1930, the building contained 1,382 apartments for around 5,000 residents.

Establishment board in courtyard 3.

The Karl-Marx-Hof became famous during the February fights in 1934 , which were directed against the dictatorship of Engelbert Dollfuss , which a little later proclaimed the corporate state that critics referred to as “ Austrofascism ” . Insurgent workers and members of the Republican Schutzbund (including Emil Swoboda ) holed up in the Karl-Marx-Hof and only gave up after artillery fire by the armed forces and the Home Guard . However, the army deliberately only used non-explosive practice ammunition, which explains the relatively minor damage to the building and the fact that there were no fatalities from the artillery fire.

In general, there were 19 deaths in Döbling in the course of the February uprising, but not a single one died in the Karl-Marx-Hof. As the commander of a company of the Voluntary Protection Corps , the later resistance fighter against the Nazi dictatorship, Karl Biedermann, played a leading role in the conquest of the building.

Commemorative plaque "Reason for termination of non-Aryans"

From 1934 to March 18, 1935, the Karl-Marx-Hof was called Karl Biedermann Biedermannhof after the conqueror of the complex during the February battles . Then it was renamed Heiligenstädter Hof . After the "Anschluss" to the German Reich, 66 families were expelled from the Karl Marx-Hof by the Nazi regime in 1938/1939. At least 29 former residents perished in the Holocaust . Only in 2003 was a plaque installed in Karl-Marx-Hof to commemorate them (see illustration).

After the war, the farm was given its original name back in 1953. The heavy bomb damage was repaired in the 1950s. In the 1980s, the Karl-Marx-Hof was completely renovated.

architecture

The building is particularly well-known for its representatively designed main facade, which, with five floors, is the highest part of the complex. It is divided by four arched passageways that create a connection between the Hohe Warte sports field and Heiligenstädter Straße. The massive gates are also distinguished by balconies and crowning tower structures with blue flagpoles. The unity of arches, balconies and tower is highlighted in color by a strong red, while the rest of the central wing is optically receded by a delicate yellow. The color scheme away from the main facade is much more subtle. The facade here is mostly in a soft yellow or light blue. The arched motifs and block-like design of the balconies can also be found in the rest of the complex. A change from three- and four-story building sections creates an additional structure.

Although the Karl-Marx-Hof looks massive from the outside, the complex impresses with its very low density of buildings. Generous inner courtyards with green areas loosen up the architecture. A 10,480 m 2 park interrupts the roughly one kilometer long building front in the area of ​​the central wing.

The sculptural equipment is located exclusively in the area of ​​the main facade. The figures created by Josef Riedl were installed above the massive arches, which express the central values ​​of socialism as personifications of freedom, care, enlightenment and physical culture . The free-standing bronze sculpture “Sower” by Otto Hofner was placed in the middle of the park .

The deliberate provocation through the red color of the facade, the huge arches with their towers and the theme of the sculptures can be seen as a manifesto of the Red Vienna and a symbol of an emancipated workforce. In contrast, the representative design of the central wing, the monumental main entrances and the inner courtyards take up elements of the palace and court architecture of the nobility and the upper classes. Nonetheless, apart from the few sculptures, the building is unadorned and, thanks to its smooth façade and clear structure through geometric lines, has a modern impression that can also be found in the buildings of Otto Wagner and Frank Lloyd Wright .

In the Karl-Marx-Hof there were 748 of the apartment units with kitchen, room and one chamber, 159 apartments with kitchen and two rooms and 136 apartments with kitchen and two chambers. The toilet and bathroom had to be shared by all residents of one floor. Daylight and electric light were standard in all rooms. The kitchen had a connection to the cold water pipe, so you no longer had to fetch the water from the corridor. Some of the apartments even had balconies, which at the time was normally reserved for the middle class. Entering the private residential unit through a separate anteroom, and not directly through the kitchen door, as is usual in the old apartment buildings , was also an innovation that was only known from bourgeois houses.

Infrastructure

What the minimalized standard supply of the individual residential units could not cover was supplemented by a wide range of community facilities. The Karl-Marx-Hof originally contained two kindergartens, a mother's counseling center, a youth home, a library (today a senior meeting point), a sick bay with an outpatient clinic, a pharmacy, a dental clinic, its own post office and various business premises.

In 1929 Ernst Lichtblau set up an advice center for interior design and home hygiene (BEST), which was intended to convey the new way of living to consumers through courses, exhibitions and information sheets.

The most famous communal facility for the Karl-Marx-Hof is probably the central laundry. A large laundry room was equipped with washing machines and separate rooms for drying and ironing. There were also ironing machines for bed linen and tea towels. The entire laundry was heated electrically. The latest technologies should make housework easier. However, the strict supervision by the wash manager and a tight time window to do the laundry led to stress rather than relief for the women. The fact that men were not allowed to enter the laundries should mean that the housework, as was usual in a middle-class family, became invisible to the husbands.

The communal facilities therefore not only met the needs of the individual residents, but on the one hand promoted the community and on the other hand also functioned as educational measures.

The connection to the public transport network is via the Vienna Heiligenstadt train station on the other side of Boschstraße including the associated bus station and via tram line D, which runs along Heiligenstädter Straße and has four stops in the area of ​​Karl-Marx-Hof.

Others

On October 23, 1959, the Austrian Post issued a definitive stamp from the series of Austrian monuments worth 50 groschen for this motif .

On May 1, 2010, a permanent exhibition on the history of Red Vienna was set up in laundromat No. 2, Halteraugasse 7: Red Vienna in the laundromat Karl-Marx-Hof .

In 2019, "100 years of municipal housing in Vienna" will be celebrated. An anniversary party with an entertainment program has been announced for June 30th in the Karl-Marx-Hof. The team from the museum in the laundromat will guide you through the building, including in the - otherwise closed - flag towers.

literature

  • Christoph Jünke: The Karl-Marx-Hof as a place of remembrance of the "Red Vienna". In: Work - Movement - History . I / 2017, pp. 117–125.
  • Gerald and Genoveva Kriechbaum (eds.): Karl-Marx-Hof. Versailles the Workers; Vienna and its courts. Photographs by Gerald Zugmann. Holzhausen, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-85493-150-8 .
  • Inge Podbrecky: Red Vienna: 5 routes to built experiments; From Karl-Marx-Hof to Werkbundsiedlung. Photos: Willfried Gredler-Oxenbauer. Falter-Verlag, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85439-295-8 .
  • Fritz Herrmann: Karl-Marx-Hof: Scenes from the fall of the social democracy. Verlag Mont Verità, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-900434-69-7 .
  • Susanne Reppé: The Karl-Marx-Hof: History of a community building and its residents. Picus-Verlag, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-85452-118-9 .
  • Erich Bramhas: The Viennese community housing: from Karl-Marx-Hof to Hundertwasserhaus. Birkhäuser, Basel 1987, ISBN 3-7643-1797-3 .
  • Alfred Georg Frei: Red Vienna. Austromarxism and working-class culture. Social Democratic Housing and Local Policy 1919–1934. DVK-Verlag, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-88107-033-8 .

Web links

Commons : Karl-Marx-Hof  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wilfried Koch: Baustilkunde - The standard work on European architecture from antiquity to the present . 32nd edition. Prestel, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-7913-4997-8 , pp. 420 f .
  2. ↑ Isabella Ackerl, Harald A. Jahn: Unknown Vienna - hidden beauty, shimmering splendor . Pichler Verlag, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-85431-513-1 , pp. 160 .
  3. ↑ Karl-Marx-Hof. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)
  4. ^ Gudula Walterskirchen: The blind spots of history: Austria 1927-1938 . Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2017, p. 81 f .
  5. ^ Gudula Walterskirchen: The blind spots of history: Austria 1927-1938 . Kremayr & Scheriau, 2017, p. 81 .
  6. ↑ Unveiling on November 27, 2003 City Hall correspondence of November 27, 2003. (Accessed June 1, 2010)
  7. ^ Community of Vienna, The Karl Marx-Hof. The residential complex of the municipality of Vienna on the Hagenwiese in Heiligenstadt, Vienna 1930, pp. 3–4.
  8. ↑ a b Brenda Fowler, History and Name in a Vienna Project, in: The New York Times, July 11, 1991. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/11/garden/history-and-a- name-in-a-vienna-project.html
  9. ↑ a b c Reinhard Sieder, Housing and Households in Community Housing. Political discourse, representation, practice, cultural consequences, in: Das Rote Wien. 1919–1934, 2019, pp. 234–241.
  10. ↑ a b Friedrich Achleitner, Austrian Architecture in the 20th Century. A Guide in Four Volumes, 3, 2010.
  11. ^ Eva-Maria Orosz, Living Teaching, in: Das Rote Wien. 1919-1934, 2019, pp. 246-252.
  12. ↑ Gabriella Hauch, "... there was Vienna and there was the rest of Austria", in: Hundert Jahre Rotes Wien. Die Zukunft, Vienna 2019, pp. 56–57.
  13. ↑ Georg Renöckl: The red fortress is still standing - the Karl-Marx-Hof, the most famous building complex in left-wing Vienna, defies time, but it has lost its utopia . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . Zurich June 2, 2014, p. 33 .
  14. ↑ Wiener Symphoniker played in the municipal building orf.at, May 19, 2019, accessed May 20, 2019.

Coordinates: 48 ° 14 '58 "  N , 16 ° 21' 49.4"  E