Swiss garden

In the Swiss garden

The Schweizergarten is a park in the 3rd district of Vienna , Landstraße , between the Park des Belvederes or Landstraßer Gürtel in the north, the Quartier Belvedere (the area of the former Südbahnhof ) or Arsenalstraße in the west and the Arsenal or Ghegastraße in the Southeast.

history

Maria-Josefa-Park, today Schweizergarten, around 1910, in the background the Arsenal

For strategic reasons, the military wanted the area in front of the arsenal to be kept free of construction, although the line wall as a former defensive line of the city - it was located here in the area of today's belt road - had been removed from 1894. Therefore, an urban park was created here in 1905/1906. The park was originally named Maria-Josefa-Park after Archduchess Maria Josefa , wife of Archduke Otto . When the park was opened by Mayor Karl Lueger on June 5, 1906 without the namesake, the Gürtelstrasse was not yet fully developed in this section. After Maria Josefa's son Archduke Karl Franz Joseph became Austria's last emperor in 1916, the park was named after the emperor's mother for a short time.

After the end of the First World War , the park, which was designed in the style of an English landscape garden, was renamed "Red Vienna" in 1920 out of gratitude for the generous help that Switzerland had given the needy Viennese population after the end of the war . Even then, the park was characterized by the Alpine plant garden and rocks with water fountains. Like the Arsenal, the parking area was located in Vienna's 10th district and only came to the 3rd district in 1938, during the Nazi era.

The park today

Since 1859 the area has been crossed by the connecting line between the southern and northern lines, which was opened at the time . The route of the railway in the park was changed at the end of the 1950s for the main line of the high-speed railway , which went into operation in 1962 : for about a hundred years the line ran parallel to Ghegastraße in the cut and then crossed under the eastern railway tracks towards the Favoriten and Steudeltunnel stop ; now a new tunnel branched off in the western part of the park to the Südbahnhof (S-Bahn) stop , which is located at the corner of Landstraßer Gürtel / Arsenalstraße and has been run as the Wien Quartier Belvedere stop since 2012 . As a result, the part of the incision that was no longer needed was filled in. In view of the demolition of the south station in 2010, the station received new exits from the Schweizergarten in 2009.

Since 1958, the area has been crossed by Schweizer-Garten-Strasse and, branching off from it, the Heeresmuseumstrasse, which leads directly to the main gate of the arsenal. After the world exhibition in Brussels in 1958, Karl Schwanzer's Austrian pavilion was moved here and operated as the Museum of the 20th Century ( 20 House ). On November 15, 2011, the building was reopened after renovation and expansion as a branch of the Austrian Gallery Belvedere and now bears the unofficial name 21er Haus , officially Belvedere 21, with regard to art viewing from today's perspective 21st century in an international context.

Pond in the Swiss garden
Fountain, in the background the Quartier Belvedere
Children's outdoor pool
In the Swiss garden

Sculptures

The state foundation monument , designed by the sculptor Heinrich Deutsch and the architect Berthold Gabriel, commemorates the founding of the Second Republic in 1945. The monument in honor of Rudolf Steiner , which was restored in 2015, forms a thematic unit with the surrounding vegetation. There are several other sculptures in the park, especially around the 21er house.