Light rail railings
The light rail railings , also called sunflower railings or after their creator Otto Wagner railing , are a special form of street furniture in the Austrian capital Vienna .
1895 by the architect and urban planner Otto Wagner -designed, cast-iron railings in the Art Nouveau emerged as a byproduct of 1898 opened Vienna rail and stand as the entire system under monument protection . They are associated with a particularly high recognition effect and shape the cityscape . Alternative names that are used less frequently are Stadtbahngitter , Sonnenblumengitter and Otto Wagner Grid .
The waist-high, kilometer-long railings are now mostly painted in the special reseda green color. However, this paintwork did not establish itself until the 1950s, before they were light beige. The prefabricated railings correspond to the idea of series production in the highly industrialized period around 1900. The iron foundries Rudolph Philip Waagner in Vienna and Breitfeld, Daněk & Co. in Blansko acted as manufacturers .
purpose
The light rail railings have five different tasks:
- the bilateral protection of the elevated railway lines running on light rail arches , bridges and viaducts from the ground level environment
- the two-sided securing of the ground-level area against the open trenches of the underground railway lines
- the one-sided protection of the Franz-Josefs-Kai or the Stadtbahngalerie against the lower-lying front quay of the Danube Canal
- the bilateral protection of the bridges leading over the deep railway cuts and the Wien river
- securing the stairs in the larger light rail stations
Standard model
The square standard railing, which is predominantly used for the purposes listed above, is approx. 75 centimeters high and 75 centimeters wide per element, the depth is approx. Eight centimeters. It consists of a central, circular ornament - which can be interpreted as a blazing sun, sunflower or sun wheel - and four thin diagonal struts that serve as supports and lead into the corners of the square. In turn, two of these squares usually hang with their horizontal extension in a larger rectangle made up of a handrail and support. This pattern, created in 1895, is said to have the initials of its creator Otto Wagner.
Detailed view of a segment of the standard railing consisting of two elements
Detailed view of a single segment
Different arrangement in Hernals
Detailed view of the central ornament
Detail view of a corner piece
Stairs in the train station Wien Hütteldorf
.jpg)
Use outside of Vienna
Outside of Vienna, the sunflower railing can or could be found in at least six other locations that were also part of the Habsburg monarchy at the time of construction :
- In the Croatian city of Dubrovnik , mostly before 1918 with her Italian name Ragusa quoted ensures a sunflower grid in the district of Boninovo today on a slope bridge executed coastal road Ulica branitelja Dubrovnika the walkway to the Adriatic back from. Ignaz Gridl has been handed down as the producer of the railing there .
- In the big Czech city of Brno , the Otto Wagner railing is also part of the cityscape.
- At the train station in the Moravian town of Břeclav (Lundenburg), an Otto Wagner railing served to secure the platform exits until it was modernized.
- In the Lower Austrian market town of Pottenstein , the road bridge over the Triesting, opened in 1908, has an Otto Wagner railing. Although the old bridge had to give way to a new reinforced concrete building in 1988, the historic railing was still used.
- When it was widened in 1902, the road bridge over the Kamp , located directly at Zwettl Abbey , was given a new iron railing based on the model of the Vienna light rail. During the renovation in 1965, this was replaced by a simple framework .
- It can also be found in Linz .
Alternative designs
In addition to the standard railing with the sunflower motif, five other models are used in Vienna:
 |
Around the Hietzinger court pavilion , Wagner decided on a particularly elegant model of the railing that bears secessionist features. Since the renovation, which was completed in 2014, these have returned to their original shade of green, which is darker than the reseda green that has since been used there. |
 |
A slightly more ornamented model in the form of three stylized laurel wreaths per segment was used on Franz-Josefs-Kai, Rossauer Lände and Radetzkybrücke . Such a segment at the level of Biberstrasse , on the exit to the Badeschiff , was restored to its original light beige and presented to the public on the occasion of Otto Wagner's 100th anniversary of death on April 11, 2018. The laurel wreaths were a popular stylistic device of Wagner, they are supposed to formulate the victory of Art Nouveau over historicism . The railings on the Danube Canal are no longer all original; some of them were faithfully restored in cast aluminum in the 1970s when the gallery route there had to be adapted for underground operation . |
 |
In the area of the stairs or ramps between the Franz-Josefs-Kai and its lower front quay, a model can be found that consists of a larger and a smaller wire mesh . This variant can also be found around the weir system and lock Kaiserbad on the opposite bank of the Danube Canal, but painted white instead of reseda green. |
 |
In the less densely populated areas of the city at the time of construction, for example along the western Untere Wientallinie, in the area of the connecting arch or between the two Türkenschanz tunnels of the suburban line , however, a much simpler variant without decorations was used, as shown in the illustration on the left at the Badhaussteg . In the background the later built office building for the 13th and 14th district . |
 |
The simplest railing variant also exists in a variant with a wire mesh |
Detail view of a laurel wreath
Detailed view of the railing at the level of the Salztorbrücke
White railing by the weir system and the Kaiserbad lock
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Manfred Wehdorn : The inclusion of the former Viennese light rail lines in the route network of the subway system and the Austrian Federal Railways from a monument preservation point of view. In: Florian Fiedler (ed.): Railway and monument preservation. (= ICOMOS - booklets of the German National Committee , ISSN 2365-5623; XXVII), Munich 1998, ISBN 3-87490-667-1 , pp. 35-42 (PDF).
- ↑ Johannes Luxner: Otto Wagner and the green of the 50s. Viewing habits and reality. In: ORF.at , December 30, 2017, accessed on March 22, 2018.
- ↑ Not because of "Otto Wagner Green": It was white! In: Die Presse , April 11, 2018, p. 9 ( beginning of the article freely readable. In: Pressreader.com, accessed on November 4, 2019).
- ↑ Tram railing . In: Blog In old and new cities. Philipp Eichhoff (Ed.), January 22, 2015, accessed on March 5, 2018.
- ^ Brigitte Breth (Vienna): Croatia: Ragusa. Impressions from a hike. In: IDM Info. Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe (Ed.), Edition 4/2004, p. 26 ( full text online (PDF) ).
- ^ Hanna Möller (uni: view): Vienna without Otto Wagner. Interview with the urban geographer Walter Matznetter. In: Media portal of the University of Vienna , April 9, 2018, accessed on November 2, 2019.
- ^ Gerhard A. Stadler : The industrial heritage of Lower Austria, history - technology - architecture. Böhlau, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-205-77460-4 , p. 558.
- ↑ Manfred Wehdorn and Ute Georgeacopol-Winischhofer: Monuments of technology and industry in Austria. Part 1: Vienna, Lower Austria, Burgenland. Böhlau, Vienna 1984, p. 264.
- ^ Hans Peter Pawlik, Josef Otto Slezak: Wagner's work for Vienna. Total work of art Stadtbahn (= International Archive for Locomotive History. Volume 44). Slezak, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85416-185-9 , p. 4
- ↑ Otto Wagner railing in its original appearance. In: Metz & Partner Baumanagement ZT GmbH website, April 11, 2018, accessed on November 2, 2019.
- ^ Otto Wagner's Vienna: Legacy of a Visionary. In: Christian Öser's travel blog, April 10, 2018, accessed on November 4, 2018.
- ↑ Erich Schlöss: The Viennese light rail. Wiental- und Donaukanallinie , p. 14. (= contributions to urban research, urban development and urban design. Volume 19). Magistrate, Vienna 1987. ( online )