Urania (Vienna)

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The Urania on the Danube Canal

The Urania is an adult education center with observatory in Vienna's first district in the Urania road. The association was founded in 1897 and opened its neo-baroque style clubhouse in 1910. Today the Vienna Urania is an institution of the "Wiener Volkshochschulen GmbH".

history

1910 shortly after completion

Prehistory to 1910

In 1883, the German astronomer Max Wilhelm Meyer came to Vienna to work as an assistant at the University of Vienna to calculate historical and future solar eclipses. He also gave lectures on folklore and developed the idea of ​​a folk-educating institution. But since he was appointed to Berlin in 1885 , he developed his ideas there and founded the Berlin Urania in 1888 together with Wilhelm Foerster . Its aim was to make scientific knowledge accessible to a lay audience. The institution got its name after the muse Urania , who was considered the patron goddess of astronomy in Greek mythology .

Following the example of the Berlin Urania, the Syndikat Wiener Urania was founded in Vienna in 1897 as a "non-profit business enterprise". First, in 1898, a temporary Urania building was erected in Vienna's Prater as a prototype for a future public education center. It was opened on May 7, 1898 and was part of the jubilee exhibition on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of emperor Franz Joseph I was organized. The building was located northwest of the rotunda , roughly in the area of ​​today's Messestrasse. The provisional Urania was designed by architect Ludwig Baumann in timber construction and in a mixture of neo-classical and Art Nouveau built. It offered space for 800 people and contained a lecture hall for 200 people, rooms for scientific demonstrations, as well as an observatory with an eight-inch telescope and other, smaller telescopes. Despite the great success with the public, the Urania was an economic failure for the club; it therefore had to be closed on December 2, 1898. Since there was no money for the proper demolition of the building, it was sold to wood dealers and demolished by them in 1899.

Although at the end of 1899 the deficit of Urania was 142,692 crowns, the company continued. In the years that followed, the popular science lectures were held in various rented rooms, including in the first coffee house in the Prater and in the glass courtyard in Wollzeile 34. In the summer of 1900 and 1901, Urania relocated its activities to the Tiergarten am Schüttel , the one to the nearby vivarium belonged to. The spectators were offered a spectacle in which life in South Africa was to be demonstrated. Around 300 actors appeared in the performances, including 30 Boers, 50 Black Africans (“natives”), 20 musicians in Boer costumes, and 50 wild and tame animals. The events had to be discontinued in 1901 because the zoo and the vivarium went bankrupt.

In the following years mainly lectures were given again, with slide lectures using the magic lantern particularly enjoying great popularity. In 1903 the Urania already had more than 100 of these "projection lectures" in its program, as well as "personal lectures" by well-known scholars and researchers. The Urania caused a special stir in 1905 with the slide show Through the Vienna Quarters of Misery and Crime , which showed the poverty in some parts of Vienna. This shocking account aroused both the entire press and the Vienna City Council, who demanded an immediate cessation. Despite the protests, the lecture was continued and shown 300 times by 1908.

The Urania 1910–1938

The Urania from the southwest
View from the west

In 1904 the Urania counted 65,640 visitors, in 1906 there were already 129,010. Since the large number of visitors was difficult to cope with with the existing provisional premises, Urania turned to Mayor Lueger in 1904 about the construction of its own new building. On June 24, 1904, the local council decided to give Urania a building site on the previously unobstructed Aspernplatz (since 1976: Julius-Raab-Platz ) for a symbolic annual interest of 10 kroner.

After several years of negotiations, the financial resources for the new building were obtained. Art Nouveau architect Max Fabiani , a student of Otto Wagner, was commissioned to plan the building . Although Fabiani had already appeared as a representative of radical modernism in Vienna - for example with the establishment of the Artaria House at Kohlmarkt 9 - he chose a historicizing form for the Urania. Because of the peculiar neo-baroque orientation of the external appearance, it was jokingly referred to as "baroccus fabiensis".

On April 6, 1909, the Urania received the official building permit, on May 4, 1909, the foundation stone was laid by Archduke Friedrich , and construction work began on May 8. After the relatively short construction period of eleven months, the Urania was opened on June 6, 1910 by Archduke Ferdinand Karl . The unconventional shape and construction caused the usual scandal in Vienna. The Viennese liked the building, however, and the Urania soon established itself as one of the landmarks of Vienna. The construction costs were 712,859 kroner for the building and 119,689 kroner for the furnishings. In addition, numerous Urania companies had donated furnishings with a total value of 70,000 crowns.

The Urania was converted from a "syndicate" into a non-profit association. Upon opening, the building became the property of the City of Vienna and, like the building site, was rented by the Wiener Urania association for an annual interest of 10 kroner. A good part of the construction costs had already been paid off in 1913, the only liability remaining was a loan of 400,000 crowns that could be repaid in 17 years. In almost all of the following years Urania had an income surplus.

The street in front of the south wall of the Urania was originally called Georg-Coch-Straße ; In 1913 the traffic route was renamed Uraniastraße . In order not to lose the honor for Georg Coch , the founder of the Österreichische Postsparkasse , the square in front of the main building of the Wiener Postsparkasse was renamed Georg-Coch-Platz in 1913 .

The Urania People's Education Center at night
Urania at night

The educational offer was expanded in the new building. There were more than 300 slide shows per year; The Urania archive in 1916 contained 38,808 slides and negatives. In the 1911/12 semester, the Urania counted 361,985 visitors at 1,719 events and thus doubled its role model, the Berlin Urania. In addition to the usual course program, numerous poetry readings were held at which young writers read from their works, including Thomas Mann , Hermann Hesse , Arthur Schnitzler , Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Alfons Petzold , Egon Friedell and many others.

From the beginning of the First World War there were lectures on "patriotic" topics such as The War of Nations 1914 , In the Fight Against Our Enemies , The Allied Fleets in Sea War , Against Italy , etc. The theaters of war were devoted to geographic lectures, the warfare lectures on weapons technology. As the war went on, however, the public's interest in these topics slackened, and from 1915 onwards a largely regular cultural program could be offered again. The Urania now called itself a people's education center .

A language course for Bulgarian was offered for the first time in the 1915/16 semester. From the 1916/17 semester onwards there were also language courses for other “languages ​​of the monarchy and its allies”: Hungarian, Croatian, Italian and Turkish. In the following years, the range was expanded to include other languages.

The many musical events that took place in the Urania during this time are almost unmanageable. The Urania Women's Choir was founded in 1920, the Urania Symphony Orchestra in 1921 and the Urania Mixed Choir in 1922 , which was able to perform such elaborate works as Haydn's The Creation and Bach's Christmas Oratorio . The Urania Orchestra performed numerous operas in concert form.

Urania often invited scientists to individual lectures, such as the economist Otto Neurath , the architect Clemens Holzmeister , the constitutional lawyer Hans Kelsen , the psychiatrist Julius Wagner-Jauregg , the physicist Lise Meitner , the geophysicist Alfred Wegener and many more. The lecture by the physicist Albert Einstein , who spoke about his theory of relativity on January 13, 1921, caused a particular stir . Due to the large number of visitors, Urania rented the great hall of the concert hall for this event , so that 1,900 visitors could listen.

In the lecture year 1921/22, Urania held 9,558 lectures with an average of 4,021 participants per day. As a novelty, the "student lectures" were introduced, in which school classes were led to the Urania as a supplement to the lessons. These student lectures were unprecedented worldwide and were attended by around 70,000 students each year.

Ludwig Kößler (before 1925)

On March 12, 1927, the longtime president of Urania, Ludwig Kößler (1861–1927) died. The trained lawyer was a co-founder of the Urania Syndicate in 1897 and President of the Volksbildungshaus from 1899–1927. In January 1926 he founded the Urania Association (initially for 33 associations) , which after its first major meeting in May of that year comprised 40 associations and which was subsequently chaired by the President of Graz Urania , Karl Rosenberg (1861-1936). (In 1929, there were already 60 associations across Austria with around 100,000 members). In 1928, in the 3rd district of the Ludwig-Koessler-Platz named after him.

In the wake of the global economic crisis , Urania offered film screenings and lectures for the unemployed at reduced prices. Nevertheless, the number of visitors fell and the Urania ran into economic difficulties. The regular audience came primarily from the middle class, which was particularly hard hit by the crisis. As a countermeasure, retraining and further training courses were organized for the unemployed.

In 1935, at the time of the corporate state , the Urania building was rebuilt. As the entrance area was too small, the architects Otto Schottenberger and Adolf Kautzki added a lower extension (“vestibule”) in front of the previous entrance and opened it on November 30, 1935. The Great Hall was also renovated.

At this time Urania set up numerous branches. The afternoon and evening events mostly took place in schools. In 1936 the following course locations existed:

In 1935, the Urania had an income of 588,000 shillings. 55% of these came from cinema tickets, 12.3% from income from adult education courses, 1.7% from courses for the unemployed, and 4.4% from donations and subsidies. The lectures of eminent scientists were widely carried out; Among other things, the doctor Adolf Lorenz , the founder of modern orthopedics, and his son, the later Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz, spoke .

The Urania 1938–1947

Austria was annexed on March 12, 1938 . On the same day, the president of Urania, university professor Arnold Durig, resigned from his position; In the weeks that followed, all Urania employees who were not affiliated with National Socialism were removed. The Urania lost its independence and was integrated into the "East Mark Adult Education", whereby the Urania was determined to be its seat. From a legal point of view, the Urania became part of the German National Education Association of the Nazi community “ Strength through Joy ” , which in turn was a subsidiary of the German Labor Front .

The course program was completely changed as early as the winter half of 1938/39. The program priorities were u. a. German fate in the past and present , healthy people , German culture and German intellectual life , the world of work and the world of nature . In addition, foreign language courses were held, as well as the lectures laypersons and women's courses .

Due to the war, the number of lectures decreased from year to year; In 1941 the observatory was closed. While there were initially patriotic lectures such as The German Air Force - Guarantor of Success or Mussolini Saves Italy , the program became increasingly less military towards the end of the war; the war reports met with less and less interest. After all, there were only 70 to 80 courses per year.

On November 5, 1944, the Urania building was hit by several bombs in an air raid. The dome was destroyed, as were all astronomical instruments and the clock system. After the end of the Battle of Vienna , the ruin was used as a horse stable by the victorious troops of the Red Army .

At the end of April 1945, the clearing and salvage work began. As early as June 26, 1945, a film was shown for the first time in the restored central hall. The population was grateful for the subjective feeling of being able to return to normality, and the first film ( Toomai, the elephant boy ) attracted 6,500 visitors in three weeks. From October, slide shows were held again and fairy tale lectures were organized for the children. After the roof had been repaired, the Great Hall was reopened on September 1, 1946 in the presence of Mayor Körner . The cost of the reconstruction 1945-1956 was 2.4 million schillings.

In place of the Urania branch offices, numerous independent adult education centers were established during the reconstruction period. a. in Döbling, Floridsdorf, Brigittenau, Favoriten, Penzing and Hietzing . The legal situation of Urania was unclear, as it was de jure still owned by the German Labor Front, but this de facto no longer existed. To be on the safe side, it was dissolved and re-established on September 30, 1947 as the Volksbildungshaus Wiener Urania association . Half of the board members were appointed by ÖVP and SPÖ .

The Urania since 1947

After the rebuilding, the operation of the Urania normalized. In the working year 1965/66 1,045 events were held and 38,592 visitors were counted, in 1969/70 there were 73,914. Lectures by prominent scientists and politicians such as Konrad Lorenz , Otto König , Josef Klaus , Leopold Figl , Bruno Pittermann , Helmut Zilk and Hugo Portisch were also popular . In 1962, Yuri Gagarin reported on his space flight . There were also discussion evenings , such as “ Is our generation addicted to retirement? ". For lectures with very high public interest, Urania rented the Auditorium Maximum of the University of Vienna as a lecture hall. Because of the uncomfortable seats, poor ventilation and the dirty condition of the hall, the Audimax was rarely used from 1987 onwards.

From the end of the 1960s, however, interest in lectures decreased noticeably. Significant writers and actors also rarely appeared, as they switched to the new medium of television, which paid far higher fees.

On Christmas Day, December 25, 1950, the first performance of the Urania puppet theater took place, which was founded by elementary school teachers Hans Kraus (1923–1995) and Marianne Kraus († 1999) and which still exists today. (Main article: Vienna Urania Puppet Theater )

The economic situation of Urania was unpleasant. For the financial year 1965/66 a loss of 898,000 schillings was reported, in 1971/72 it was already 2,162,000 schillings. A not inconsiderable part of the losses was caused by the planetarium. The municipality of Vienna corrected the shortfalls several times with generous subsidies.

In September 1974 the change from trimester to semester took place , which has been maintained to this day. Since the 1980s, Urania has offered morning and afternoon courses in addition to evening courses. The Radetzkystraße grammar school and the Radetzkystraße federal office building, the academic grammar school on Beethovenplatz, the Kundmanngasse grammar school and the ÖGB media center on Rathausstraße function as branch offices . In 1982, the Leopoldstadt Meeting House on Praterstern was opened as a branch. The annual number of visitors to Urania in the 1990s was between 23,000 and 24,500.

1983–1984, in agreement with the Federal Monuments Office, the facade of the Urania was restored under the direction of the architect Peter Pelikan and returned to its state before the Second World War. The cost was 2.36 million schillings, of which 1.25 million was provided by the City of Vienna and one million by the Association of Viennese People's Education . Headlights were installed on the initiative of Mayor Helmut Zilk ; The Urania has been illuminated at night since autumn 1992, except during the guided tours of the observatory.

In November 1998, the University Meets Public project started , in which professors from the University of Vienna give lectures in adult education centers. The aim of this initiative is to make current scientific results as well as trends and perspectives in research accessible to a broad public. The project was continued from 2014 under the name "Science" under the direction of Werner Gruber , and now has over 10,000 visitors per year.

From June 21, 2000, the building was completely renovated and equipped with the latest technology under the direction of the architect Dimitris Manikas . The aim was …

  • the reconstruction and uncovering of the core building by Max Fabiani and the removal of the alterations that were made in the post-war period and the 1960s,
  • the redesign of the front end as a lightweight construction made of glass and steel,
  • the establishment of a glazed café with a view of the Danube Canal and a summer terrace, which Max Fabiani had planned as early as 1911 but was then not carried out,
  • the expansion of the roof with a separable, multifunctional multi-purpose room.

Some of the decorative elements on the roof of the Urania that were dismantled in the interwar period were restored or redesigned on this occasion: the obelisks appear in almost their original design, whereas a white light ball on a square base is now in the place of the originally gold-plated globe.

The Urania cinema was reopened on May 7, 2003, and the new Urania café opened in the summer of 2003 . The grand opening of the renovated building took place on September 29, 2003. The city of Vienna borne the cost of 13 million euros.

Observatory

Hermann Mucke , head of the Urania observatory from 1971 to 2000, with the double telescope he designed

The Vienna Urania Observatory was built as a people's observatory together with the Urania People's Education Institute between 1909 and 1910, making it the oldest people's observatory in Austria. The 36 meter high observatory tower dominates the appearance of the Urania. Under the rotatable dome there is a twelve-sided “lantern” at a height of 27 meters, which allows a view over the city of Vienna.

The observatory was put into operation three weeks before the official opening of the Urania on May 20, 1910. This haste was necessary in order to be able to observe the flyby of Halley's Comet , which at that time reached its greatest brightness. The main instrument of the observatory was a refractor from Carl Zeiss with 20 cm aperture and 307.7 cm focal length . Together with the equatorial mount , the instrument had a mass of 5.3 tons. There were three more telescopes (“comet seekers”) with an opening of 8.6 and 6 cm, as well as a viewing telescope with an opening of 11 cm, especially for popular education. A passage instrument with an opening of 5 cm was used for scientific purposes . Since the rush of visitors was very large, Urania also procured a Plössl telescope with an opening of 13 cm, which had previously belonged to the university observatory .

The management of the observatory changed in rapid succession, partly due to illness and partly due to the war. The first director was Heinrich Jaschke (1910–1912), followed by Gideon Riegler (1912–1914) and Johann Paul Haustein (1914–1915). Only Oswald Thomas (1915–1922) was granted the privilege of running the Urania observatory for a longer period of time; he strove successfully to popularize celestial studies.

In November 1944 the observatory and the Zeiss refractor inside were almost completely destroyed. In 1956 the city of Vienna rebuilt the twelve-string lantern and the dome. For the dome of the Urania, aluminum was used - for the first time in Europe. A Cassegrain reflecting telescope with a 26 cm aperture and 528 cm focal length was procured as the telescope . On March 27, 1956, the observatory was reopened under the leadership of the astronomer Maria Wähnl.

The Urania binoculars

In 1971 the previous director of the planetarium, Hermann Mucke , also took over the management of the Urania observatory. In 1980 he put into operation a binocular telescope specially designed for astronomical educational tasks in the main dome. It consists of a refractor with a 15 cm aperture and 3000 mm focal length and a Cassegrain reflector with a main mirror of 30 cm diameter and 5350 mm focal length, which are carried by a common mount . The telescope was built by Rudolf Pressberger , then technical director of the Leopold Figl Observatory on the Schöpfl. It weighs around two tons and cost around 400,000 schillings. The first tour took place on February 1, 1980.

In the course of the general renovation of the Vienna Urania from 2000 to 2003, the observatory was also completely renovated. Instead of the old meridian house, a new dome was also built. Finally, it was able to resume operations in 2005 with an extensive range of programs, numerous astronomical lectures, solar observations and current special events.

Timing

The Urania clock on the south wall of the building

On October 1, 1891, the kk state railways introduced Central European Time (CET). The correct time was telegraphed to the stations by the Vienna University Observatory . The general public continued to orientate itself on the church tower clocks. On May 1, 1910, CET was introduced as the official time for Vienna. In the same year the observatory of the Vienna Urania took over the self-imposed task of taking care of time determination, time preservation and time distribution in Vienna.

A very precise passage instrument was installed to determine the time , which recorded the meridian passage of fixed stars to within fractions of a second and thus determined the current sidereal time . This could then be converted into the zone time CET. The measurements were taken about every five to six nights.

A separate clock system in the Urania was responsible for keeping time between measurements, which was located in the “physics room” on the third floor. The centerpiece was the “master clock”, a precision pendulum clock whose temperature-compensated pendulum swung in a glass cylinder in a vacuum. It was built by Alois Irk in Karlstein an der Thaya , a center of the watch industry from the 18th century ( see Horologenland ). The impulses of the clock were picked up electromechanically without contact and controlled several slave clocks in the building as well as the public clock on the outside wall of the building. The outdoor clock was improved in 1923 by the Satori company with a quartz pendulum. Negotiations with the municipal authorities ensured that the clock was lit at night at the expense of the municipality of Vienna.

At first, the time was only distributed using the clock on the south wall of the Urania. In 1911 a signal cannon built by Leopold Ulrich was installed. Controlled by the master clock, the cannon fired a shot every day at exactly 12 noon, after which the Viennese could set their clocks. From 1913 the time was also distributed by telephone as "Urania time", with the time being indicated by second impulses and beeps. This service was initially only available to subscribers for an annual fee of 4 kroner; From 1917, calling up the “Urania time” in the Vienna local network was free. In 1928 cannon firing was stopped and a time ball was installed instead , which fell from a mast at 12 noon.

The public Urania clock was destroyed in November 1944. As early as 1946, the Satori company built a new clock that is still on the building today. The telephone time service was also able to go back into operation in 1946 under the number Z-0-33 . Since the main clock was destroyed and not rebuilt, the time service used the radio signals from the English long-wave transmitter Rugby to determine the time; after this time all service clocks in Austria were adjusted.

As a result of competition from radio and television time signals, the Urania time service was discontinued in 1952; the official time has since been provided in Austria by the Federal Office for Metrology and Surveying . The Urania clock fell into disrepair, but was restored again in 2009-2010. It has been receiving its time signals as a radio clock since 1983.

In 2000 Hermann Mucke retired. The Urania observatory and planetarium were subsequently headed by the long-time director of the Kuffner observatory , the astronomer and physicist Peter Habison. In February 2013, the physicist Werner Gruber took over the management of the astronomical educational institution of the city of Vienna ( Vienna observatories ).

Urania cinema

Cinema hall at Vienna Independent Shorts 2009

As early as 1898, films for educational and cultural purposes were shown in the Urania. Since the opening of the Urania building, films (“cinematograms”) have been shown daily in the large lecture hall. On February 4, 1921, the Urania showed a full-length documentary film (“cultural film”) for the first time, as a contrast to the entertaining films that had been customary until then. The public interest was enormous and was surpassed by the next film: For the film Sir Ernest Shackleton's South Pole Expedition, Urania managed to acquire the original film recordings of the Shackleton expedition . The film was shown in the sold out Great Hall for three and a half months.

Soon the Urania was considered to be the leading institution in Central Europe in the field of cultural film and a “model light theater in Austria”, which saw itself as an alternative to the “ trash and kitsch ” of commercial film. In 1921 she had the name “Urania” and the figurative mark “Uraniafilm” legally protected. In 1923/24 there were 540 film screenings with 192,464 visitors.

In 1927, the Urania had an archive of educational and cultural films totaling 350,000 meters. Ultimately, the Urania was also the model for the establishment of the "Ring Deutscher Kulturfilmbühnen".

The Urania had a premiere on June 8, 1928, when a sound film was shown for the first time in Austria; the technology was based on the optical sound system from Tri-Ergon . While the first sound films were still short films, the first full-length sound film was shown in September 1928 with the film Places of German Work and Culture . The short film Hans Moser als Wiener Dienstmann was shown as a supporting film and immediately became popular with its "suitcase scene".

It was not until a year later that the commercial cinemas in Vienna switched to sound film. In 1929 the Urania cinema installed a better projector (“sound film apparatus”) from Tobis . From 1930 onwards, the Urania showed the sound film newsreel as a novelty , which featured news from all over the world. The footage came from the US producers Fox , Metro and Paramount , from the German UFA and from the French Gaumont Journal. After a while these newsreels became indispensable as supporting films for every cinema experience.

When the number of participants in Urania fell in the wake of the global economic crisis and mass unemployment, the cinema was the most important source of income for Urania. During the renovation of the building in 1935, two new film projectors were installed. With this technical equipment and with its range of films, Urania held a monopoly in the field of cultural films throughout Europe until 1938.

Film premiere bright to cloudy in the Urania cinema with Jessica Schwarz , 2012

Even after the war, the Urania cinema flourished. As before, documentaries were shown, with the films by Bernhard Grzimek , Hans Hass and Thor Heyerdahl enjoying particular popularity. Since relatively few documentaries were produced in the post-war period, Urania also showed normal feature films, provided they were of very good quality. Program director at this time was Hilde Hannak; after her death in 1979 the Hilde-Hannak-Gasse in the 22nd district, Donaustadt , was named after her in 2004 .

In 1955, Urania co-founded the Austrian Film Archive in Laxenburg. In 1983 Urania closed its own cultural film department and donated its films to the film archive.

In 1960 the middle hall was completely renovated by the architect Otto Niedermoser and in 1961 the great hall, in which a CinemaScope projection screen was installed.

Long before the cinema center was built, the Urania was the only movie theater in Vienna that had more than one cinema. From 1963 to 1970 the Urania was the venue for the annual Viennale .

Nonetheless, cinema attendance fell sharply as a result of competition from television. In 1956, 47.5 million tickets were sold in Viennese cinemas, compared to only 7.2 million in 1975. In 1983 the Urania cinema was leased to the Jupiter & Concorde Kinobetriebsgesellschaft (later Lichtspieltheater Betriebsgesellschaft ); the contract is still valid today. As a result, the Great Hall received new, more comfortable seats, with the capacity being reduced from 587 to 387 seats. The tenant is obliged to continue to only include high quality films in the program.

Current educational offers

The Urania building, which was renovated between 2000 and 2003, now contains the adult education center, an observatory , a cinema , the Urania puppet theater and a café-bar-restaurant. In the house there are numerous lecture and presentation rooms for a wide variety of purposes, as required for the wide range of courses at the adult education center.

Every semester there are around 450 adult education courses, around 100 lectures, as well as cultural festivals, symposia, discussion events, film screenings, etc. on a wide variety of topics. The subject areas offered are

  • Economy and personality
  • Computers and multimedia
  • politics and society
  • Arts and Culture
  • Health, exercise and diet
  • Children and parents

One focus is the language courses that are currently (2013) offered for the following languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Danish, German, English, Finnish, French, Greek, Hindi, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Croatian, Latin, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Slovak, Spanish, Czech, Turkish, Ukrainian and Hungarian.

The VHS Wiener Urania has been managed by Günther Sidl since December 2013, as the successor to the previous director, Erhard Chvojka.

literature

  • Wilhelm Petrasch: The Vienna Urania. From the roots of adult education to lifelong learning . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2007, ISBN 978-3-205-77562-1 . - Full text online .
  • Wilhelm Filla : 100 years of the Urania building. On the founding history of a Viennese landmark from a current perspective . In: The Austrian Adult Education Center. Organ of the Association of Austrian Adult Education Centers . ZDB ID 43292-1 . 61st year (2010). Issue 237, pp. 2-6.
  • Christian H. Stifter: The Urania cultural film, the exoticism of the foreign and the reconciliation of peoples. Changes and continuities: from Austrofascism, through National Socialism to the Second Republic . In: Searching for traces. Journal of the history of adult education and science popularization . ISSN  1025-9244 . 13th year (2002) issue 1–4, pp. 114–148.

Web links

Commons : Urania (Vienna)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Petrasch: The Vienna Urania .
  2. ↑ Association news. (...) Urania. In:  Reichspost , No. 254/1926 (XXXIIIth year), September 14, 1926, p. 8 center. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / rpt.
  3. ↑ Revival of the old hand puppet shows. A welcome action by the Austrian Urania Association. In:  Reichspost , No. 18/1929 (XXXVI. Year), January 19, 1929, p. 8, top right. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / rpt;
    Local. (...) Baden conference of the Austrian Urania Association. In:  Badener Zeitung , No. 21/1929 (last year), March 13, 1929, p. 3, column 1. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / bzt.
  4. ↑ Special features of the binoculars for astrophysics . From: Hermann Mucke: Observation possibilities at the Vienna Urania observatory - new celestial educational paths . In: Österreichischer Astronomischer Verein: astronomisches-buero-wien.or.at , accessed on July 7, 2013.
  5. ↑ New head for observatories. The experimental physicist Werner Gruber (...) . In: Magistratsabteilung 53: wien.gv.at , October 26, 2012, accessed on July 7, 2013.

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 42 ″  N , 16 ° 23 ′ 1 ″  E