Vienna Ice Skating Club

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Logo of the Vienna Ice Skating Club

The Vienna Ice Skating Club ( WEV ) is an Austrian ice sports club from Vienna . The club had its greatest successes in figure skating , speed skating and ice hockey . He operates one of the largest open-air ice rinks in the world on Vienna's Heumarkt with over 6,000 m² of ice rink.

history

The Viennese ice skating club square was built in 1900 by the architect Ludwig Baumann in Art Nouveau style
Wiener Eislauf-Vereinsplatz, at the far left you can see the entrance to the Stadtpark and the vaulting of the Wien River. The Art Nouveau ensemble of the ice rink had to give way to a hotel in the 1960s and was demolished

Although the “ canal grinder boys ” were mentioned as early as 1803, ice skating did not become a popular sport until the middle of the century. It was the time when the sporty Viennese met on winter Sundays in the harbor of the Wiener Neustädter Canal (today area Bahnhof Wien-Mitte) or livened up the canal and "at the fastest pace with burning torches between Vienna and Guntramsdorf at nightfall [ slid]. "

After the winter harbor basin had already become "Austria's No. 1 ice sports area, the WEV was founded in 1867 and leased part of the former Vienna Canal Port in the year it was founded." The WEV was founded on February 7, 1867 by Artur Freiherr von Löwenthal, Karl ( Carl) Korper von Marienwert, Erwin Franz Freiherr von Sommaruga , Constantin von Marguerite, Heinrich von Bach, Rudolf Grimm, Ritter von Grimburg, Caesar Ranzi, Leon Schmidt Friedrich Böhmers, L. Mohr, Friedrich Klezl, Rudolf von Ponzen, Florian Mollo and Demeter Diamantidi founded. The area of ​​the WEV before the turn of the century was in the area of ​​today's Wien Mitte train station in the 3rd district of Vienna . The natural ice rink was opened on December 26th of the founding year.

The first speed skating in the club's history took place in 1869, and the first international prize, figure and competition ice skating in 1882. To honor the merits of the still young club for ice skating, the WEV was entrusted with the implementation of the European championships in figure skating and speed skating for the first time by the International Ice Skating Association in the 1892/93 season . Due to urban development measures at the turn of the century, the association moved to the area of ​​the Vienna Heumarkt in the 3rd district of Vienna , where the new ice rink was put into operation on January 6, 1901. Ice skating became an important part of popular leisure culture in Vienna at the turn of the century . Modeled after the world's first in 1909 open-air ice rink of Eduard Engelmann in Hernals , WEV on December 18 opened in 1912 m² a skating rink to an extent of 4000.

During the First World War , the WEV fought for its existence. The artificial ice rink and the lighting of the facility could not be operated due to the lack of coal and electricity in Vienna . After the war, figure skaters such as Herma Szabó and Willy Boeckl ensured a sporting boom for the club . An economic upward trend will soon set in. In 1924 the artificial ice rink was enlarged from 4,000 m² to 6,000 m², in 1927 from 6,000 m² to 10,000 m² - at that time the WEV operated the largest artificial ice rink in the world. In the 1929/1930 season, the WEV recorded the highest membership level in the club's history with 9,521 members.

The economic crisis of the 1930s also hit the WEV. The association had to implement cost-saving measures and restrict the operation of the artificial ice rink. The figure skaters remained highly successful internationally despite the difficult training conditions, Fritzi Burger and Felix Kaspar brought world and European championship titles as well as Olympic medals to Vienna.

With the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in March 1938, there was a drastic restructuring of the Austrian sports and club system. The consequence was the transfer of the WEV to the National Socialist Reich Association for Physical Exercise . SA Brigade Leader Heribert Seidler was appointed as the club leader and Adolf Eder as the acting administrator. The anti-Semitic laws of the Nazi regime led to a massive decline in the number of club members. The functionaries, members and athletes defined as “Jewish” by the Nazi regime were excluded from the association immediately after the annexation of Austria. In 1944, due to the advanced Second World War , the WEV had to cease operations for the first time in its history. Before that, in 1939, the sports sections of the WEV and the Eissport Klub Engelmann merged for economic reasons to form a starting community - the Vienna Ice Sports Association (WEG) . Some WEG athletes, such as Eva Pawlik , Edi Rada or the ice hockey team, were able to do well at national level.

After the Second World War , the WEV area was damaged by bombs and trenches, but the ice rink was able to be put back into operation after a short time. After a long break in international sport due to the war, the first competitions with the participation of athletes from the WEV took place in 1948. The Wiener Eisrevue, which was founded in the WEV in the winter of 1945 after the Second World War, played a decisive role in the rapid revival of the WEV in terms of sport, society and culture . The revue became a box office and export hit and brought the WEV an audience of millions. In terms of sport, the WEV also experienced a high point in the 1950s and 1960s. The internationally successful figure skaters of this time included Hanna Eigel , Ingrid Wendl , Hanna Walter , Regine Heitzer , Emmerich Danzer and Wolfgang Schwarz or the pair skaters Sissy Schwarz and Kurt Oppelt .

In the late 1950s, the club focused on creating new leisure and cultural activities that were far away from ice skating. In the summer months the WEV organized numerous international wrestling and boxing matches, had a tennis section and organized music concerts. In the 1960s and 70s in particular, “Catchen am Heumarkt” attracted thousands of fans, and Vienna became a European metropolis for martial arts.

In the 1970s and 1980s, with a few exceptions, the sporting sections of the club became quieter. Trixi Schuba , twice world and European figure skating champion in 1971 and 1972, crowned her career with an Olympic victory in Sapporo in 1972 . The Austrian serial winner Claudia Kristofics-Binder celebrated the last international success for the club in 1982 when she won the European figure skater title.

Ice hockey in the WEV

The Vienna Ice Skating Club (WEV) ran an ice hockey section for men from 1914 to 1985. From 1923 an Austrian men's ice hockey championship was held, in which the WEV participated. At the end of the 1920s an attempt was also made to found a women's ice hockey team.

The Austrian ice hockey championship , initially limited to Vienna, was dominated by the Vienna ice skating club in its early years. From 1923 to 1931, the WEV won every championship and several times the Schlesinger Cup and the youth championship. The WEV team was also able to prevail against the competition in 1933 and 1937. In addition, the Austrian national ice hockey team at that time consisted mainly of players from the Vienna Ice Skating Club. After Austria was annexed to the German Reich , the best Austrian clubs were included in the German ice hockey championship . In October 1939, the WEV and EK Engelmann Vienna (compulsorily) formed a starting community and this won the German ice hockey championship as the Vienna ice sports community in 1940 as the second Viennese club (after the EKE 1939) .

After the war, the local rival EK Engelmann Wien moved to the arena of the Vienna Ice Skating Club, as their artificial ice rink was badly damaged during the war. The championships in 1947 and 1948 could win the WEV again. In 1948, a game community between the two clubs, the Vienna Ice Sports Association (WEG), was formed again. This team won the Austrian championship title in the following three years (1949, 1950, 1951) before the Viennese ice sports association was dissolved in 1951 and the two original clubs went their separate ways again. In 1958, the WEV also founded the Wiener Eissport-Vereinigung, in order to manage the sports sections and the Wiener Eisrevue in this in the future . At the end of the 1950s, Viennese ice hockey fell behind the competition from the federal states. While EK Engelmann Vienna was able to bring two championship titles to the capital in 1956 and 1957, the WEV experienced a dry spell until the 1961/62 season , when the WEV was able to win the Austrian ice hockey championship for the last time so far.

In 1966 the WEV ice hockey section moved from the traditional open-air ice arena on Vienna's Heumarkt to the Donauparkhalle . This hall in the Donaustadt district was originally built as a flower hall for the International Garden Show (WIG) in 1964. The Donauparkhalle was popular with ice hockey fans for its acoustics, but its concrete pillars sometimes made it difficult to watch. It held about 3,300 visitors.

Despite the improved infrastructure, the WEV ice hockey team was never able to regain its former supremacy. The competition from the federal states became too strong with the Klagenfurt AC , the Innsbruck EV and the ATSE Graz and with WAT Stadlau the WEV also got a local rival in Vienna from the 1970s. Although the WEV won several runner-up titles , the ice hockey team was unable to win the Austrian ice hockey championship.

After a botched 1983/84 season, the WEV was relegated to the National League (2nd division). The rise again succeeded in the following season, but this should also be the last season as the ice hockey section of the Vienna Ice Skating Club. The ice hockey business was transferred to a new club, which was headed by Anton Gruber and also called itself WEV.

Wiener Eisrevue

Inspired by the "Karl-Schäfer-Eisrevue" initiated by Karl Schäfer , which toured successfully during the Nazi era, the Wiener Eisrevue was founded in the WEV in the winter of 1945 . The revue was administered by the WEG, from 1958 by the successor organization Wiener Eissport-Vereinigung (WEVg). The first big star of the revue was Eva Pawlik , who was called a “child prodigy” from an early age. The Vienna performances took place at WEV-Platz until 1954, before the ensemble moved to the covered Messepalast (today's MuseumsQuartier) and later to the Wiener Stadthalle . Due to financial difficulties, the Wiener Eisrevue had to be sold to the American rival Holiday on Ice in 1970 . In 1973 the revue was finally canceled.

The property on the Heumarkt

Vienna Ice Skating Club in November 2010

The Viennese ice-skating club, founded in 1867, had to move to the site of the former municipal reserve garden between Lothringer Strasse and Heumarkt in 1899 due to the Vienna river regulation and the construction of the railway systems at the Vienna main customs office . The area, which was named Olympion , was intended to be dedicated to sports and music. Instead of the originally planned singer hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus was built. Most of the site was used as a winter ice skating and summer tennis court. Until 2008 the property was owned by the Vienna City Expansion Fund , a foundation of the Vienna Ringstrasse era . In 1900, the architect Ludwig Baumann built a perimeter structure for cloakrooms, a buffet and an open orchestra niche in Art Nouveau style .

The WEV was not relocated to Schönbrunn in favor of a Hilton Hotel , but around a third of the ice surface was built in 1960 through the construction of the Intercontinental Vienna , a house of the InterContinental Hotels Group . At the same time, Baumann's Art Nouveau buildings were demolished in favor of modern peripheral development. The transaction attracted critical comments. In connection with the sale to UBM Realitätenentwicklung in 2008, there were fears that were widely spread in the media that the open space near the center would soon be built. In 2010 the property was transferred to a building cooperative. At the beginning of March 2012, press reports made people sit up and take notice that the Hotel Intercontinental was to be sold and that there would be “new hope” for the ice skating club and its outdated artificial ice rink. A corresponding architectural competition will take place. However, the ice surface should be preserved.

In May 2012 WertInvest , a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Global Equity Partners group, which also owns the InterContinental Hotel, acquired the property. After hearings with those involved in the project, a multi-stage cooperative expert process was carried out at the end of 2012, during which three planning teams worked out recommendations for the further development of the entire area in terms of urban development. The two basic scenarios “preservation of the existing building” (leaving the hotel) and “new building” were considered. Among other things, the preservation of the approximately 6,000 m² ice surface and the creation of new passageways were seen as desirable. Furthermore, the site should also be opened up, if possible, and existing road-side borders of the ice surface should be removed.

On the basis of this procedure, an architecture competition was finally held in which 24 offices from Austria and abroad took part. In February 2014, the project by the Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld emerged as the winner. It provides for the maintenance of the existing 40-meter-high hotel skyscraper, which will be fundamentally renovated both inside and out. For example, the renewal of the facade and the demolition of the wing perpendicular to the main transom, in the place of which a 73 meter high solitary new building is to be built. The project also provides for a four-storey building along the Heumarkt, an additional ice rink and a gym (including for surrounding schools). The existing ice surface will not be reduced in size, but will be changed slightly due to the larger building dimensions.

Once the zoning process has been completed, construction should start in 2016 and completion in 2018. After it became known that a high-rise project is planned in the core area of ​​the world cultural heritage , there were protests from citizens' initiatives and professional bodies of the architects from the end of February 2013 . Due to the persistently critical media reports, Deputy Mayor and City Councilor for Planning Maria Vassilakou announced at the beginning of May 2016 that the controversial project would take a “pause for reflection”. In December 2016, the project operators launched a new initiative. A variant of the project with a slightly reduced volume was presented, which the Advisory Council for Urban Planning also gave its placet. However, various parties, such as ICOMOS , pointed out that the World Heritage status of Vienna's inner city would be endangered if the project were to be implemented. After it had previously been considered likely that the historic center of Vienna could be placed on the Red List of World Heritage in Danger if construction began and could subsequently lose the title of World Heritage, the World Heritage Committee entered the list at the annual meeting of the committee on 6th July 2017.

According to a report commissioned by the constitutional lawyer Theo Öhlinger by Wolfgang Zinggl ( Member of the National Council , now - Pilz List ) at the beginning of 2019, the Federal Government, as one of the bodies responsible for maintaining the UNESCO World Heritage status of Vienna's inner city, has the opportunity to stop construction. Zinggl called on Minister of Culture Gernot Blümel ( ÖVP ) to take action against the construction of the high-rise. He announced that he would examine the report and ask the constitutional service for an assessment.

On March 16, 2019, the ICOMOS Monument Council published a report on the planned high-rise construction, according to which the status of UNESCO World Heritage would no longer be justifiable if the high-rise was built and the building would "destroy" the cityscape. The next day a representative of the city administration announced a two-year "pause for reflection". The alleged calculation behind this was criticized, as the prescribed EIA would mean that a two-year process was to be expected and the Vienna election campaign would then also be "survived".

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Knoll: Heimatbuch Guntramsdorf. Page 71
  2. ↑ Riebe: The Wr. Neustädter Schiffahrtskanal, in: Knoll: Heimatbuch Guntramsdorf. Page 71
  3. ↑ DISTRIBUTION: The Wr. Neustädter Schiffahrtskanal (Vienna 1936)
  4. ^ Franz Heinlein, 100 Years of the Vienna Ice Skating Club, self-published by the Vienna Ice Skating Club, Vienna 1967, 17-18
  5. ↑ For the history of the building site, cf. Martin Kupf: The fate of Viennese buildings in: Dieter Klein , Martin Kupf , Robert Schediwy : Stadtbildverluste Wien , Vienna 2005, p. 145f
  6. ↑ This is how Friedrich Achleitner described hotel construction as a "colossus" and "foreign body" (in Die Presse March 21-22, 1961)
  7. ↑ See http://diepresse.com/home/panorama/oesterreich/384338/Immobilien_PorrT Nahrungsmittel-kauf-Eislaufverein
  8. ^ Kronenzeitung March 5, 2012, p. 18f, author Alex Schönherr
  9. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated May 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 1, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wien.gv.at
  10. ↑ http://wien.orf.at/news/stories/2602307/ , from September 7, 2013
  11. ^ ORF Vienna - Ice Skating Club: High-rise planned , February 27, 2014
  12. ↑ [1] . Cf. also [2] , [3] and [4]
  13. ↑ Eislaufverein_Vassilakou-stops-residential tower-on-Heumarkt
  14. ↑ see reports in the Viennese daily newspapers from December 14, 2016
  15. ↑ See interview with Christoph Luchsinger Der Standard, Print, 7./8. January 2017.
  16. ↑ A relatively high number of 600 comments were received by March 16, 2017 in the ongoing zoning procedure for the Heumarkt project in the town hall. Heumarkt project: 600 statements orf.at, March 20, 2017, accessed March 21, 2017.
  17. ↑ Last deadline before withdrawal. ORF , July 6, 2017, accessed on the same day.
  18. ↑ Heumarkt Tower: If possible, the Federal Government will issue instructions to Vienna. January 21, 2019, accessed January 22, 2019 .
  19. ↑ World Heritage: Heumarkt project is on hold for two years. In: orf.at. March 17, 2019, accessed March 19, 2019 .
  20. ^ ORF announcement of March 17, 2019
  21. ↑ Gerald Heidegger, Tamara Sill, both ORF.at: Example Heumarkt: Vienna and the fear of high-rise buildings. March 19, 2019, accessed March 19, 2019 .

Web links

Commons : Wiener Eislauf-Verein  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files