Wiener Höhenstrasse

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The high road between Cobenzl and Kahlenberg
The Kahlenberg - Klosterneuburg section built in 1940
Course of the high road with the most important branches and sections
The “memorial complex” at the highest point (Kahlenberg) on ​​the Höhenstraße
Memorial stone on the occasion of 25 years of construction of the Klosterneuburger Höhenstraße

The Wiener Höhenstraße is a scenic road on the outskirts through the Vienna Woods over the mountain slopes in the west of Vienna .

course

It begins at Neuwaldegger Straße near Marswiese ( 17th district ) and leads over Dreimarkstein , Hermannskogel , Cobenzl ( Latisberg / Reisenberg ) and Kahlenberg to the terminal at Leopoldsberg ( 19th district ). In the source area of ​​the Schreiberbach , the Höhenstraße uses the route of the Kahlenbergbahn, which went out in 1923 . At 14.986 kilometers, this is the longest street in Vienna.

Colloquially, the connection from Hütteldorf ( 14th district ) via Schottenhof to Marswiese ( Hüttelbergstrasse - Amundsenstrasse - Neuwaldegger Strasse ) to Höhenstrasse is often added, but it already existed earlier.

The section built in 1940 from the junction next to Josefinenhütte , which is between Kahlenberg and Leopoldsberg, to Klosterneuburg is officially known as Klosterneuburger Höhenstraße . It is almost entirely on Lower Austrian territory. After Lower Austria, the extended Sieveringer Straße to Weidling in Klosterneuburg and the Exelbergstraße (outside of Vienna called Tullner Straße) that starts at Neuwaldegg lead over the Exelberg to Tulbing and on to Tulln .

From the Viennese side there is access via Dornbacher Strasse / Neuwaldegger Strasse; the Hameaustraße in Neustift am Walde , where a spacious street triangle is located; the Sieveringer Street; the sky road ; the Cobenzlgasse in Grinzing ; the Krapfenwaldgasse and the Kahlenberger Straße.

history

Due to the planned city expansion, a competition for the conception of the new urban area was announced in 1892, in which it was also formulated to conserve existing forests as much as possible. Eugen Fassbender received second prize for his “General Regulation Plan of Vienna”. The planned ring-shaped road network with numerous radial roads into the inner city for a huge city of 600 km² (then 177 km², now after 1954 414 km²) with an expected 4 million inhabitants was never implemented with little consideration for existing buildings. It was also planned not to block one of the rings with a width of 750 m about 5 km from the city center, but to make it available to the population as a green “Volksring” as a local recreation area. This individual idea was later heavily modified by Heinrich Goldemund and implemented as a "(protected area) forest and meadow belt", which also represents the first Viennese conclusion of the initiatives started in 1870 by Josef Schöffel .

On May 15, 1904, based on a report by Goldemund, Mayor Karl Lueger issued a decree to Richard Weiskirchner, the then Magistrate Director at the time, stating the basics for the forest and meadow belt: “This also includes the construction of a promising elevated road with rows of trees To be taken carefully ”, which should offer a view of the city of Vienna from the heights of the Wienerwald . At the same time, the city planning department was instructed to work out a project. The general plans were ready in early April 1905. After a first meeting on May 5th, the Vienna City Council decided on May 24th, 1905 as part of the concept of the “forest and meadow belt” to build a high road.

In 1907 the city acquired the poorly performing Hotel Schloss Cobenzl . They then built a “dust-free automobile road” starting from Grinzing with serpentines on the Cobenzl for automobile tourists, on which public buses also ran from 1909. For a long time this was the only part that was realized due to lack of money. Even after the First World War , the plans persisted. A loan from 1917 for the land acquisitions for the green belt became worthless in the wake of rapid inflation until 1925. In 1932, the City of Vienna took over the financially troubled Kahlenberg AG (former operator of the Kahlenbergbahn, which was closed in 1922 ), including the property and the hotel on the Kahlenberg, which was rebuilt from the foundation walls.

Thus the Höhenstraße project got underway again, with the fight against mass unemployment through job creation also playing a decisive role. In the Austrian corporate state in particular , the high road was built. In order to enable a maximum amount of work, the use of machines was severely limited, the work was largely carried out with primitive means. Initially, men from the labor service were used to work, but the work only gained momentum when the labor service was replaced by qualified companies. 74 companies with 600 employees were involved in the construction.

Mayor Richard Schmitz from the Vienna City Planning Office had the existing preparatory work for the road project revised at short notice. The groundbreaking for the Cobenzl - Kahlenberg line took place on May 18, 1934 - one day after these briefly revised plans were presented at the first meeting of the Viennese citizenship - by Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss , although the financing was not yet secured at that time. The street was opened on October 16, 1935. Until 1938, Dollfuss was commemorated by a monument designed by the architect Alexander Popp and executed by the sculptor Rudolf Schmidt, which was consecrated to St. Engelbert at the point on Höhenstraße where the groundbreaking ceremony had also taken place. The planning and conception was carried out by Erich Franz Leischner and Alfred Fetzmann .

From 1936 the bus line from Grinzing via the Cobenzl to the Kahlenberg was opened, which for many years was operated as the "S" line at an increased special rate. This was followed by the construction of the Kahlenberg - Leopoldsberg line until 1936, then the Cobenzl - Neuwaldegg line until 1938. The last section, the Leopoldsberg - Klosterneuburg line, was completed in 1940. The Höhenstraße was the first road in Austria to be designed exclusively for motor vehicles and cyclists. For pedestrians who are not allowed to walk on the street, hiking trails have been created to replace the non-existent sidewalks. The old and steep footpath from the Danube to the Leopoldsberg was also expanded with steps and lookout points in connection with the construction of the high road.

Like all publicly owned buildings, Höhenstraße was automatically protected as a historical monument. This expired on January 1, 2010, the Federal Monuments Office tried to regain protection. The point of contention, however, was the renovation costs. The Federal Monuments Office estimated a professional renovation of 8.6 million euros, the municipality of Vienna estimated the cost of a true-to-original repair of the entire 100,000 square meters of granite pavement at 30 million euros. In Cobenzlstrasse, two test sections, each 200 meters long, were constructed using asphalt or paving stones. The renewed monument protection therefore had to be negotiated against the City of Vienna before the Federal Administrative Court . An exact measurement required by the court was carried out, but documentation by camera flight with a drone, for which the road should have been closed, was not. Since the end of November 2019 there has been a legally binding judgment according to which some parts of the Höhenstraße are under monument protection, especially where historical buildings and structures or lookout points are, the pavement must be preserved. The Höhenstraße has been on the list of monuments since 2020.

literature

  • The forest and meadow belt and the Höhenstrasse of the city of Vienna , Verlag der Gemeinde Wien / Gesellschaft für Graphische Industrie, 1905 (brochure, 26 pages) ( archive.org = Online-1 - USA or Online-2 in the Google book search - USA )
  • Heinrich Goldemund: General project of a forest and meadow belt and a high road for the imperial capital and residence city of Vienna. In: Journal of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects , 1905, pp. 465–470.
  • Heinrich Goldemund: The forest and meadow belt and the Höhenstrasse of the city of Vienna. Separate reprint from the monthly magazine for health care , 1906 (8 pages)
  • Richard Schmitz: The Vienna Höhenstrasse. Overview of the work decided by the Vienna City Council under Mayor Richard Schmitz in the years 1934–1936 to create a panoramic road. Volume 9 of Vienna under construction , Vienna City Administration, 1937 (30 pages)
  • Mayor: The construction of the Vienna Höhenstrasse in the summer of 1935. Herold (23 p.)
  • Georg Rigele: The Viennese Höhenstraße: Cars, Landscape and Politics in the Thirties . Turia & Kant, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-85132-052-2 .
  • Johannes Sowa: Die Wiener Höhenstraße (series archive images), Sutton Verlag GmbH, 2008, ISBN 978-3-86680-291-9 .
  • Jan Tabor, Erich Bernard, Barbara Feller: The Viennese Höhenstraße and its architectural design - a research work commissioned by MA 19. Vienna, 1994

Web links

Commons : Wiener Höhenstraße  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.wien.gv.at/statistik/daten/pdf/oefflicher-strassen.pdf  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wien.gv.at  
  2. ↑ Eugen Fassbender , Architects Lexicon Vienna 1880-1945
  3. ↑ Josef Holzapfel: The City of Rings ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , 2002–2009 The village of Obersaktveit, a1133.at @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.a1133.at
  4. ^ Vienna City Council (meeting on May 24). In: Neue Freie Presse , May 25, 1905, pp. 8–9. (First section and "forest and meadow belt")
  5. ^ Tabor, Bernard, Feller: The Viennese Höhenstraße and its architectural design
  6. ^ Tabor, Bernard, Feller: The Viennese Höhenstraße and its architectural design
  7. ^ Tabor, Bernard, Feller: The Viennese Höhenstraße and its architectural design
  8. ^ Tabor, Bernard, Feller: The Viennese Höhenstraße and its architectural design
  9. ↑ Page Leischner in the Azw Architects Lexicon. In: Architects Lexicon Vienna 1770–1945. Published by the Architekturzentrum Wien . Vienna 2007.
  10. ^ Tabor, Bernard, Feller: The Viennese Höhenstraße and its architectural design
  11. ↑ Millions of cobblestones and deep holes ; in: Der Standard, print edition of January 18, 2010. Retrieved on February 7, 2010.
  12. ↑ Measurement of the Höhenstraße starts orf.at, March 17, 2017, accessed March 17, 2017.
  13. ↑ Monument protection for parts of Höhenstraße orf.at, November 21, 2019, accessed November 21, 2019.

Coordinates: 48 ° 15 ′ 59.6 ″  N , 16 ° 18 ′ 32 ″  E