Discover Vienna: the Alt Erlaa residential park

Building design

Baumeister Academy winner Natalie introduces us to a building in Vienna every month. This time: the Alt Erlaa residential park.

Baumeister Academy winner Natalie has chosen a building every month. She has chosen buildings that stand out from the usual classics. After the BEAM by Delugan Meissl and the Wiener Stadthalle by Roland Rainer, Natalie continues her series with the Alt Erlaa residential park.

Vienna prides itself on its ongoing social housing policy. A study conducted by the city on satisfaction in subsidized housing has produced a winner that at first glance looks more like a concrete castle: the satellite town of Alt Erlaa in the 23rd district, which was completed in 1985. In many respects, it outshines its contemporaries of the same kind. And this despite the fact that the housing machines of late modernism were already considered inhumane in the 1970s.

The parabolic shape of the six residential towers, which are staggered in height, is based on the architect’s concept. Harry Glück combines the garden of a single-family home with the density of a high-rise building with the terraces staggered floor by floor. Tenants from the fourteenth floor upwards enjoy the view of Vienna from sunny loggias. Around 10,000 people live in the 3,200 one- to five-room apartments. Glück’s credo of “living like the rich” literally culminates on the rooftops: There, swimming pools at a height of 70 meters offer residents a vacation substitute, according to them. Nobody has to leave the site to visit the doctor, supermarket or school either. The spacious car-free green areas with pavilion-like buildings explain why Alt Erlaa is called a residential park.

All pictures by Natalie Burkhart

The developer is Gesiba, the “Gemeinnützige Siedlungs- und Bauaktiengesellschaft”, which is owned by the City of Vienna. Long before participation in housing construction became a topic of discussion, the company was thinking about structures for co-determination. Each unit is linked to a share in the owner company. This increases the willingness of tenants to get involved in local associations and advisory boards. The TV program “Wohnpark-TV” by, about and for residents shows how they identify with Alt Erlaa.

Not without controversy – and yet a role model

The long waiting times for vacant apartments speak for the popularity of the complex. Nevertheless, the satellite town remains controversial – even if criticism of Harry Glück’s supposed “luxury amenities” may have died down over the years. The construction method was too economical, the architectural language too sober, the apartment entrances too dark. Nevertheless, even after 40 years, Alt Erlaa remains an exemplary project. Its success is not only based on architectural approaches. Rather, it came about through the symbiosis of planners, clients, the City of Vienna and finally the residents themselves.

The Baumeister Academy is an internship project of the architecture magazine Baumeister and is supported by GRAPHISOFT and BAU 2019.

POTREBBE INTERESSARTI ANCHE

Baden-Württemberg Monument Protection Prize 2022

Building design
The Baden-Württemberg 2022 Monument Protection Award honors private commitment. Irmgard Möhrle-Schmäh and Sebastian Schmäh (Holzbau Schmäh) received the 2020 Baden-Württemberg Monument Protection Award for the renovation of their former Rebmannshaus in Sipplingenden. The photo shows the carefully restored historic parlor. Photo: Sebastian Schmäh

The Baden-Württemberg 2022 Monument Protection Award honors private commitment. Irmgard Möhrle-Schmäh and Sebastian Schmäh (Holzbau Schmäh) received the 2020 Baden-Württemberg Monument Protection Award for the renovation of their former Rebmannshaus in Sipplingenden. The photo shows the carefully restored historic parlor. Photo: Sebastian Schmäh

In cooperation with the Schwäbischer Heimatbund, the Landesverein Badische Heimat and the Wüstenrot Foundation, the Baden-Württemberg Monument Preservation Prize will be awarded for the 37th time in 2022 Private developers are invited to submit their work and achievements for the continued existence of a building worthy of preservation that is not necessarily a listed building to the competition. Exemplary and exemplary renovated monuments are awarded with prize money of […]

In cooperation with the Schwäbischer Heimatbund, the Landesverein Badische Heimat and the Wüstenrot Foundation, the Baden-Württemberg Monument Protection Prize will be awarded for the 37th time in 2022

Private developers are invited to enter their work and achievements in preserving a building that is worthy of preservation but not necessarily a listed building into the competition. Exemplary and exemplary renovated monuments are supported with prize money totaling 25,000 euros. This is usually divided among five prize winners. Owners who have renewed, renovated or refurbished their building in the last four years and thus preserved it are invited to apply for the prize.

Public award ceremony

Architects, heritage conservationists and employees of building law and heritage protection authorities are also invited to nominate exemplary achievements for the award or to encourage owners to apply. The jury is made up of experts from the fields of architecture, monument preservation and art history. The award ceremony will take place at a public event in 2023. A certificate, a bronze plaque to be affixed to the building and a cash prize will be awarded in recognition of conservation work combined with a high level of personal commitment on the part of owners and architects. Up to five applicants will be honored.

The jury

Dr. Gerhard Kabierske (Chairman), former employee at the Southwest German Archive for Architecture and Civil Engineering (saai) in Karlsruhe | Representative of the Landesverein Badische Heimat

Please send applications by April 30, 2022 at the latest to

Schwäbischer Heimatbund e.V.
Weberstrasse 2
70182 Stuttgart
Phone: 0711 23942-0
E-mail: post@denkmalschutzpreis.de

You can find the tender brochure here.

The awarding authority

The Swabian Heritage Association: The preservation of historical monuments was one of the association’s most important goals when it was founded in 1909. By actively preserving monuments, the Swabian Heritage Association is still helping to preserve cultural monuments and make them usable again today. In 1978, the SHB established the Peter Haag Prize for the Preservation of Monuments. www.schwaebischer-heimatbund.de

Memorial site for the Turner Temple

Building design

Turner Temple - place of remembrance

The Nazis destroyed Vienna’s third-largest synagogue during the Reichspogromnacht on November 9-10, 1938. 73 years later, a memorial site commemorates the Turner Temple. This was designed by the Viennese landscape architecture firm Auböck + Kárász.

In the pogrom night of November 9-10, 1938, the National Socialists destroyed the Turner Temple, the third largest synagogue in Vienna, which was built in 1871 and 1872 according to plans by the architect Karl König. “… The fire department, yes, they didn’t come. Then the whole temple caught fire. And then the fire department did come and just made sure that the neighboring buildings didn’t start to burn. So the temple burnt down – windows smashed, everything there is. Some performed an enthusiastic dance, with the enthusiasm of Indians jumping around the fire …”, a contemporary witness describes the events of the pogrom night drastically. The symbol of the Jewish community’s independence in Vienna’s 15th district burned to the ground. 73 years later, on November 10, 2011, a memorial was inaugurated on the site where the prayer house once stood.

The memorial was initiated by the “Herklotzgasse 21” project. The initiators researched the traces of Jewish life in their Grätzel, as the Viennese call their neighborhoods. The design of the square goes back to an artistic competition in 2010, which Irs Andraschek and Hubert Lobnig won together with the landscape architecture firm Auböck + Kárász. Black concrete beams are reminiscent of the fallen roof truss of the synagogue. The dark, graphic structures serve on the one hand as pathways to the square and on the other as benches protruding from the water-bound surface. Concrete steps lead from the street to the raised memorial site. Colorful mosaics depict fruits from the south, which are mentioned in the Torah and play a role in the Jewish religious calendar. On the one hand, they refer to Jewish history and, on the other, are intended to invite people of different origins and religions to come together in a new way.


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Turnertempel - Erinnerungsort

The new design not only creates a dignified memorial site, but also the best conditions for a lively meeting place in the dense Gründerzeit district.


Turnertempel - Erinnerungsort

Photos: © Stephan Wyckoff 2011