Vienna has its odd corners, crinkles in the landscape, curios that no-one knows anything about and pockets of resistance to decades of fashionable change. Such places are rarely sumptuous but they often include things striking and unusual.
These places are about discovery rather than broadcast. We find them seemingly by chance, rather than being told that we must go there, as part of a list that never ends.
This is partly how I came to be walking around a small-ish part of Penzing one autumn morning.
Part of my reading for this excursion involved The Red Vienna Source Book, a great telephone directory size book, full of fascinating content. It is a collection of writings from the Red Vienna time. Discussions on logical empiricism, the character of Austro-Marxism, research studies into the consumption of pasta, the wearing of stockings, the use of artificial silk, the smoking of tobacco. Vienna in the 1920s was a centre for great debates about society, housing, how we might live, the impact of unemployment, the sociology of family life.
One research method included the sending of forms to working class women to inquire into their working and domestic conditions. The results showed that most working class women were out of bed and already cooking, cleaning, preparing lunches and caring for children between five and seven o’clock in the morning.
Breakfast was often a cup of coffee and a slice of bread. Women who worked outside the home took left-overs or vegetables to eat during their lunch breaks in the factories, shops and offices. Women sacrificed their own meals to feed their children. Working class parents made great efforts to ensure their children had a regular supply of milk. Only around 15 percent of husbands helped their wives with the housework.
The situation for working class women however was changing.
The impact of war, the collapse of Empire, revolution, the setting up of workers’ councils, the expansion of Social Democracy and trade unionism, the rolling impact of the feminist movement and changes in production all worked to transform women’s lives.
Universal suffrage was introduced at the end of 1918 and in the elections of February the next year, eight women were elected to the Austrian parliament1. Between 1919 and 1923 women were elected to the municipal council for the first time2.
Outside the formal democratic structures, women were active in protests, demonstrations, the settler movement, trade unions and political parties. They demanded equal pay, legal abortion, access to higher education and professional careers.
The women’s question became a practical and active component of the new society and this was reflected in the housing, education, welfare and cultural programme of Red Vienna. Could, and should, house-work be centralized and socialized? How might single people live and what shape their housing? To what extent was it permissible for the civic authorities to intervene in the domestic sphere of the family?
However these debates moved in theory, some of the practical conclusions are still visible to this day. There are many kindergartens built in the 1920s that are still being used. Laundry rooms on the larger estates continue to provide washing facilities. Maternity centres, mother and baby clubs, dentistry and the welfare provision of a hundred years ago have morphed into a modern health service3.
In 1927 the Säuglingswäschepaket (infant clothing parcel) was introduced. The mother of every new born received a parcel containing a blanket, jackets, a shirt, nappies, a rubber sheet, a bonnet, a pair of socks, a belly band and safety pins. The slogan that accompanied this was ‘No Viennese should be born on newspaper’4.
For some reason this became the theme as I explored this area of Penzing and it provided a sort of hat stand to hang ideas and thoughts from. And partly influenced by an article from December 1926 by Marianne Pollak called From Crinoline Dresses to Bobbed Hair: Revolution and Fashion5
In 1923, the Social Democrats had started to publish a weekly political magazine Die Unzufriedene (The Discontented Woman) which was founded by Max Winter and Paula Hons. Children were encouraged parental abuse. In a survey in the early 1930s of 1,320 women factory workers in Vienna, it was found that over 21 percent were readers.
The motto was ‘Human progress lies in discontent’. After all, reform and revolution are influenced by such things too.
My starting point for the walk was the Braunschweiggasse U-bahn station on the U4 line. Out of the station and cross the pedestrian bridge over the tracks. It’s a good vantage point to see the Vienna woods to the west and part of the city to the east. This will also take you across the busy main road and you will find yourself on Onno Klopp Gasse.
Walk along Onno Klopp Gasse and turn left into Penzinger Straße. On the right hand side look out 138 – 140 Penzinger Strasse. The gate should be open and you can go in and have a look at the inner courtyard. Then come back out again and continue along Penzinger Straße.
Weinzierlgasse – 1930-31
Penzinger Straße 138-140, Weinzierlgasse 1-7, Onno Klopp Gasse 13-17
Architect: Alexander Popp
This was an oddly shaped piece of land to build on and Popp does this well. He studied under Peter Behrens and later worked with him. Behrens was the head of the architecture department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1922 to 1936. He was an educator, innovator and original architect who dished out brick expressionism, Bauhaus modernism and eclectic Art Nouveau in equal measure. Behrens buildings are generally striking and well done.
As you can see, Popp follows his master well. There is a restrained tautness in the lines on the street facades which act to separate domestic interiors from the hullabaloo of the street. The inner courtyard has an atmosphere of calm and comfort. Here is something Alpine, accentuated by the mature pine trees, cool and refreshing. There might be a waterfall tumbling away in the corner that originates in some high mountain.
Continue along Penzinger Straße. Note the corner building at number 148, a monument to the monarchical liberalism of the latter days of the Habsburgs. Also note how it is successfully joined to the new housing of Red Vienna, in this instance, Franz Schimon Hof.
Franz Schimon Hof
Penzinger Straße 150-166, Cumberlandstraße, Weinzierlgasse, Astgasse, Leegasse
Architect: Michael Rosenauer
I must admit, when I first saw this I thought it was housing for the middle classes. It reminded me of the grand bourgeois housing to be found in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. It is the standard to which all city housing should be built. Solid with a dash of luxury, an urban grandeur with an appreciation of human scale. The balconies, red roof tiles and collection of triangles and blocks which form the mass are immensely pleasing.
It is a sort of chateau for the proletariat; not with a social hierarchy and feudal lord, but a community place build on democratic and egalitarian ideals. There is plenty of open space, trees, a huge kindergarten with its own large outside play area. It is full of loud, boisterous and cheerful sounding children. People sit around on benches connected to the whole world through mobile phones and satellites, but also able to immerse themselves in the local of the day to day.
The architect Michael Rosenauer plays a cool hand here. He manages to blend this large estate into the existing surroundings so that an overall ensemble is created. Styles, dates, historical eras, differences in opinion (about architecture and much else) come together in a harmonious shape of time.
Keep walking along Penzinger Straße and then turn right into Astgasse. Walk along until you see 6 – 8 Astgasse over an entrance. Go through the gate and then through the estate. Note the pathway between the kindergarten and the playground (they are both fenced off) and continue through that path.
Look out for Durchfahrt Cumberland Straße and go through there. Now turn right into Cumberland Straße. On the corner with Weinzierlgasse, note the statue of the woman on the corner of the brick work. This is part of the estate we went into earlier to look at the courtyard.
Now turn right into Onno Klopp Gasse and then left into the block with the memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
Onno Klopp Gasse – 1929
Weinzierlgasse 1-7, Onno Klopp Gasse 16, Rupertgasse 5-7
Architect: Karl Badstieber
As you enter the estate note the memorial to the local Jewish people who were deported and murdered. Suse Feldberg was 11 years old when she was murdered in Auschwitz. Her younger sister Else was nine6.
The estate was built in three phases starting at the end of the 1920s. Construction was interrupted by Austro-fascism, the Second World War, air bombardment and military occupation (Penzing is the XIV district of Vienna and was occupied by the French).
The architect Karl Badstieber had designed housing prior to the First World War and was therefore part of the transition from the styles of the Habsburgs, the opposition to those styles through the Secession, and the socialism of Red Vienna.
The building is solid rather than striking, but solid is a good quality for housing and it has endured rather better than several of the social and political systems that have surrounded it.
Walk through the estate to the far corner on your left hand side. Go through the arch and turn left into Cumberland Straße. Note the railway yards on the left hand side. Cross the bridge over the railway.
Turn left into Linzer Straße. On the right hand side you will come to Ferdinand Blat Hof.
Ferdinand Blat Hof
Linzer Straße 128, Rottstraße 1, Goldschlagestraße, Marcusgasse, Felbigergasse
Architect: Clemens Holzmeister
Clemens Holzmeister was an influential architect, stage designer, teacher and educational administrator. Surely we can see something of the theatre here? And these touches are integral rather than incidental.
The balconies create an expressionist zig-zag pattern which change shape as they are seen from different angles. It is a bold and daring effect without becoming over-confident.
Go through the main entrance and look out for the other worldly flourishes. The fountains in the courtyard with the frozen heads by the sculptor Wilhelm Frass. As are the statues above the staircase entrances; silent, still and enigmatic sentinels.
This scattering of ornamentation shifts the tone from the municipal to a higher realm; the world of drama and fantasy, the eternal role of the arts in fertilizing the soul of humanity.
Towards the other end of the estate, the central kindergarten painted in a summer green (see image at the start).
Ferdinand Blat was a member of the Republikanischer Schutzbund and killed during the Austrian Civil War in 1934.
Walk through the estate to the opposite end and turn left into Felbigergasse. Then left into Marcusgasse. At the corner with Funkhgasse is Mathias Liska Hof.
Mathias Liska Hof 1931
Funkhgasse 2, Marcusgasse, Felbingergasse 17
Erwin Böck
Red Vienna got sliced up into smaller and smaller pieces. The assault from the Christian Socials, reactionaries and far-right started right back in 1918. They were increasingly helped by the political – and most importantly financial support – of Hitler and Mussolini.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 sparked a fuse which led to the European banking crisis of 1931 and the collapse of the Creditanstalt bank in Austria. Municipal finances rocked and wobbled, unemployment rose, hunger increased.
The final building period of the socialist council reflects the biting austerity, political instability and financial constraints. And yet good buildings continued to be constructed, and nearly 100 years later, they continue to be lived in.
The outside is relatively plain although there is a good internal courtyard. The sightline along Funkhgasse is well done.
Mathias Liška was part of the anti-Nazi resistance.
Now turn around and walk back along Marcusgasse. When you reach Felbigergasse, cross over and continue along the pedestrian footway. Keep the former factory building to your left hand side. I have not been able to discover any more about this building. However, this part of Penzing was not a ‘factory’ district. Note the 1960s housing to your right.
You will come to Hüttledorfer Straße. Cross over and walk along Ameisbachzeile. Directly ahead of you are allotments, sheds and housing. This is Kleingarten Spallart.
Kleingarten Spallart
The origins of these allotments appears to be in 1918 and as part of the settler movement. From around 1916 onwards people from Vienna started to appropriate land in and around the city to grow food. As rents were so expensive, and one risked the theft of produce overnight, people began to build their own basic housing.
This development into what became known as the settler movement and several estates were build on garden city principles. These still thrive today, often constructed by the people who would live there.
The city council was initially wary of the movement but in response to protests, demonstrations, housing shortages and the resilience of the settlers themselves, started to supply funding and technical expertise. The likes of Josef Frank, Adolf Loos and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky delivered lectures on architecture and design and helped in a hands on way.
Continue along Ameisbachzeile. Note another industrial building made of red brick on the left hand side. There is a large hospital on the right.
Turn left into Heinrich Collin Straße. Go through the entrance of the estate which reads Eingang zum Kindergarten. You are now in Béla Somogyi Hof.
Béla Somogyi Hof 1927 – 29
The architects of this well-designed and well lived in place were Heinrich Schmidt and Herman Aichinger. They designed several large estates in the 1920s and it is clear from the built legacy that they really knew their stuff. This is both inventive and ambitious.
Vienna is a pretty city in parts but there are also areas of grid pattern streets which have a monotony of one block after another. In the pre First World War period, this was a cheap way to build. The basic form is an oblong box, the variety created by adding all sorts of pre-cast concrete heads, vases, statues and other criminal ornamentation.
Schmidt and Aichinger successfully moved away from this topology and created something very different, more social and with much more air, light, open space and greenery. There is a happy-go-lucky egalitarianism between the building mass and the intrusion of the natural world. Here and there are areas of patterned brickwork, a lovely fusion of functional and decorative.
There is a density of housing here which is smoothed by changes of landscape, seductively curving rooftops and alternations in ground levels. A central point of the estate is the large kindergarten which provides the human focus of the development of the child.
Continue through the estate and you will be back at Hüttledorfer Straße. You could end the walk here and catch a tram to where ever it is next you wish to go.
Personally I find Hüttledorfer Straße rather charming and, if you have the time and inclination, you can continue to see two more Gemeindebau, discover a little of the feminist history of the area, enjoy some guerilla gardening and get a sense of Vienna that won’t be found in tourist places.
Hüttledorfer Straβe 188
Internet sources on the history of this building are contradictory, confusing and lacking in key details. I will not add to that here but will suggest that this was built around 1900 as a barracks, become a military hospital during the First World War and in 1920 was acquired by the city council and turned into a care home.
When I walked past in September 2026 I discovered a set of panels attached to the fencing which describe the history of the women’s movement, and achievements of women from the district. One of who was Lotte Lenya. I thought this was a nice piece of serendipity given that this history seemed to be revealing itself to me across my research.
This panel celebrates the women road construction workers. During the 1848 Revolution they organised the first women’s demonstration in the city with the demand for fair pay7.
Continue walking and look out for the guerrilla gardening.
Continue along Hüttledorfer Straße and look for 265 – 67. This is almost opposite the garden.
Hüttledorfer Straβe 265-67 – 1924
Architect: Josef Beer
As built, there were 68 small apartments in this block (the sizes were between 24 – 45 m2). There is however a garden at the back of the block and a communal laundry room was created. This still appears to be in use.
The socialization of house work and domestic labour was widely discussed during the Red Vienna period but only partially implemented. Only one block, Heimhof, really tried to take into account the needs of single people (it included a restaurant which when cleared of tables and chairs created a dance floor).
The street facade has elements of expressionism; just enough to add a sense of the new. After all, the Habsburgs had disgraced themselves with war and now they were gone. In the 1920s there was little appetite to return to the pre-1914 times in architecture and style.
The statue is of a mother and child with a basket of fruit but who designed this eludes me at the present time.
Continue along Hüttledorfer Straße and look up to see a variety of facades and styles. Turn left into Waidhausenstrasse.
Waidhausenstraße – 1925
Waidhausenstraße 2-6, Felbigerstraße, Linzer Straße
Architect: Michael Rosenauer
It feels as if the city limits are being approached and Rosenauer manages to create a building that straddles both the urban and the rural. There is a subtle cleverness at work here. The use of a large balcony on one facade, the setting back of part of the building to create a small but useful courtyard. It creates the luxury of space which adds to the design and the liveability. It might just have been a flat continuous facade; that would have been a more dull affair.
And that’s it for this Red Vienna walk. There are trams back to the city centre, or you could continue to walk along Hüttledorfer Straße to Gustav Klimt Park, and then find your way to Unter Sankt Viet station and the U-Bahn. If you do that, you’ll see some of the villas were the bourgeoisie of the Habsburg Empire once lived.
I’m not sure who lives in such places today but do consider that some of the architects of Red Vienna who produced large municipal housing, had started out as designers of individual houses of this type. It was some change; and it took revolutions and changes in ideas and practice for that to happen.
- Seven were Social Democrats and one was a Christian Social. Theresa Schlesinger pointed to the fact that women were more likely to vote Christian Social and made practical suggestions as to how the socialist movement could counter this tendency and become more attractive to women. One issue was the paternalistic character within much of the trade union movement. ] ↩︎
- Of the 165 members of the council during this time, 19 were women ↩︎
- On a recent trip to Vienna I attended the emergency dental service at the university teaching hospital. I was genuinely taken aback at the cleanliness and orderliness. Anyone who has ever experienced emergency hospital care in Britain will know how depressing it is. ↩︎
- This was scrapped by the Austro-Fascists in 1934. It was re-introduced by the American Red Cross in the US occupied sector of the city in 1946, and then became city-wide later that year. In 2001 a new system, Wickelrucksack (changing backpack”) was introduced. This contains baby clothes, care items and a blanket. It is not means tested and any parent can claim one. ↩︎
- The article was published in Arbeiter Zeitung, 5 December 1925 ↩︎
- The plaque reads:
The Temple Association of Vienna’s 13th District, founded in 1904, was based at Penzinger Strasse 132.
For a long time, the association maintained a prayer hall with 130 seats at this address.
“The purpose of the association is the establishment and maintenance of a Jewish temple in the 13th District of the City of Vienna, and the proper conduct of Jewish worship services and all religious ceremonies there, with the approval of the Jewish Community of Vienna.”
— from the association’s statutes of 1904
Until the synagogue at Eitelberggasse / Neue Welt Gasse was consecrated in 1928, this prayer hall was the only one serving both districts. The prayer hall remained in use until 1938. ↩︎ - ‘First Women’s Movement
With the Revolution of 1848, women publicly voiced their political demands for the first time:
Equal pay for equal work, access to education, and women’s suffrage were the key concerns of women from a wide range of social backgrounds’
Thus, female road construction workers organize Vienna’s first women’s demonstration for fair pay. Bourgeois and aristocratic women found the first political women’s association to demand education and political participation.
.So organisieren die Arbeiterinnen im Straßenbau die erste Frauendemonstration Wiens fur gerechte Bezahlung. Burgerliche und adelige Frauen grunden den ersten politischen Frauenverein, um Bildung und politische Mitbestimmung einzurfordern ↩︎
The next Red Vienna Radical Walk is on Saturday 10 October 2026 and will be on the theme of Ella Briggs, Karl Marx & Modern Housing.
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