It is common for visitors to Vienna to take the U-Bahn to Heiligenstadt, visit the front of the Karl Marx Hof, have their picture taken, and then return on the U-Bahn to the city centre. There is nothing wrong with this approach in itself. It is a well known, impressive building with a good museum of the history of Red Vienna.
But perhaps a tourist needs a gentle nudge to explore a little more? To that end I have created some Radical Walks of Red Vienna to tour the parts that the tourist buses may not reach (there are links at the foot of this page).
The unlikely starting point for this walk is the Schönbrunn Palace and the walk brings together two distinctive periods; that of the autocratic Habsburg Empire and the democratically elected socialist council that replaced it.
You can reach the palace by the U4 or various trams and buses. I always travel to Hietzing and then use the Hietzinger Tor entrance which is on Hietzingerhauptstraße. If you wanted less walking, use the Schönbrunn U-bahn station and enter at Meidlinger Tor.
Schönbrunn Palace
The palace and surrounding land were once owned by the Habsburg dynasty which originated in the 13th century. The current building was remodelled in the 1740s into a baroque extravagance according to instructions of the Empress Maria Theresa. She ruled for 40 years and was the only woman Habsburg to rule in her own right.
Centuries of exploiting the peasantry, seizing land and resources through military campaigns, political marriages and the primitive accumulation of capital made the Habsburgs wealthy. Such was the scale of these riches that individual family members could each have their own palaces, residences and estates.
Schönbrunn was originally a summer palace and it was here that Emperor Franz Joseph was born in 1830 and died in 1916. It is said he lived a frugal life and slept in an iron-frame bed. You can judge for yourself how frugal one must be to live in such a building.
The Habsburg Empire collapsed in 1918 and the pressure of revolution ensured that much of the land, property and wealth was quickly appropriated by the newly formed republican Austrian state.
In the early 1920s parts of the building were used as a children’s home and by the Kinderfreunde organization to train nursery school teachers 1.
This may seem to be a rather unexpected beginning to a radical walking tour of Red Vienna; but it brings together many contrasts, juxtapositions and even some continuity and harmony. Absolutism and socialism are political, social and economic opposites and each created distinctive styles in culture, art, architecture and design. I openly acknowledge my commitment to the socialist cause, but isn’t there something about the upper class aesthetic of the 18th century that fascinates?
As we walk through the park, consider the emotional tugs and pulls created by the avenues of trees, an unexpected encounter with a sun-bleached pseudo-ruin, the visual thrill of the Gloriette set high upon the hill, the fountains and their water music, the pleasing rose gardens and the stone sculptures that reference the mythology of Antiquity.
Head towards the Gloriette from the Schönbrunn Palace. If you have the palace behind you, head towards the left hand side of the Gloriette.
The Gloriette
Up on the hill is the Gloriette a neo-Classical folly, once used by the frugal Emperor Franz Joseph I as his breakfast room.
It was constructed in 1775 as the final part of the gardens planned by the Empress. At this time it served as both an aesthetic focal point and a representation of imperial power. What does it represent today? That’s something to consider as you walk towards it.
When you reach the top there is a wide avenue, (Gloriettestraße) turn left into this. If you have turned round to admire the view of the palace and the north west corner of Vienna, the avenue will now be on your right hand side.
Walk along the Gloriettestraße until you reach the Maria Theresia Tor. Go through this gate and cross the bridge. You will see Am Tivoli on your right hand side.
Am Tivoli
In the few minutes it takes to leave the park and cross the bridge over the motorway one leaves the 18th century, briefly encounters the frenetic motorism of the 21st century, and then unexpectedly bumps into an Arts and Crafts friend from the 1920s.
Am Tivoli was built between 1927 – 28 and extended in the following two years. Most of the buildings are divided into four apartments and there are around 400 individual homes in total. When built the estate included a kindergarten, shops and communal laundry. It is in a garden city style and plan 2.
The kindergarten is still in use and is a fine building.
The semi-circular balcony and the use of the decorative brick work are good touches.
Brick work has been used effectively throughout the estate.
The architect of Am Tivoli, Wilhelm (Willy) Peterle, was a follower of garden city ideas and principles and here they are expressed in practice.
The semi-circular towers are an unusual touch and create something striking which suggests a future garden city yet to come.
Everywhere are gardens, trees, rose bushes and flowers. I particularly like Ludwig-Martinelli-Gasse with its seductive curve; and then there are the alley ways which create useful short cuts.
The gap in time between the palace and Am Tivoli is around 200 years; and yet nothing feels out of place or in confusion. Peterle was known for designing and planning in such a way as to harmonise environments and perhaps the thought of the palace and its gardens played upon his thinking.
My suggested route is to walk along Hohenbergstraße keeping Am Tivoli on your right hand side. However, you could just amble through the estate. If you do walk along Hohenbergstraße you will see the central block which has a cafe and an apotheke.
Then turn right into Stranitzky Gasse and left into Betty-Rose-Weg. Note the former wash house on the right hand side.
The above photograph shows the wash house today. This is how it looked inside in the early 1930s.
At Arnsburg Gasse there are various memorials, including a plaque to celebrate the opening of the estate. Go left into Arnsburg Gasse and back to Hohenbergstraße and turn right. Walk along and you will see Indianerhof.
Indianerhof
Indianerhof was built in two distinctive styles by the architects Karl Dirnhuber and Camillo Fritz Discher. It is generally accepted that Discher designed the house-models with pitched roofs and green and pink colour scheme and that Dirnhuber was responsible for the candy-floss pink blocks of flats in a slab design.
It is suggested that there was no collaboration between them. But is that really true? One unifying feature is the use of that pastel pale pink colour across the estate. Was this a splash of well intentioned, if esoteric, fun?
The gable roofs work well in conjunction with the hill of Schwenkgasse and mark a strong counterpoint to the church spire in the distance, and further off, the Vienna woods.
Once inside the estate there is a softer visage and an almost rural feel; linking together Schönbrunn, the garden city design of Am Tivoli, and now something larger and more urban. There are intriguing angles created by the balconies and pitched roofs and artistic shadows created by the sun.
At times it is unclear whether this is housing within a glade of trees, or trees surrounded by some complementary buildings. The density of the housing, the generous amount of open space and the way that walls, gates, courtyards and blocks of housing are amassed gives a medieval sense of citadel security.
Turn left into Theergasse and continue along this street and turn into the corner on the right hand side. Don’t go right again! Look out for the courtyard shown in the photograph below.
Get to the end of the straight piece of road before it turns to the right again. At this point turn left and down a few wide steps. There is a play area on the right hand side.
Go through the arch with ‘Wohnhauslange Erbaut von der Gemeinde Wien in Den Jahren 1929 und 1930’. Just before that, note the former Wash House at 38 Spittelbreitunggasse.
You will see a plaque to commemorate the opening of the estate as you walk through the arch. When you’re through, look out for the shops that were built as part of the original design.
Turn right into Rotenmühlgasse and look for the statue of the native American at number 64. Go through this arched entrance to have a look at the large courtyard and play area. It will give a good sense of how the courtyard design works. Once you’ve done that, come back through the arch, turn left and then right into Ratschkygasse.,
Ratschkygasse
This is a typical urban Vienna street from the late 19th century, a history book in stone. At number 42 there is a plaque that marks a point of war destruction.
At number 41 (and opposite at number 36) there are two buildings, Schiller Hof and Goethe Hof, which express the design ideas of the Secession. They were both built in 1906 and the architect was August Ribak.
Swimming Pool, Ratschkygasse
A prominent building with a pronounced pitched roof, bright white walls and stone sculptures of mermaids and frogs and subtle touches of the Secession style.
It was built between 1923 – 1924 and the architect was Josef Bittner.
This was presumably an infill building and I am curious as to the shape. Most of the buildings of the Red Vienna period slot in to their surroundings. One cannot help noticing how different this is to the buildings of the street. How was this design decision made?
Perhaps it was an afternoon’s discussion involving half a dozen people in an office of the town hall. The architect, a couple of municipal officials, a manager or two and a councillor from the local district. A surprising number of decisions are still made by small numbers of people in large organisations through bureaucratic processes. They can be difficult to influence or change.
Swimming was a popular sport and leisure activity in Vienna and round twenty five swimming pools and paddling pools were built in the 1920s. There was also swimming in the Danube and the river beaches of the Lobau area were known as the Proletarian Riviera.
Cross Ruckergasse. Note the school on the corner from the time of empire which is well built with large rooms and windows. It is a reminder that some reforms were already in progress before the revolution.
Continue along Ratschkygasse and then turn right into Erlgasse. You will pass 32 Erlgasse which is one of the doors to the school. Continue past this and you will see the whole building, including the clock tower.
School, Erlgasse and Spittelbreitengasse
The school was built in 1927 – 28 and the architects were Wilhelm Baumgarten and Josef Hofbauer. It is a fine modern building, attractive with a sense of studiousness which is just what a school needs.
Although it is of the Red Vienna time, it was not built by the municipal authorities but by the Komenský association. This had existed from the late 19th century onwards to provide educational facilities for the Czech speakers in the city.
Estimates of the number of Czech people in the early decades of the 20th century vary but it was a substantial minority, perhaps 100,000 – 250,000 people (of a population of around 2 million).
Today it is a public school.
Turn right into Spittelbreitengasse. You will be presented with a new view of Indianerhof; but don’t go that far. Turn left into Ruckergasse.
Ruckergasse 54 – 58
This is a series of municipal housing blocks which were built between 1953 – 1954 at which time Meidling was in the British military occupation zone.
The architects were Karl Hauschka, Herbert Prehsler, Karl Molnar and Bruno Buzek. Hauschka had earlier worked on several large housing projects in the 1920s and so provides some form of continuity in terms of housing design.
The blocks are austere, as might be expected from this period, but they are brightened up by four mosaics which represent spring (Susanne Peschke-Schmutzer), summer (Mutz Stanek), autumn ( Ilse Pompe) and winter ( Hilde Prinz).
Outside one of the blocks (you can see it from the street, but it’s worth a closer look) is the statue of Man With a Calf by the sculptor Gabriela Waldert. This is a link to the history of the site which was, until 1953, the Meidling slaughterhouse.
Continue along Ruckergasse and then turn left into Koppreitergasse. On the right hand side as you walk along is the former tram depot.
Koppreiter station (tram depot), 5 Koppreitergasse
The former tram depot and offices were opened in 1914. The architect is unknown but, due to the design, the speculation suggests they were of the Otto Wagner school.
The origins of the tram system in Vienna are in the middle of the 19th century. Horse drawn trams began pulling carriages along rails from 1865. The advantage of this rail system was that the journeys were smoother and more passengers could be transported. Electrification was rapidly completed between 1897 and 1903. The municipality took over the running of the service on 1st July 1903.
During the Red Vienna period fares were deliberately kept low at the same time as the network was expanded. As the new housing of the 1920s was planned care was taken to ensure that it was well served with public transport. Housing was either built near to existing transport hubs or new tram lines were built to reach the housing.
The tram workers were well organised They were involved in the large scale and widespread strikes of 1889 which were suppressed by state violence, including cavalry charges with drawn sabres.
During the Civil War in 1934 two tram workers were killed and over 50 arrested. The clerical fascists then banned all trade unions and socialist parties.
On the left hand side as you walk along is the Gemeindebau at 24 – 26 Koppreitergasse.
24 – 26 Koppreitergasse
This was constructed in 1929 to a design by the architect Ernst Miksch. It is a small apartment block of five stories and 35 homes. It is well-built housing of good quality.
It is a deceptive facade because what you see on the street is only part of the building. A courtyard lies behind and then a connection with Ruckergasse. It’s a clever piece of in-fill where two separate sites have been joined together.
This sort of housing from the Red Vienna period is abundant across the city; sometimes you don’t even notice it. But there it is, around 100 years old and still doing well.
When I came to write up my notes in early November 2026 a news item was published by the BBC about five tower blocks in London where all of the 250 households had been evacuated because of severe structural problems.
Those blocks are only nine years old. What has gone so wrong with housing provision in Britain? And why won’t the powers that be listen to these voices from Europe’s past when local authorities and governments built good quality housing that was inexpensive and is still in use today?
Simony Hof, 8 – 10 Koppreitergasse
Built between 1927 to 1928 to a design by the architect Leopold Simony, it was also named after him.
Leopold Simony had worked on public housing projects within the time of empire and then carried on into the time of Red Vienna. He was a product of the high quality technical education of the pre 1914 period. As well as an architect he played an important role as an educator.
It is a powerful design, rather like a large-scale Elizabethan house of the 16th century. The central mass is cradled by two wings. When first built the estate included a kindergarten, wash house (laundry) and bath house.
The open space at the front helps to push the building away from the street. This open space is at a lower level to the street itself and it might be thought that this was allow the street to dominate. But it is the reverse; the sunken courtyard magnifies the monumental character of the building itself.
It feels like a luxury that public housing could be designed in this way; a stately home for the working class, just as there were palaces and stately homes for monarchs.
When completed at the end of the 1920s, the tram station opposite would have been busy with trams, people and machines. As we have seen above, the tram workers were municipal employees with well organised trade unions. And some may have lived in Simony or in one of the other Gemeindebauten nearby.
Considered in this way, a real sense of Red Vienna is created; of how municipal socialism, left-wing politics, trade unions, progressive thinking and radical people, worked to change the spatial organisation of the city in favour of the interests of the working class.
And with that, our walk for today has come to an end. Nearby is Wien Meidling station where there are trams, buses, U-Bahn and S-Bahn services.
Or, you could turn left into Meidlinger Haupstrasse where you will find lots of shops and cafes.
Hopefully this walk has provided food for thought, but we must remember that radical walkers also march on their stomachs; like all good armies.
- The Kinderfreunde was a Social Democratic organisation founded in 1908 by socialist activists. It reflected pressure from the labour movement for education and welfare for working class children.
The Kinderfreunde rapidly expanded after the revolution. It was first given premises at Schönbrunn in 1919. The Schönbrunn teacher-training school (Erzieherschule) was set up in 1921.
The movement also ran children’s homes, holiday schemes and ‘children’s republics’ in which children practiced self-government.
A group of socialist educators came together as the ‘Schönbrunn Circle’
. ↩︎ - The founder of the Garden City Movement, Ebenezer Howard, was a parliamentary clerk who lived modestly in Stamford Hill, North London. By day he worked on Hansard, the written account of the workings of the British parliament. By night, and in his own time, he studied the development of urban space.
He concluded that cities needed to be greener and closer to nature and that the division between town and country needed to be dissolved. He was also a supporter of Georgism (or Geoism) which advocates for progressive land value taxation.
xHis original book Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform was published in 1898. It was republished four years later as Garden Cities of Tomorrow. The book became hugely influential on architects, designers and urban planners. Garden cities have subsequently been developed on world wide scale. Am Tivoli is a lovely example of this in the Vienna of the 1920s. ↩︎
This is part of a series of ten Red Vienna Radical Walks.
1. Ella Briggs, Karl Marx & Modern Housing
2. The Radical Housing of Meidling, Vienna
3. Favoriten and the end of Vienna
4. A Walk along Wahringer Strasse
6. Rabenhof, Vienna: A Radical Walk
7. Red Vienna: A Radical Walk
8. Penzing Vienna, A Radical Walk
9. The Red Vienna of Herderpark
10. Schönbrunn Palace, Am Tivoli and Red Vienna
And here’s an eclectic Red Vienna reading list
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