GEMEINDE BAUT.
Residential Construction in Vienna 1920 – 2020
In 1923, the cornerstone for the city’s first big housing construction programme – and, thus, for a success story that may be called unique on a worldwide scale – was laid in “Red Vienna” during the First Republic, when a City Council decision stipulated the construction of 25,000 new flats over a five-year period.
Today, around 50 percent of all Viennese live in subsidised dwellings – either in one of the 220,000 municipal flats or in one of the 200,000 co-operative dwellings built with municipal subsidies.
The travelling multimedia exhibition “GEMEINDE baut. Wiener Wohnbau von 1920 bis 2020“ (Residential Construction in Vienna 1920-2020) showcases the history of municipal housing construction and its importance for Vienna’s population and society in general, from the origins in 1920s and early 1930s “Red Vienna” to the present and beyond. Providing its citizens with modern, affordable housing was and remains a core task of Vienna’s municipal housing policy.
The exhibition explains the development of social housing policy between the poles of societal change on the one hand and technical progress in construction, urban planning and architecture on the other hand. Yet the focus of the show is on people and their changing needs and requirements that housing had and still has to fulfil.
The exhibition was already presented at Architekturzentrum Wien, Galerie Aedes in Berlin, Salotto Vienna in Trieste, the European Parliament in Brussels or the Zentrum für Baukultur Sachsen in Dresden as well as on the occasion of the 50th Annual Congress of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association held in Ottawa.