Pre-WWI

Picture credits: Verlag Josef Popper (J. P. W.) (Producer), 21., Floridsdorf - Angerer Straße - mit Arbeiterheim, Ansichtskarte, 1912 (Production), Wien Museum Inv.-Nr. 58891/1578, CC0 (https://sammlung.wienmuseum.at/en/object/130629/)

Turn of the Century

At the beginning of the 20th Century, Vienna was struggling with a severe housing crisis that significantly worsened during World War 1 (1914-1918) as people living in the war-ravaged country moved to Vienna in search of jobs, food, and safety. By 1919, Vienna’s housing crisis had reached an apex with more than a quarter of the population living in overcrowded, deteriorating and unhealthy conditions. Nearly 75% of the roughly 550,000 Viennese apartments were overcrowded single and two room apartments with no running water and a single sink shared by multiple dwelling units. 

Lacking regulation, rents rose rapidly, and evictions and overcrowding became widespread. To make ends meet, apartment dwellers rented out beds by the hour to “bett gehers” or temporary lodgers. By 1918, an estimated 90,000 Viennese were homeless. Widespread food shortages and virulent health epidemics caused extremely high rates of illness and death, particularly among the poor. These forces led to growing unrest and the formation of social movements pushing for new housing and improved social welfare.

• 2004 lobby groups develop redefinition

  The European Union Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC)  begins working  with the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and other Jewish and Israel advocacy groups to expand the definition of antisemitism. The AJC  encourages  inclusion of criticism of Israel in this redefinition.

  At the same time, Israeli politician Natan Sharansky  creates  the “3Ds Test” which defines “delegitimizing,” “demonizing” or “applying double standards” to Israel as examples of antisemitism.

• 2005 EU body publicizes redefinition

  The EUMC  publishes  a “Working Definition of Antisemitism,” which includes criticism of Israel and the “3Ds Test.” The body posts the definition to its website as a “practical guide for identifying incidents,” but never formally adopts it. After the EUMC, now renamed the Fundamental Rights Agency, quietly drops the definition from the agency website in 2013, a spokesperson explains that the agency never viewed the document as a valid definition.

• 2008 state department reprints EU definition

  The U.S. State Department uses the EUMC redefinition  in a report , but states that some international approaches to defining antisemitism would violate the First Amendment if used in the United States. The report states that the State Department “does not endorse any such measures that prohibit conduct that would be protected under the US Constitution.”

1918

Vienna’s DIY communities were ‘the most widespread example of physical self-help in housing in the 20th century’. Photograph: AH! Siedlung Rosenhügel

The Settler’s Movement

By 1918, a radical self-help movement emerged in Vienna as large numbers of unsheltered people set up makeshift shelters on open land, forming cooperatives to grow vegetables and breed small livestock for food. Gradually, the “wild settlers'' movement grew into an entire system of non-profit building activity. The settler cooperatives joined together to petition the city for support. Vienna’s Mayor Jacob Reumann promised the purchase and development of land. The city established its own Siedlungsamt (municipal settlement office) and created the Gemeinnützige Siedlungs-und Bauaktiengesellschaft (GESIBA) - a public housing and building materials company that later became an important social housing developer that still exists today. 

1919

Unknown, 10., Triester Straße 52-58 / Wienerbergstraße 4-8 / Kastanienallee 1-3 - George-Washington-Hof im Bau, around 1930, Wien Museum Inv.-Nr. 56559/1, CC0 (https://sammlung.wienmuseum.at/en/object/541582/)

Red Vienna

The period known as “Red Vienna” began in 1919 when the Social Democrats held a large majority in Vienna’s local government and initiated a large-scale program of housing development and social reforms. During this period, the government imposed taxes on luxury goods and invested heavily in housing aimed at stabilizing the city’s poor and working class residents.

• Housing Built

  In the span of ten years, the city built 64,000 new affordable housing units, providing housing for over 200,000 people, roughly 10% of Vienna’s population.   

• Tuberculosis Epidemic Ends

  Within a few years of initiating a major social housing development program, the death rate in Vienna dropped by half, the tuberculosis epidemic came to a halt and the number of children in schools soared.

• Super Blocks

  The city’s most forward-thinking architects designed large-scale public housing developments that featured amenities such as communal laundries and kitchens, kindergartens, daycares, playgrounds, public bathing facilities, libraries, and doctors’ offices. Many municipal housing estates were centered around a green space, and they were interested in making what we call today “super blocks'' or self-contained neighborhoods with all the needed amenities near one's home. These architects were well ahead of their time and recognized that the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. Many of the ideas developed during the Red Vienna period - such as designing holistic communities around large open spaces with substantial community amenities - have remained central elements of Vienna’s housing system even today.  

1934 - 1945

Martin Gerlach jun. (Photographer), Karl-Marx-Hof, 19., Heiligenstädterstraße 82-9, Fassade zum Bahnhof Heiligenstadt, around 1930, Wien Museum Inv.-Nr. 59241/1126, CC0 (https://sammlung.wienmuseum.at/en/object/133336/)

Fascism and Nazism in Austria

In 1934, an Austrofacist regime gained federal power and came into conflict with the Social Democrats in Vienna. After a short four-day civil war, the Social Democratic party was suppressed and the social housing development programs of Red Vienna came to an abrupt end. In March 1938, the German Nazi party annexed Austria, ushering in a period of extreme violence and the genocide of Austria’s Jewish population. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, initiating World War II, and Austria remained under Hitler’s rule until the war ended in 1945. 

1938

Postkartenverlag Donauland (Producer), 21., Donaufeld - Freytaggasse - Paul-Speiser-Hof, Ansichtskarte, 1934, Wien Museum Inv.-Nr. 235311, CC0 (https://sammlung.wienmuseum.at/en/object/989573/)

Jewish History in Vienna

Vienna had been an important center of Jewish culture and education dating back to the 12th century. Between 1848 and 1938, Jews in Austria enjoyed a period of prosperity and expanded rights. In 1849, Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, canceled the prohibition against Jews organizing within the community saying "the civil rights and the country's policy is not contingent on the people's religion," and in 1867, Jews in Austria formally received full equal rights.

• A magnet for Jewish intellectuals and artists

  During the second half of the 19th Century and early 20th Century, Vienna was a magnet for Jewish intellectuals and artists such as Gustav Mahler, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud, Arnold Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Arnold Schoenberg. Prior to 1938, it was estimated that the Viennese Jewish population in Vienna was over 190,000 people, more than 10 percent of Vienna’s population. Viennese Jews were an established part of Vienna’s society, making up a significant portion of the city's doctors and lawyers, businessmen and bankers, artists and journalists.

• 1938Nazis expropriate Austrian Jewish Property

  In March 1938, the Nazis and their followers began a rapid expropriation of Austrian Jewish property with extreme intimidation and violence toward all Jewish persons. Within one year, Nazis looted the assets - real estate, bank accounts, pensions, art, and jewelry - from Austrian Jews to fund Nazi war preparations. Violence toward Vienna’s population was notably harsh, and the systematic “Aryanization” - eviction of the Jews and keeping as much of their assets as possible - became a model for Nazi persecution of Jews throughout WWII. 

• 1945Jewish population under 4000

  By 1945, Vienna’s Jewish population had been reduced to fewer than 4,000 people, with over one-third of Vienna’s Jewish population murdered in concentration camps and the rest forced to emigrate, leaving their assets in Austria. 

• 1991Austrian government formal acknowledgement

  In 1991, over 50 years after Hitler annexed Austria into Nazi Germany, the Austrian government formally acknowledged for the first time that many Austrians backed Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and were instrumental in its crimes. The declaration was a historic modification of the long-held state doctrine that Austria was Nazi Germany's first victim.  

• 2001Joint Settlement on Holocaust Restitution

  In 2001, the Republic of Austria committed itself to the Joint Settlement on Holocaust Restitution to settle restitution claims from Jewish families whose assets had been stolen by the Austrian state. In 2020, the Austrian Parliament amended the citizenship act for Nazi victims allowing them and their descendants in direct line (son/daughter, grandson/daughter, great-grandson/daughter, etc.) to regain/acquire Austrian citizenship in a simplified process by means of declaration only, without having to give up current citizenship in return.

1950 – 1970

Sonia Suresh, 2022

Rebuilding after WWII

Vienna had been heavily bombed during WWII, losing 20% of its housing stock, and faced a major post-war reconstruction effort. The war ended in September 1945. By 1948, Austria regained its independence and Social Democrats regained political control in Vienna. With financial assistance from Sweden, Vienna embarked on a 2nd wave of social housing development, building more than 140,000 units of new social housing between 1950 and 1970. 

1970

© Christian Fürthner / MA 18

The Modern Era

The success of Vienna’s social housing can be tied to the relative stability of the Social Democrats in Vienna’s local government over the past six decades; however, its success can also be attributed to cooperation between social democrats and conservatives who continued to support the ongoing funding for social housing. Despite their differing political perspectives, conservatives and liberals reached a consensus around the importance of maintaining a supply of low-cost housing for working people.  

• Rental vs Ownership

  This consensus has created the necessary support for a 1% federal income tax for housing, which is allocated to the states for administration. Conservatives in Austria have favored an ownership model of social housing, while the social democrats favored rental housing. For this reason, social housing outside of Vienna often takes the form of ownership. Vienna remained the leading province in Austria for its model of social housing and the city has used much of its local budget for social housing in addition to the federal subsidies. In the 1980’s there was an increase of Limited Profit Housing development, a type of privately owned regulated housing, and a shift away from municipally owned housing. As a result, since the 1980s, social housing has increasingly become a mixed-income and middle-class housing option. 

• Vienna Land Procurement and Urban Renewal Fund

  In 1984, the Wohnfonds Wien - the Vienna Land Procurement and Urban Renewal Fund - was founded by the City as a non-profit, financially independent agency charged with acquiring land for housing and focusing on the rehabilitation of deteriorating housing stock. During the past four decades, Wohnfonds Wien has become a powerful public-interest player in the land market of Vienna ensuring the ongoing production of affordable housing throughout the city. 

• Nationalism

  While the Social Democrats have maintained a political majority in Vienna since the end of World War II, a right-wing nationalist political party with roots in Nazism still exists in the country. The targeting and exclusion of a scapegoat group has transmuted from the 1930s anti-Semitic narrative into a current-day anti-immigrant and Islamophobic agenda. This has ripple effects on housing access for those groups who are predominantly communities of color and is particularly pronounced in Vienna, given the high rates of immigration into the city. While Vienna’s social housing is broadly supported by both the left and the right, a debate about who has the right to access social housing remains a central part of Austria's political discourse. 

2016 – 2022

International Building Exhibition

From 2016 to 2022, the City of Vienna hosted an International Building Exhibition (IBA) on Social Housing, focused on developing more than 10,000 new units of social housing on city-owned and private land. The theme “New Social Housing” strove to create an innovative discourse around planning and cultural change. Vienna’s IBA showcased more than 120 new projects (including nine neighborhoods/districts) that are pushing the boundaries of sustainable, inclusive, mixed-use social housing development, using new methods of construction/design, financing models, and collaborations with city government to further improve the living conditions of the City. A primary goal of the IBA was to weave these new projects into the existing urban fabric and integrate them with the existing housing stock.