Post-war Vienna as a public realm misfortune

Vienna with its stunning central city, is somewhat the opposite in the rest of the inner city and the inner suburbs. Why the city appears so grey and dull is somewhat a mystery, but some mistakes are rather obvious.

The inner city housing built by the city after the World War 2 are mostly identical beige with large red lettering and add little joy to the local area. The post-WW2 housing is somewhat similar in color to the pre-WW2 housing, but the latter often has some detailing in the facade, adding a little joy to the buildings.

An illustrative scene showing how modern street installations can add dreariness to the public realm of a square.

Too quickly outdated modern street furniture
The streets and squares in the inner city are maybe a little too functional. It looks as if the city was at loss on how to design post-WW2 streets, and ended up with a strictly functional design stripped of trees, traditional street furniture and detailing in pavements and at junctions.

Squares often suffer the same fate as streets and junctions, where the joy of the public realm is restricted to brutal modern street furniture, more suited for a rural highway than an inner city setting. The many attempts of installing modern street furniture to squares and streets are somewhat a miss, as it too quickly looks outdated.

An scene demonstrating how old and new can be joined together with great success.

Look to Berlin and Paris
Vienna could look to Berlin and Paris to learn a thing or two about public realm. The two cities approach to street furniture and design is somewhat unique in that one 'timeless' standard design is used throughout the entire city, from the outer city limit to the inner heart. The 'timeless' nature of the design is interesting in that one cannot tell when a street has been upgraded, as the design is very robust and does not look damaged or aged. Maintenance standards are high and costs are considerably lower as the same elements are used throughout the city, year in year out. In Paris the same street-bench design has been used for over a hundred year, and it still looks as good as when new.

A modern square capturing all that is bad about public realm in post-WW2 Vienna.

Paris and to a lesser extent Berlin does depart from the standard design in selected high frequented or centrally located streets and squares, but with the clear understanding that this will cost more to maintain, and presumably with a long term will and mean to budget for this increase in maintenance.