Lower Austria

Lower Austria is not only the country’s largest federal state, its beautiful and varied landscape also makes it a popular tourist destination. Many of its pretty towns and villages are only a short journey from Austria’s capital Vienna. This new architecture guidebook features a vast selection of significant buildings from the late 19th and early 20th century in this region. Arranged by typology, they are documented with historic and new photographs, plans, brief descriptions and key information. The seven decades between the Austrian revolution in 1848 and the end of the Great War in 1918 were a period of fundamental changes in society, politics, economy and technology that also had a major impact on architecture and construction. Between the accession of Emperor Franz Josef I and the fall of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy, manorialism was abolished; public administration on all levels of state was modernised and created a whole new social class of civil servants; the construction of railways and industrialisation brought an unprecedented economic boom; and escaping the crowded metropolis for a summer house in the countryside became fashionable among the aristocrats and the nouveaux-riche. Many of the famous Vienna-based architects of the time were commissioned with designs for all sorts of public and private projects also in provincial towns and villages. Text in English and German.