Vecsei, Paul, Dennis Sharp, 2021

Landesstudio Linz—Politik als Stimmungsbild Local studio Linz—Politics as “Mood-picture”

1. The machine aesthetic in architecture attempts the representation of the Machine Age. 2. Reality TV moves the production of television into the sight.

3. Epic theatre reflects on its stage.

Background on the orf

Some thoughts and background to begin with.

The short segment I wish to reflect upon aired in October 1972, on the occasion of the opening of the new Landesstudio in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. The new studio became a necessity, with the growing confidence and ambition of the Austrian Broadcasting Company ORF. Having gained increasing independence after a successful public petition in 1967; leading to the ratification of a new Broadcasting law, the ORF was given the rights to collect fees; and the duty to provide for 2 Television, and 3 Radio Channels. Up until then, the local studios had worked under difficult conditions in city halls, monasteries, local parliament and other provisional locations. The competition for newly built studios is an expression of a new importance and confidence—2 years prior, in 1970 Bruno Kreisky had managed to swing public opinion in the first political confrontation on TV, and won his first election. The station also aired a political discussion-show, called Club 2 before contemporary Realityshows became standard.

The architect Gustav Peichl won the competition with a design, that proposed for the exact same building to be built in 4 different states; 2 more were later added. His design features a central hall, around which studios, the auditorium and office space are arranged.

In speaking of the television segment, which presents this building to us, we understand the broadcasting of a place into the home; we can gain insight into how Television transmits architecture. Its relative straightforwardness and anonymity—we have, of course, no possibility of knowing who had shot or directed the film clip—should not be of concern, indeed, it is only favourable that this is the case. The individual segment on television is is not exceptional, and functions only within and as part of the stream of broadcasting—its anonymity, it can be said; is part of its design.

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Machine Aesthetics

The machine aesthetic in architecture develops its standpoint in the attempted representation of the Machine Age. The architect Gustav Peichl describes it as a question of truthfulness: “A building must be the expression of its content and mustn’t hide its purpose.

The orf -Studios live off their technical know how, they produce technic.”1 The fact that the technical production of the television inside the building relied not just on cable and pipe, but more than that, on wireless transmission, presents an immideate challenge.

How might one attempt to give architectural form to a technology that is distinctly immaterial?

The question is made more poignant even in understanding, that the novel charactar of the television’s ability to displace place itself was not lost to the group of artists and architects around Gustav Peichl. At the time, he was working closely with Walter Pichler and Hans Hollein on the magazine Bau. Pipe and cable—these two appear time and time again in the drawings of the group; the world is coming through the cable like drinking water; the city but a small nod in a network of pipes—as in the drawing of Raimund Abraham from 1966. The erasure of distance, where only distant is still close2 features prominently in the work of the group—no small number of works have displacement as their central theme; be it Hollein’s mobile office or Walter Pichlers television helmet; the world doesn’t just enter your home, it becomes all encompassing, enters your head.

The studio follows this fascination somewhat more pragmatically. Firstly, the proposition to build the same building in all 4 sites was not a requirement of the competition brief but the architect’s response. Mass-produced, the building becomes the standardized nod for the production of content for the broadcast; it is a part in the machinery of television. The studio at large is a machine in and of itself too, the required program within is divided in seperate wings of the building, each given its expression as a part of the whole; offering the possibility of pluging in different parts as requirements might change over time. Because the studios rely not on windows but are lit through the ceilings, it is also possibly to alter the segments themselves, add additional studio space.

Indeed, such extentions have been made, as they became necessary at multiple points in the building’s history. Gustav Peichl himself refers us to two such instances which required adaptation: firstly, the shift towards television in a building initially planned mostly for radio; and secondly the ability to encorporate the digitisation of television and radio more recently.

The resulting plan accordingly looks like a diagram of broadcasting. A central core distributes all traffic to the various segments, which all dock onto this main hall. Accessed via a ramp, the central hall distributes all traffic; arranged around it we find: the auditorium with the wardrobe, studio spaces, technical facilities and the office space for

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p. 92, Gustav Peichl und Robert Fleck. Der Doppelgänger, Architekt und Karikaturist, 2013

2

Anders, Günther. Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen, 1956

Gustav Peichl, Auditorium of the Landesstudio Linz, 1972

Raimund Abraham Universal City, Sectional perspective, 1966

the studio. The different segments—waves, pulsating from the centre, only momentarily frozen in time.

A similar circular entrance hall we find in Wagner’s Laenderbank. In opposition to the full rotation in the Landesstudio, the atrium here is a way to change the direction of the main Axis due to difficult requirements of an inner-city plot. Despite this fact, the remaining rooms are arranged not entirely different—the semi circular main banking hall and the succession of office spaces at the facade in Wagner turn into the circular segments of the auditorium and the open-plan office in Peichl.

Reference to Wagner seems appropriate also as he is at the root of this particular strand of modernism in vienna, which the architect is placing his work in direct lineage of: “The architect sees his project as a contribution to the question of the relation of art and technic.”3 Throughout the building, elements refer to Wagner’s work; such as the prominently placed exhaustion shafts in the exterior of the studio, which bring to mind Wagners aluminium hot-air shafts in the banking hall of the Postsparkasse. The theoretical foundation for the kind of relation of art and technic that is put forward here can be found in Wagner: Famously, Wagner insisted to argue for his designs on the basis of technical, functional problems. Peter Haiko writes, “Throughout his career, Wagner will keep trying to convey to the observer a form of necessity through his artistic form. This doesn’t necessarily makes the construction transparent, but merely pretends to do so.”4 The crucial difference he points out lies between the attempt to raise the form of necessity to an artform and Wagners attempt to reach the artform through necessity. Aesthetic functionalism in Wagner is pushed further in Peichls Studio, where the attempt is no longer to show the technic or construction of the building itself in its design, but rather for the design to reflect an abstracted idea of technic. The mimicry of the look of a machine, in the chrome pipes, in the metallic paint of the concrete is expression not of function like in Wagner, but of functionalism. The relative innosence towards the novel requirements of television in this regard is relatively surprising. One of Günther Anders’ central observations on television was its ability to shape events in its form as their representation on television became socially more important than the event itself. The studio, having been designed from the outset for broadcasting doesn’t fall strictly in this category. Through a brief discussion of the film clip on the occasion of the opening of the studio, we can gain a better understanding of the televisability of architecture, and how it can be instrumental to the discussion of the revelation of underlying structures.

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quoted from the Video on the occassion of the opening of the Studio

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p. 91, Peter Haiko, Das neue moderne und zeitgemaese Ornament bei Otto Wagner

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Televised Architecture Television on Television

When an event that occurs at a particular place is broadcast, and when it can be made to appear at any other place as a “broadcast”, it becomes a movable, indeed, almost ubiquitous object, and has forfeited its spatial location, its principium individuationis.

When the event is no longer attached to a specific location and can be reproduced virtually any number of times, it acquires the characteristics of an assembly-line product; and when we pay for having it delivered to our homes, it is a commodity.1 There is a particular estrangement to the piece of video that comes not from the work itself, but has to do with the context and the delay in time at which we watch it. We consume it, not as part of a televised broadcast, but as a video in an online television archive.

This is allowing us to break with the direct temporal association, which is so essential to Anders argument—we are able to rewind and rewatch as we please—it also removes the direct association one would have had with the figures shown on the screen. Indeed, at a distance of 50 years, the speakers really take on the character of actors in a play. This is aided further—and this will be adressed at another point—that the discussion they are having is almost identical to current political arguments. The opening ceremony itself is made entirely for the segment. The structure, length and complexity of the speeches is intended for broadcast; even if it was not transmitted live but as a cut segment.

The first time we see the new studio is 1 minute and 12 seconds into the clip. —high time to modernize— supported by quick funky music. Invididual segments of the building rotate on the screen as we revolve around the center of the building, the camera driving by on the nearby highway. The first minute is spent elaborating on the dire need for new studio space by showing the current location of the studio, to which we return again after the grand reveal of the building, again supported by a change in musical pace, a return to the sleepy electronically piano.

It doesn’t seem adequate to describe the juxtaposition of footage here with the term montage, because every shot already has to represent something, and the space inbetween shots, characteristic of successful montage is left entirely empty. For a medium characterised often as purely image based, it is curious to see its dependance on text, which it most of times only illustrates. Then the images themselves; about half of the film is made of pan shots, to allow, despite the limitation of the television screen, wide angled panoramic overviews to be shown. On 4 occasions (8,9,20,50) this technique is used to change from one shot to an entirely different one; in all of these examples, the case for employing the pan lies in the architeture. They all relate the room of the Audio Mixing to the recording studio, visible through an internal window.

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Anders, Günther. Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen, 1956

Whilst for our purpose it is entirely feasible to to describe all of these as images; the distinction Anders draws out between images, to which passage of time is crucial; and the instantaneous phantoms, which—both temporally and spattially at once present and not—becomes important particularily in the second part of the video, the televised speeches. Linking these phantoms to the binocular more than to the cinema; they pose a far greater challenge to the designer of a television studio than simply brushing it aside as an image. Indeed, even those pictures which aren’t live can take on the same phantom character if a seeming spatial continuity in the succession of views is kept.

A specific case is the purely illustrative footage of the three other studios, each presented in a single (archival?) picture. Because they are the only instance where the proximity of all the other shots are deliberately broken; they interrupt the rest of the film. However, it would be impossible to attribute to these images a change in location; no, they simply serve as stand-ins in the slide show.

The abrupt change of location is only understood through the text. Similarily, sound too is used to enhance this point, exaggerate; helps to follow the different settings shown by attributing to each a sort of motive (almost in a Wagnerian sense); or mood at least. It is never used in friction with the image shown.

At this point, we return to the new building, we see illustrations of architects working, the wooden model to be built 4 times, pictures of the construction site (“how many m3 were built”) and then the architect Gustav Peichl illustrating the plan of the building. 6 shots show us the interior of the new studio—3 times the central staircase, the auditorium from above, a recording space and the technical control room. The continuity of walking through a building is replaced here with the cut image—though we know of these rooms neither their location nor how they relate in any other way.

At this point, the film drastically changes pace and turns into a transmission of the opening ceremony. The televised speech is not a very suitable format for Television; it takes too long, and is too tiresome to listen to. The overall structure is based on the succession of shots of the speaker with those of the audience. Here too; we find shots in motion; though in the studio, it is the camera that is moving oftentimes. A track along the side allows for a composition of showing first the audience listening to the speaker, before focusing on him. This movement is repeated several times, in both directions, but becomes tiresome quickly too.

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65 probably the local studio director Alfred Schwetz

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Reality tv

When the actual event is socially important only in its reproduced form, i.e., as a spectacle, the difference between being and appearance, between reality and image of reality, is abolished.

When the event in its reproduced form is socially more important than the original event, this original must be shaped with a view to being reproduced; in other words, the event becomes merely a master matrix, or a mold for casting its own reproductions. 2 The goal of television, we read in Anders, is to produce nonserious seriousness and serious nonseriousnesse in the consumer. The two for him are of the same origins; and exemplifies the first; the miniaturisation in the example of the accident in the Car-race; which we are viewing at a great distance through the smallness of the screen; and the second in the case of Television series; in which the characters are presented to us at such proximity; that we as viewers start to take interest in them as though they were our friends; indeed we speak of them the exact same way. Equally striking to, from our perspective, seems television’s insistence on the seperation of the two.

Vehemently, Television attempts to seperate reality and fiction—even though the two stand besides each other in a sort of montage, wherever they actually would meet, an image is inserted to seperate. The entire time structure is orientated towards daily repetition and predictability. The news are at 19:30. Direct confrontation is avoided. The studio serves the same purpose of recognisability, and is therefor fit even in exceptional events, such as emergency news coverage.

In Great Britain, the setting of the News must never be shown in a film. Whenever a film does want to show a news broadcast to be shown it must show it only within a context to make it clear to the audience. The problem has been called Welles-Effect after the radio play the The War of the Worlds had caused minor panic in 1938, when it announced the landing of Martians.

The increasing tendency to provide the necessary context for the distinction of the two in making elements of the production of television visible to the viewer has been refered to by Umberto Eco as Neo-TV. The means of production of television, the microphones, cameras, lights and so on served to signal to the viewer that what he was watching was real, because it was on TV, and what’s in front of the TV camera is real.

Umberto Eco describes the shift that’s occurring in Reality TV, whereby this problem of not being able to distinguish whether the bombing of Aleppo is fictional or news is being displaced by the new problem; whereby we start to attribute reality to images, because they no longer conceal their process of production. The Talk-Show constantly shows us other cameras—and at the sight of the camera, do we start to recognise things as being real. The TV starts to speak just of itself. The Press conference.

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Anders, Günther. Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen, 1956

The principal characteristic of Neo-TV is that it talks less and less about the external world Whereas Paleo-TV talked about the external world, or pretended to, Neo-TV talks about itself and about the contact that it establishes with its own public.3 The parallel between the architectural attempt at the expression of technic, and the emergence of Neo-tv is curious. The point of Eco is, that it is through the revelation of artifice that Television manages to hide its artifice.

The difference in Eco and Anders lies in the fact that for Anders, the question of where reality ends, and appearence begins is superfluos and hides the social reality tv constitutes itself, the kind of transformations tv is enducing via its social importance.

At these points of transformation, it is no longer feasable to distinguish between reality and acting: “When judges, witnesses and lawyers perform their duty concious of the fact that perhaps 10 million people are watching them; the temptetion to play theatre must be enormous.”

Reality itself, he says, adjusts itself to its representation on the screen, as this representation gets more important.

Through the attempted seperation of the two; phenomenon like the comedian turned politician as exemplified by Grillo (to whom Eco still refers in his capacity as a comedian), Zelensky and Trump; and the comedian turned newsanchor, exemplified by John Oliver make no sense; whereas actually their ambiguity has found to be central to television from the onset. The other side of the hybrids this produces lies in the role of the fictitious more generally; which is thereby expelled from the realm of politics.

The minituarisation of the “content” of television; the turning provinicial—like looking through the telescope through the wrong end4—is not just prepared, it is actually fully fledged in the Landesstudio Linz; which set the ground for exactly the regionalism that Eco is observing 10 years later. If we are to apply Anders central thesis; that tv serves both as phantom and mold, to what extent has it molded politics?

The TV-Studio opening is of interest, because all speakers end up just representing themselves. They are merely filling the role that is attributed to them. As I no longer know the political figures involved; the event takes on a fictional nature, simply due to its presentation. In fact, it might well have been. The head of the region, asking for more regional coverage; the director of the studio, defending public television fees; the philosopher, on the material basis for ideas, and of course, the bishop.

Indeed; so internalised have we this connection, that if a politician chooses to withdraw from a TV confrontation, we view this act as undemocratic.

Parliament has become unimportant as the space of debate, and if it gets the platform of Television to broadcast its sittings, the debate is heavily undermined by suddenly being a series of speeches to the TV audience rather than a discussion amongst the representatives.

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Umberto Eco. A guide to the Neo-television of the 1980s

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Anders, Günther. Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen, 1956

Epic Theatre

When the dominant experience of the world thrives on such assembly-line products, the concept “the world” is abolished insofar as it denotes that in which we live. The real world is forfeited; the broadcasts, in other words, further an “idealistic” orientation.1 Whereas the epic theatre has always included reflection on the theatre, the television did no more than draw the border all the more precise, the more muddled the program got. Enzensberger is mocking those; that say, a distinction between reality and fiction cannot be made on the television. He calls it a 0-medium; one in which program itself has been replaced by trance, by nothingness toward which the viewer is drawn. What if reality just started to imitate this 0-medium?

The Austrian Anchorman Armin Wolf is famous for his 15 min political interviews, central to his news program zib. He has said about these, that in the process of researching his guest, he will have read all of their opinions and comments; which, over the course of the interview—he will merely provide a platform for. Even the moment, in which a politician will aim to deflect from a question, is already anticipated; and news-worthy only in its exposition of a politicians hesitation.

Shows the public of Piacenza the people of Piacenza - which has gathered together to listen to a Piacenza watchmaker’s advertisement, while a Piacenza presenter makes coarse jokes about the ‘tits’ of a Piacenza woman, who takes it all uncomplainingly so that she can be seen by the public of Piacenza while she wins a pressurecooker. It’s like looking through the telescope from the wrong end. Nothing like that boring ‘Hamlet’ stuff.2 Though Eco is speaking of neo-television here; for a moment it was possible to misread it as the Tableau, Benjamin uses to introduce the way by which Epic theatre thinks of its ambition to expose conditions. The interruption of an event allows for an understanding of the forces that have led to the situation.

That is to say, the stranger is confronted with a certain set of conditions: troubled faces, open window, a devastated interior. There exists another point of view from which the more usual scenes of bourgeois life do not look so very different from this.3 If the two look alike it is, because on the surface, the neo-tv of Eco and Brecht’s epic theatre do share some similiarities. It seems to me that one way to begin to think about the difference between these two tableaus lies in Benjamin’s wordpair of reproduction and representations of conditions The reproduction of the Piacenza woman winning the pressure cooker requires none of the “uncovering of conditions”, Benjamin speaks of.

Another central feature in both is the attempt to break with illusion. The understanding of how this break with illusion occurs, however, differs greatly. The one is deceiving into the assumption that reality itself is on show, because the process of filming is made transparent; whereas the other sees the obligation to show “the one who shows”—that

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GuenterAnders. Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen, 1956

2

Umberto Eco. A guide to the Neo-television of the 1980s

3

Walter Benjamin, Understanding Brecht, 1998

is the actor. The supreme task of an epic production is to give expression to the relationship between the action being staged and everything that is involved in the act of staging per se.4 This relation is not entirely surprising as Benjamin has referred to the radio as a crucial precedent to the kind of dramaturgy, epic theatre was seeking—one in which the audience could enter at any point.

One of the most central terms in the epic theatre is the verfremden; that is, estranging. Breaking the illusion by distance is entirely opposed to the effect television has, where the inability to think distance has been one of the central characteristics, as we have discussed at the beginning. This discontinuity is entirely opposed to the smooth continuity television demands. ”Tragedies and operas go on and on being written, apparently with a trusty stage apparatus to hand, whereas in reality they do nothing but supply material for an apparatus which is obsolete.”5 “The apparatus of news demands, like a factory, work and market. At certain hours of the day; twice to three times in the big newspapers—a certain amount of work had to be procured for the machine. And not any material either, everything that happened in the meanwhile in any area of life, politics, economy, the arts, etc has to have been reached and journalistically processed.”6 The continuity in the debate on the necessity for public funding for television—that is at the center of the speeches in the tv-studio opening in the 70s up until now—appears in a slightly different light, mirrored in this short section of Karl Kraus on the Newspaper. Their cyclical movement makes more sense when politics is placed as part of the apparatus of news; like the constantly reappearing tabloid-murder-story, politics as content.

The concern of the epic theatre can be defined more readily in terms of the stage than in terms of a new kind of drama. Epic theatre takes account of a circumstance which has received too little attention, and which could be described as the filling-in of the orchestra pit. The abyss which separates the actors from the audience like the dead from the living, the abyss whose silence heightens the sublime in drama and whose resonance heightens the intoxication of opera this abyss which, of all the elements of the stage, bears most indelibly the traces of its sacral origins, has increasingly lost its significance. The stage is still elevated. But it no longer rises from an immeasurable depth: it has become a public platform.7 Politics in television has been given too much prominence over the politics of television. The architect Gustav Peichl, by the way, earned his living as a caricaturist.

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Walter Benjamin, Understanding Brecht, 1998

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Walter Benjamin, Understanding Brecht, 1998

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Kraus quoted in Benjamin GS 2.1: 336f.6

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Walter Benjamin, Understanding Brecht, 1998

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81 Governor of Upper Austria Erwin Wenzel

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Appendix: Translated Transcript of the Speeches

1 The broadcastinglaw, as it emerged out of the referendum in 1967 created the apporpriate basis for the work of the regional studios and secured their existance once and for all. As a prerequisite for the practical fulfilment of the federal duty, the construction of the new studios had to be tackled, anywhere, where up until now they had not fit the modern requirements. That was the case in Linz, Salzburg, Innsbruck and Dornbirn.

4 identical studios in these places and an expositur in Eisenstadt already built in 1970 were therefor the center of the building program until 1972. These Studios in the western regions are the most visible sign for the new situation of the regional studios and their tasks for the future.

The core of the federal duty is surely to be found in the design of the program of Radio and Television.

That intent appears in the Law at multiple points, specifically the demand, that, under collaboration of all studios, the orf had to provide for at least 3 radio programs and 2 television programs.

2 In the spiritual area, there, where it is impossible to measure with economic measures. It is a correct desire of the broadcasting law that potential profits of the orf should not be seen as such, which would have to be returned to state and country, but that they are to be used to improve the program—that’s a specific demand—to improve the program. In other words, to use it for a greater spiritiual effort, which only material possibilities can ensure. Because that we all know: that all spiritual action on this world requires a material basis, lots of knowledge of material tools; which makes it necessary to design these tools, this material base. that’s why we celebrate in gratitude, that these spiritual effort, have been housed in this upper-austrian studio, which has been intelligently thought of and splendidly executed.

It gives all those working here the chance to suceed at their spiritual tasks, no longer bothered by the embarassing difficulties of the past.

3 On the subject of fees finance and investiments, the following proven facts shall be brought to our attention.

1. The ORF is the most surveyed company in austria. All reports testify to our economical conduct of business. This obviously includes plans and execution of our investments.

2. The longterm investment plan, under which this studio had been built had been uniformly accepted by Council in 1967. The same council confirmed it just a few months ago.

3. ORF has the lowest ongoing expenditure and staffing levels of all European

broadcasters comparable in terms of program scope and choice of channels. A comparison with Sweden, for example; Like ORF, Swedish radio has 3 radio and 2 television programs, but around 50 percent fewer hours of radio program. It doesn’t have to build and operate its transmitters like we do; the post takes care of that for it. In spite of this, Swedish radio has a thousand more employees than we do and a much higher cost.

4. The claim that we have Europe’s highest license fee is simply untrue. In countries with a similarly small number of participants such as Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the fees are higher. In Switzerland, they will be about the same from January 1, 1973, the date on which we also want to increase the license fee. Finally we will also introduce what is known as the combined fee, which all European broadcasters with the exception of Austria and Switzerland have long had. What we see as a strange new introduction has been practiced by our closer and wider neighbors for years as a self-evident expression of contemporary collective fee policy.

In this context, a comment on the reaction of our audience to the planned fee increase. Ladies and gentlemen, we can be very pleased with this reaction.

While the radio fee increase in 1967 has brought not many, but some negative voices nothing of the kind can be ascertained this time. Our audience obviously sees that in the midst of the known price and tariff movement, not radio alone that can get by with the old fees. All other tariff companies have long since followed suit, sometimes very strongly. The ORF now has no choice but to raise the fee too, which has not changed since television was established, for the first time, and to adjust the radio fee, which has been fixed since 1967, to the general price trend. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our paying audience, especially for the understanding shown in the question of fees.

4 What we want with regard to television is objective reporting on current events, but also consideration of the various cultural events and other issues in Linz and Upper Austria. We know that the other federal states similar wishes, and that it is not easy to comply with all of these wishes, but we believe that television plays such an important role in this cross-state communication.

Television in particular should build an optical bridge between the federal states, move Austrians to bring them closer together and arouse interest throughout the federal territory for the concerns of the entire federal states and their population. In summary, I would like to state here that Upper Austria and Linz would like to have a greater share in programming on radio and television, and I hear that the other federal states are also making similar considerations. Like Upper Austria, the other federal states also have sufficient cultural and intellectual potency, which can be seen as a prerequisite for greater consideration in the program design. If ORF is to be a real Austrian broadcaster in its programs, then these programs must reflect the diversity of life in the Austrian federal states.

Appendix: Translated Transcript of the Speeches

To conclude, I would just like to express my joy that the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation has built this modern studio building in Linz, thus providing Upper Austria and its provincial capital with a reference that, I believe, will be appreciated by the entire population. I wish the radio much success in fulfilling its very difficult task, and above all the employees of the Upper Austria studio, a lot of joy in their job and the hope that we will continue our good cooperation across this threshold of the new house as before. So let me say: Good luck!

5 Dear Ladies and Gentlemen The federal states not only expect broadcasting to support their populatino, but they are also prepared to increase their share of the capital accordingly. The Upper Austrian provincial government has already unanimously decided to increase its share from 120,000 schillings currently to 18 and a half million schillings. And that is why I also state, and believe I am entitled to do so, with all clarity that the federal states must oppose any amendment to broadcasting laws that would in fact result in a restriction of the federal states’ rights.

The hundred employees and the sixty broadcasters of the ORF in this federal state, who ensure that the knowledge of the present and the information about the current events in all parts of the country, are the guarantors of creating equal opportunities between the inhabitants of the cities and rural areas. Of course, the prerequisite for using broadcasting is a solid economic basis. And, in my opinion, there can only be a healthy interaction between broadcasting and the public if the financial and other independence of broadcasting is guaranteed at all times and everywhere. I consider it a result of a traditionally balanced policy of tolerance and respect for other opinions that there are no differences of opinion in Upper Austria between the parties or groups that affect broadcasting in this federal state. In Upper Austria the right to democratic expression of opinion was always respected and emphasized. Finally, to this official opening, I would like to express the wish to thank and acknowledge the state governments who have contributed in any way to the establishment of this studio. That the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, with all those primarily responsible and with all of its employees, may be a clearly recognizable signpost for the increasing prosperity in our modern Upper Austria.

But especially also for the maintenance and defense of genuine, democratic conditions in our fatherland, in our Republic of Austria.

6 We know, however, that no work or activity can become fruitful and valuable unless You as the Creator and Lord give your blessing. So we ask You to bless this newly-built radio and television studio of our country and all of its facilities. Bless all who work in it and all who use it. Also bless the builders who worked on the construction and all the politicians of our home country.

Bi bl iogr a ph y

Peichl, Gustav; Fleck, Robert. Der Doppelgänger, Architekt und Karikaturist, Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2013 Otto Wagner, Wien Museum, Residenz Verlag, 2018 Anders, Günther. Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen, München:Verlag Ch Beck, 1956 Benjamin, Walter. Understanding Brecht, London: Verso, 1998 Eco, Umberto. A guide to the Neo-television of the 1980s