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Cold War and Architecture

Foreword Angelika Fitz

This book takes a fresh look at Austrian and global architectural history. After pioneering exhibitions such as “Vienna, The Pearl of the Reich”: Planning for Hitler (2015), Soviet Modernism 1955–1991 (2013) and The Austrian Phenomenon (2009) at the Austrian museum of architecture—Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W)—the Cold War and Architecture project marks another milestone in cultural-historical, internationally networked research. The focus of the Az W, a place for critical debates, has long been on the social dimension of architecture. For the first time, Cold War and Architecture makes a consistently transnational look at Austrian postwar architecture possible. This research work by Monika Platzer, who heads Az W’s collections, is a plea for anchoring the transnational perspective into “national” architecture museums. From 1945, after Austria’s liberation by the Allies, each of the four occupying powers established a diverse cultural program.

Architecture exhibitions played an important role in bringing ideologically charged debates and examples to Vienna, from spatial planning concepts to kitchen models, from skyscrapers to garden cities, from the latest industrial production techniques to housing and lifestyles. As this publication illustrates, in the years after the Second World War, Vienna was not a gray city cut off from international life. On the contrary, the local architectural scene was able to experience Le Corbusier live, follow the London city expansion plans, and visit the Study for Stalin at the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts. It is therefore all the more surprising to what extent Austrian architectural historiography was shaped by a national narrative in the nineteen-fifties and sixties. By largely disregarding the contributions of the Allies, traditional trajectories to Austrian representatives of modernism such as Adolf Loos and Josef Frank were reinforced, enriched by personal and journalistic relationships with Sweden and Switzerland, where confederates for a “moderate modernism” were seen. Architecture became part of a nation-building that relied on continuity. In the course of a cultural turn in historical scholarship, the contributions of the Allies to Austrian art and culture production after 1945 were already retraced for some fields. Such an investigation for the field of architecture, however, had yet to be conducted. This gap has now been closed with this research and dissemination of knowledge. For decades, the history of architecture was written by the protagonists themselves. What can be read, on one hand, as an emancipatory act, involves, on the other hand, specific inclusion–exclusion mechanisms along scenes and networks, as well as blind spots when authors are simultaneously the object and the subject of historiography. The history of architecture museums—outside of university study collections—is still relatively young.

In Austria, the Az W, founded in 1993, was first able to start its systematic collection activities in 1999. Meanwhile, it has the most comprehensive and significant collection of Austrian architecture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including many bequests and estates that, along with a wealth of documents, also provide background information on social, economic, and technical history. With its cultural-historical architecture research and its transnational perspective, the Architekturzentrum Wien continuously provides new contributions to the international contextualization of Austrian architecture and, in general, to the understanding of architecture as a social practice. In the relatively brief history of architectural museums, the Cold War and Architecture project also makes an important contribution to the reflection on formats of architectural communication. How does architecture find its way into books, magazines, and exhibitions? How is it scaled, presented in the media, made an object of contemplation, and loaded with meaning? How is the relationship between the architecture for the exhibition—the so-called exhibition architecture—and the architecture on display conceived, and what aesthetic, and also ideological, multiplier effects result from this? In their architectural exhibitions and publications, the British, French, Americans, and Soviets respectively developed characteristic communication strategies and creative lines. These are reflected spatially in the Cold War and Architecture exhibition, and made comprehensible in this publication through an abundance of primary and secondary sources. It is striking, among other things, how strongly architecture and urban planning were also present in daily newspapers. This great trust in the social role of architecture can no longer be found today in popular media.

This book does pioneering work in various ways: in architectural research, in architectural communication, and in the selfreflection of the architecture museum as an institution. My thanks go to Monika Platzer for her dedication to this project, and for continuing to develop transnational and cultural-historical architecture research at the Architekturzentrum Wien. I would also like to thank two members of the collection staff, Katrin Stingl and Iris Ranzinger, for their indispensable collaboration on the editorial implementation of the research, as well as Elise Feiersinger and Brian Dorsey for their careful translation and Christen Jamar and Brigitte Ott for their copy-editing. The graphic design of this book and the accompanying exhibition, the work of Christoph Schörkhuber and Manuela Neuner of the Vienna-based design studio seite zwei, has succeeded in demonstrating the cultural policy strategies of the Allies without lapsing into the language of propaganda. Moreover, the exhibition architecture benefits from the intellectual depth brought to it by Michael Hieslmair and Michael Zinganel. Since a book and an exhibition are always based on a team effort and, in some instances, the idealism knows no bounds, my final thanks go to the entire staff of the Architekturzentrum Wien, and the managing director, Karin Lux. May this book enrich historical research, museology, and architecture, as well as open up new perspectives for a wide readership!

Foreword

Cold War and Architecture

Foreword Angelika Fitz

Foreword

Cold War and Architecture

Introduction

Change of Perspective 23

Reframing the Canon

Determinants of a “Special Case” in the Cold War in Vienna

Cold War and Architecture

Introduction

Change of Perspective 23

Reframing the Canon

Determinants of a “Special Case” in the Cold War in Vienna

Cold War and Architecture

“Were the nineteen-fifties and sixties in Austria really as musty as they’ve been described? By no means. After the war, the Allies let fresh intellectual air into the country.”1

Divided Europe: as far as the Americans were concerned, the eastern part of Austria was behind the “Iron Curtain.” United States Forces in Austria, Austria: A Graphic Survey, 1951 US propaganda poster warning against the looming “communist threat.” Its intention: to sway public opinion toward international anti-Communist programs such as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. “Two Worlds,” Time, January 2, 1950 (illustration: Robert M. Chapin)

Occupation zones in Austria. United States Forces in Austria, Austria: A Graphic Survey, 1949 Tourism brochure, Vienna/Vienne/Vienna/Beha. Werbebüro Pakosta, Vienna, 1945

The relationship between Viennese building activity, the architectural discourses conducted, and the objective of the occupation policy during the Cold War era is a research desideratum that has not yet found its way―not even rudimentarily―into Austrian architectural history research. Meanwhile, a fourth generation of historians is turning its attention to the Cold War, with an increasing examination of cultural policy issues, which Oliver Rathkolb describes as a “cultural turn.”2 The first comprehensive study of Austrian literature between 1945 and 1966, Diskurse des Kalten Krieges— Eine andere österreichische Nachkriegsliteratur, was not published until 2017.3 The time period covered in this publication goes beyond the end of the occupation in Austria and makes it clear that the Cold War conflict situation was still far from being over in 1955. Monica Rüthers’s article in the first cultural-historic anthology, Kalter Krieg in Österreich, retraces the surrogate battle of the United States and the USSR in Austria in relation to different ways of life.4 Rüthers sees the 1959 Kitchen Debate between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev at the American National Exhibition in Moscow as symptomatic between the consumer competition of the two superpowers—its repercussions were felt as far away as Austria. Although in recent years the global export of the “American Way of Life” through exhibitions and trade fair appearances has been more intensively researched in Austria than elsewhere, a thematic debate on architecture’s role has long been lacking.5 Whereas thus far the focus of cultural-historical research lay on individual investigations from the perspective of one occupying power, this publication examines the Allied cultural policy of all four occupiers in terms of architecture (Fig. 1).6 After Austria was liberated by the Allies, each of the four occupying powers established a diverse cultural program. Architecture exhibitions were used by Great Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union as a stage for cultural, ideological, economic, and technological transfers. Yet, little or nothing is known about their impact on the Austrian architectural scene. In contrast to Berlin, Vienna has not yet been perceived as the scene of a politicized architectural debate during the Cold War. This book is a plea for revising the canon of a narrative characterized by national-historical and architectural-historical story lines. The battle of systems after the Second World War was all-encompassing, and continued in the cultural arms race.7 The global dimension of the East-West conflict and its ramifications are central to the reevaluation of the Austrian architectural discourse after 1945. For the first time, postwar Austrian building activity and those involved in it are

contextualized in the discourse of the Cold War, documenting just how formative the years of occupation were for setting the course of architectural policy after 1945 (Fig. 2). This book presents cultural-historical-based architectural research: it is an investigation of the building activity as a signifier for socio-political content.8 Emphasis is placed on the concepts and debates behind the projects, the questions of cultural transfer, distribution, conveyance, and the depth of impact. One major focus centers on the inclusion of previously untapped primary and secondary sources. The focus is on previously untapped primary and secondary sources. This refers first and foremost to the estates of architects from the Architekturzentrum Wien Collection. In addition to plans and other visual material, these estates also contain a large number of written documents. As a whole, they solidify into a comprehensive picture of postwar modernism. Media published by the Allies and their affiliated organizations constitute an indispensable primary source. A critical architectural debate that goes beyond pure ideology can be followed in Tagebuch, a cultural magazine financed by the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ).9 It becomes apparent therein that future research on postwar architecture should not be based solely on media advocacy of special-interest groups, such as Der Aufbau and Der Bau. The United States Information Service (USIS) photo collection in the picture archives of the Austrian National Library in Vienna, as well as the picture archive of the KPÖ, proved to be outstanding holdings for the visual localizations of the occupying powers in the city. The scientific evaluation of the CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne) archive at the Institute of History and Theory of Architecture (gta) at the ETH Zurich, of the CIAM and J. L. Sert collection at the Frances Loeb Library at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and of the archive of the International Summer Seminar (today: European Forum Alpbach) in Vienna made it possible to mark out transnational network structures of their communication practices, their protagonists, and their socio-political orientation. In the collective architectural memory, the occupation does not play a role; the Allies are rather ascribed an inhibitory role in the reconstruction effort.10 The Heroes’ Monument of the Red Army on Schwarzenbergplatz is regarded as the sole defining architectural manifestation of the Allies in Vienna’s cityscape (Fig. 3). Architecture as a propaganda activity, as very evidently shown in Germany through the new construction of representative buildings of the occupiers, such as embassies and the AmerikaHäuser, cannot be determined for Austria.11 However, the fact that the city, with its cultural-political activities immediately after the invasion by the Soviet troops in Vienna, became the central stage for the Allies’ respective concept of society, has been forgotten today.

Cold War and Architecture

“Were the nineteen-fifties and sixties in Austria really as musty as they’ve been described? By no means. After the war, the Allies let fresh intellectual air into the country.”1

Occupation zones in Austria. United States Forces in Austria, Austria: A Graphic Survey, 1949 Tourism brochure, Vienna/Vienne/Vienna/Beha. Werbebüro Pakosta, Vienna, 1945

Cold War and Architecture

Fig. 1

“The Four in a Jeep.” Ernst Marboe, Yes, oui, o.k., njet, Vienna, 1954 (illustration: Epi Schlüsselberger, Georg Schmid)

Fig. 2

Western and Eastern thought came face-to-face at the American and Soviet information centers. Austria International, no. 19, 1953 (photos: Franz Hubmann, Franz Grein)

The US and the Soviet Union were not the only occupiers to pursue a specific objective with their cultural self-promotion. Great Britain and France were equally invested in the cultural competition of the Allies. The extent to which the activities of the others were under observation is revealed by a preserved bundle of archival material belonging to the British Council, whose Viennese staff regularly provided confidential reports to London on the cultural endeavors of their fellow occupiers between 1947 and 1954.12 On account of its geopolitical situation after the Second World War, Vienna became the focal point of the East–West conflict. Exemplary for the cultural socialization of individual protagonists and their positions in the competition of the systems, Eduard F. Sekler’s memoirs enable the cultural work of the Allies to be understood: “There were continuous lectures and exhibitions. So those were actually wonderful stimuli; they brought things in that we wouldn’t have known about otherwise. I might have known about it because I had been outside, but most people didn’t know what was going on elsewhere, in architecture. What the Russians brought in nobody wanted to know about.”13 As shown in the section on the cultural activities of the Allies, the four occupying powers followed different approaches in their cultural policy measures. In the process, the sources of friction between those locals bent on maintaining tradition, and the values brought in by the occupiers become visible. Biographical excursuses illustrate the international contacts, continuities, breaches, recesses, new approaches, and political career ambitions in the development of the players. The consideration of two transnational, institutional networks— the CIAM Austria and the Austrian College—exposes the relationship and network patterns of the interacting persons and discourse contents.

The common reception of the immediate postwar years focuses on a disassociation from National Socialism, a rapid integration into the West, and the attainment of the status of state independence, which is connected with the search for an Austrian identity. The first exhibition on the building activity of Austria’s reconstruction decade took place in 1954 at the Vienna Secession. Initiated by the Central Association of Austrian Architects (Zentralvereinigung der Architekten Österreichs―ZV), the Architecture in Austria 1945–1954 (Architektur in Österreich 1945– 1954) exhibition was held from September 17 to October 10, 1954, under the direction of Franz Schuster (Fig. 4). A special issue of the magazine Der Bau appeared in connection with the exhibition. In addition to the brief introduction by Siegfried Theiss, there were four other pieces by Friedrich Zotter, Franz Schuster, Theodor Scholl, and Max Fellerer.14 The general tone of the texts reflects a certain cultural pessimism.

The authors regretted that architects in private practice have not been more widely involved in rebuilding efforts and emphasized the socio-political relevance of the profession as a bearer of culture for national reconstruction. The broad spectrum of tasks and the “stylistic” breadth of the approach are striking. Most of the work presented from the federal states has disappeared from our field of vision today, and was not included in the historiography of postwar modernism. Austrian Architecture (Österreichische Architektur), the second ZV exhibition shown at the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts (Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst—MAK) from October 20 to November 12, 1961, constituted a turning point, since traditionalist examples were no longer included. The stylistic homogeneity of the projects on display is obvious. In the accompanying catalog, examples of grid facades and cubic, raised structures with flat roofs were strung together, all having the generous use of glass in common.15 They were embedded and localized in the domestic setting around the founders of modernism, such as Otto Wagner, Josef Maria Olbrich, Adolf Loos, and Josef Hoffmann, as well as around the circle of the exiled Austrians—Richard Neutra, Victor Gruen, Rudolph Schindler, Josef Frank, Friedrich Janeba, and Harry Seidler. A spiritual relationship between Viennese modernism and transatlantic modernism was established, thus suggesting a cultural continuity that corresponded to the ideals of social change and a new beginning after 1945. While the exhibition conceived in 1961 drew participants from two generations, Austrian Architecture 1960–1970 (Österreichische Architektur 1960–1970), an exhibition held under the auspices of the Austrian Society for Architecture (Österreichische Gesellschaft für Architektur―ÖGFA) and the ZV, exclusively showcased the young generation.16 Masters students of the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), many of them attendees of Konrad Wachsmann’s seminars in Salzburg, appeared together with architects socialized by Günther Feuerstein at the technical universities in Vienna and in Graz, all later subsumed under the name “Austrian Phenomenon.”17 Shown as part of the cultural activity during the Quinzaines Culturelles des Montagnes Neuchâteloises in La-Chaux-de-Fonds, the birthplace of Le Corbusier, from May 3 to 23, 1969, and subsequently in the Secession in Vienna, the exhibition was supposed to present a “new, young image of Austrian architecture.”18 The essays by Friedrich Achleitner and Sokratis Dimitriou still struggled to answer the question of the specificity of Austrian architecture.19 The follow-up exhibition, from February 17 to 29, 1976, at the Secession, covered the period from 1945 to 1975, and a committee of the Austrian Society for Architecture took over sole responsibility for the concept.20 Thirty years after the reestablishment of the Second Republic, the young generation, who in the nineteen-fifties had “initiated a change in the scene […] in a tough and idealistically waged running

Cold War and Architecture

Austrian Architecture after 1945— A Self-Representation

Fig. 3

Unveiling of the Soviet War Memorial on Schwarzenbergplatz, Vienna 1, 1945. ÖNB Picture Archives (photo: Franz Blaha)

Introduction

Fig. 1

“The Four in a Jeep.” Ernst Marboe, Yes, oui, o.k., njet, Vienna, 1954 (illustration: Epi Schlüsselberger, Georg Schmid)

Fig. 2

Western and Eastern thought came face-to-face at the American and Soviet information centers. Austria International, no. 19, 1953 (photos: Franz Hubmann, Franz Grein)

Cold War and Architecture

Austrian Architecture after 1945— A Self-Representation

Fig. 3

Unveiling of the Soviet War Memorial on Schwarzenbergplatz, Vienna 1, 1945. ÖNB Picture Archives (photo: Franz Blaha)

Introduction

battle,” dominated.21 If the selection of reference examples from the exhibition put together in 1969 led to turbulence within the “young scene,” where the group of visionaries felt neglected and protested against the selection in their leading medium, Der Bau, the presentation of utopias and concepts seven years later turned out to be very magnanimous.22 In the picture section of the catalog, the lack of examples from the reconstruction phrase between 1945 and 1955 stands out. Buildings and projects from this period can be found exclusively in the chronological overview supplement.

The Canonization

Fig. 4

The first exhibition on the building activity of the reconstruction decade was organized by the Zentralvereinigung der Architekten (ZV) at the Vienna Secession. Cover, “Architecture in Austria 1945–1954,” Der Bau, September 1954

Fig. 5 An issue of the German-Swiss magazine Bauen + Wohnen dedicated to the theme “Austria Builds” ushered in the canonization of Austrian architectural historiography after 1945. Cover, “Austria Builds,” Bauen + Wohnen, no. 9, 1965

Fig. 6

Introduction

A special issue of Bau on the Viennese developments of 1956–1968. The promotional campaign focused on a new generation of architects known as the "Austrian Phenomenon." Cover, “Vienna/Wien,” Bau, no. 2–3, 1969

The year 1965 can be looked upon as a starting point for the canonization of Austrian architectural historiography after 1945. In this year, the trend-setting issue of the GermanSwiss magazine Bauen + Wohnen dedicated to the theme “Austria Builds” (“Österreich baut”) appeared (Fig. 5).23 Friedrich Achleitner was responsible for the architectural-historical superstructure; with his precedent-setting text entitled “Development and Status of Austrian Architecture after 1945” (“Entwicklung und Situation der österreichischen Architektur nach 1945”),24 those chains of reasoning, views, nomenclature of protagonists and projects that he further refined in other texts on the subject were substantiated.25 The country’s isolation, the loss of the intellectual climate, and the continued effect of the intermediate generation after 1945, whose buildings Achleitner characterized as a conclusion of the 1930s, marked reconstruction. For Achleitner, the new beginning for an Austrian architecture commenced with the generation of Clemens Holzmeister’s pupils. Published in 1969, the compendium on Neue Architektur in Österreich 1945–197026 gathered together those projects that still determine the canon of postwar modernism today.27 The text consisted of reprints, including the piece written by Achleitner in 1965. After the project part, the who’s who of Austrian architects (not a single woman among them) were lined up in an ancestral gallery. Architects Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and Traude Windbrechtinger-Ketterer were either omitted or mentioned in association with their office partners or their husbands.28 Although Kristian Sotriffer questioned the attribute “Austrian” in his critique of the 1969 exhibition, the works of the nineteen-sixties visionaries were seen as the first independent contribution of the Second Republic to the international scene.29 An analytical evaluation of the perception of Austrian architecture in international survey compilations that goes beyond the pure publication of individual objects, as is usual in magazines, does not exist.30 It was Hans Hollein, who, in 1965, assessed the numbers of Austrian articles in international publications. His resulting dissatisfaction with the missing perception of the visionary avant-garde was counteracted by a strategy placing a large number of Austrian projects

in magazines, and particularly in Der Bau. Under Hollein as editor-in-chief, a special issue was published in 1969 on the “Viennese Developments” of 1956–1968, which, for its part, left out any other trends (Fig. 6).31 This point of view continued in Peter Cook’s article on the experimental tendencies of Austrian architecture and was a decisive factor in the international marginalization of the “other” protagonists of postwar modernism.32 Architectural history is a construct. In a 1995 conversation, Achleitner reflected on his paradoxical role of being the “subject” and “object” of his own narrative.33 The architects’ dilemma of being “interpreters and contemporary witnesses” of their own history is symptomatic of the writing of Austrian architectural history after 1945, since the reappraisal of this has, until now, been almost exclusively done by the protagonists themselves. In this context, the first postwar publication organs must be investigated in more detail. Starting in 1946, the Stadtbauamt (Vienna City Planning Department) published the magazine Der Aufbau; and the Zentralvereinigung der Architekten, Der Bau.34 In contrast to the Viennese magazine Der Aufbau, Der Bau initially did not appeal to a specialist audience, but explicitly to a lay public, and thus had a clearly didactic impetus in its foundation phase. Private building activity played an important role, pointing out the possibilities—leading to the realization of the ideal form of living, the single-family house—stood in the foreground from the first issue onward.35 As of 1950, the ZV took over the editorship of the magazine, which they retained until the magazine folded in 1971.36 Der Bau became the mouthpiece of a resurgent Austrian architectural community, which saw itself as a guarantor of the country’s building culture and artistic reputation. The editorial–policy focused on the building itself. The prevailing theme during the first years of Der Aufbau, however, was dominated by urban planning and land planning considerations. As the specialist medium of the Vienna City Planning Department, Der Aufbau was subject to certain preconditions or communicated building policy positions. The media and discourse analyses carried out by Gabriele Kaiser, including her content-based examination of components of meaning in Der Bau and Der Aufbau, visibly show the subjectivity of the selection and omissions.37 The underlying interests of individuals or stakeholders need to be taken much more strongly into consideration in future historical analyses. Both generations—the master class graduates of the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, and those of the Austrian Phenomenon—built upon the transfer benefits and transnational developments in postwar Austria, which came into play in the social and economic transition of the nineteen-sixties.

Cold War and Architecture

The Canonization

Fig. 4

Fig. 6

Introduction

Cold War and Architecture

Change of Perspective In 2008, the first exhibition on the topic, entitled Cold War Modern: Design 1945–1970, was shown in London.38 Vienna was represented with urban visions—designs by Hans Hollein, Coop Himmelblau, Zünd up, and Haus-Rucker-Co—dating to about 1968. In 1968, the first UN space conference, UNISPACE, took place in Vienna. On this occasion, the Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Archipovich Leonov paid a visit to the city and the iconic photo was made of him sitting in the Galaxy armchair designed by Walter Pichler (Fig. 7). The curators David Crowley and Jane Pavitt saw architects and designers as crucial Cold War players involved in the competition of technological superiority. In the ideological East–West conflict over technological supremacy, the provocative question of “Visionaries or Technocrats?” was brought up.39 Austrian universities have been involved in space research since 1947. The cities of Innsbruck and Vienna have hosted international conferences since the nineteen-fifties,40 and Austria plays an important role in the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), chaired by Austria from 1957 to 1996. In the years 1961–1964, Austria participated in the creation of a European Space Agency (Comité Préparatoire des Recherches Spatiales, COPERS).41 Cultural transfers concerning the fascination of space with a clear political message can already be found in the science fiction film 1. April 2000, in which an egg-shaped Sputnik of the atomic artillery, the Hadeskiller, escorts the landing of the World Protection Commission in Schönbrunn after Austria autonomously proclaimed its independence (Fig. 8). The state-commissioned propaganda film was set in the utopian year 2000, marking the fifty-fifth year of Austria under Allied occupation. The goal of the film was manifold: on the one hand, the state treaty negotiations with the victorious powers, stalled since 1952, were to be set in motion again; on the other hand, the self-image of a small country, actively working for its independence, was created.42 The efforts towards sovereignty were embedded in a long-standing history, in which the outstanding cultural achievements were conveyed as an essential Austrian feature. Only two years later, in 1954, Ernst Marboe’s book about the film was published.43 The jacket text refers to the “simple desire of Austria for freedom. For its liberation from its liberators,” and passes down Austria’s perception of itself as a “little man” between the “Big Four” (Fig. 9). The book’s title, Yes, oui, o.k., njet, raises no doubts about Austria’s positioning in the East–West conflict (Fig. 10). Overshadowed by an Austrian identity construct that relied on historical continuity, the Allies’ efforts to democratize Austria through cultural-political contributions had little impact on Austria’s self-image. In 1955, the “historians” among the young Viennese avant-gardists, the arbeitsgruppe 4,

began to discover Viennese modernism by putting on countless exhibitions, and continued “writing” that history with the development of their own positions.44 The international heroes were replaced by Austrian “masters” such as Adolf Loos, who was “much greater than Corbusier and others.”45 Neutral countries such as Switzerland and Scandinavia played a special role in this process.

Excursus: Switzerland and Sweden— Models of a Practice with Majority Appeal

The architecture students from the provinces did not reflect much on the geopolitical conditions; overcoming the information blockade had priority for them. Hans Puchhammer explained about the sources available to the students: “In the American reading center at [Hotel] Sacher, where there were glossy interior design magazines and architecture newspapers. L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui and Swedish architecture newspapers were available at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien. Likewise Werk, Bauen + Wohnen from Switzerland, as many Swiss studied in Vienna. At the Technische Hochschule Wien (Vienna’s technical university, renamed Technische Universität Wien in 1975) there was an information center in Staircase 5; four to five architecture magazines, in which you could read up about American architects, were there. You could buy second-hand books at the Prachner bookstore, if you had money for them. There were books on Le Corbusier at the Russian bookstore on the Graben (Fig. 11).”46 Le Corbusier was a provocation for the established scene; Achleitner spoke of a “ban” by Holzmeister’s assistant, Eugen Wachberger, who commented on the possession of a Le Corbusier book with the sentence: “Why don’t you join the Communist Party right away?”47 After 1945, a diverse cultural transfer took place in occupied Vienna. Remarkable in this context is Achleitner’s geographical reinterpretation of the role-model effect of the Veitingergasse model estate by Roland Rainer and Carl Auböck, which, according to his assertion, followed a Scandinavian aesthetic.48 As will be seen, the model estate was an American showcase project for Marshall Plan-funded transfer of knowhow, whose aim was to bring about a socio-political change in municipal housing policy. A latent cultural anti-Americanism among European elites from the beginning of the twentieth century initially complicated the transatlantic dialogue.49 The reference attributes “Swedish” or “Swiss” still determine the Viennese architectural reception of postwar modernism today. The statements of the protagonists found an empathetic consensus in the tendencies of these countries. In his lecture in 1951 on international trends, Oswald Haerdtl showed buildings by Auguste Perret from Le Havre, plans by Le Corbusier from Algiers and Rio, structures from North and South America, Italy, Sweden, and Switzerland. The gist of his summary reads as follows: “[The] tendencies pursued by Danish, Swedish, and

Introduction

Fig. 7 Cosmonaut Alexei A. Leonov in the Galaxy armchair (designed by Walter Pichler) on the occasion of a UNO space conference in Vienna, 1968. Architekturzentrum Wien, Collection, Imagno, picturedesk.com (photo: Christian Skrein)

Fig. 8 The state-commissioned propaganda film 1. April 2000 imagines the fiftyfifth year of Austria under Allied occupation. After Austria proclaims its independence, the Hadeskiller atomic artillery lands at Schönbrunn Palace to assist the World Protection Commission in maintaining order. Ernst Marboe, Yes, oui, o.k., njet, Vienna, 1954

Cold War and Architecture

Excursus: Switzerland and Sweden— Models of a Practice with Majority Appeal

Introduction

Cold War and Architecture

April 1945: The liberation of Vienna by Soviet troops. Die Brücke, no. 4, 1954

Poster, “Austrian-Soviet Friendship Weeks 1951.” Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, Poster Collection

In April of 1945, the Red Army captured Vienna and liberated the city from National Socialist rule. Even before the Second Republic had officially been founded, there were two Communists in charge of cultural matters—Viktor Matejka1 was chief representative of cultural affairs, and Ernst Fischer2 was minister of culture and education. The Soviet military took measures to restore public life, including the immediate revival of cultural events such as cabaret, theater, cinema, and concerts.3 The first concert performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was on April 24, 1945. That same day, the first cabinet meeting of Karl Renner’s administration was convened; its purpose was to draw up Austria’s declaration of independence.4 At the initiative of Matejka, an artistic manifestation thereof with works by Austrian artists was inaugurated on May 1, 1945, at the Künstlerhaus.5 The first architecture exhibition of the Second Republic was dedicated to Oskar Strnad, who died in 1936. The commemorative exhibition, which was organized and designed by his student Oskar Niedermoser, was shown during the summer of 1945 at the Werkbund’s space on Kärntner Straße 15.6 Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank―both of Jewish descent―were among the architects who established Vienna’s second phase of modernism. Matejka’s exhibition about Strnad was a clear statement against racist “Nazi culture.”7 Next to nation building, communicating the achievements of Soviet culture and science was on the Soviets’ agenda from the very beginning. Marshal Fedor I. Tolbukhin, who left Austria in June 1945, was replaced by Ivan S. Konev, whose debut on the political stage was accompanied by a prestigious cultural program that had been approved at the highest level, namely by Josef Stalin and the politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).8 From July 14 through August 8, 1945, a renowned ensemble of artists performed not only in concert halls, but also for employees at factories, at adult-education centers, and for former concentration camp inmates.9 The Soviets’ intention was to win the favor of the Austrian people; they deliberately rejected venues considered elitist in favor of locations that promoted accessibility to art for everyone, and had Soviet artists paying reverence to the Austrian musical tradition, which found expression in a visit to musicians’ graves at the Zentralfriedhof cemetery. One political consultant stated: “The English, Americans, and French are expected to arrive soon in Vienna, and the people are eagerly anticipating them, because they hope the visitors will bring much that is new and fresh to the cultural life of Austria’s capital. If we do not implement the appropriate measures, the others will have no trouble seizing the leading position in Austria’s cultural life.”10 From the beginning, the political officers of the Red Army―who during the war had been in charge of organizing the cultural program for the troops―were responsible for propaganda.11 It was their responsibility to inform the public about the liberation and quickly revive cultural activities in

Vienna.12 Department 7 of the political administration of the Third Ukrainian Front was in charge of propaganda and cultural policy in Vienna. When Marshal Tolbukhin was replaced by Marshal Konev, the First Ukrainian Front, headed by Lev A. Dubrovitskii, assumed their tasks.13 On October 13, 1945, the Council of Peoples’ Commissars issued a decree creating a propaganda department to be headed by Lieutenant Colonel Pasechik. The tasks comprised “organizing and implementing the propaganda among the Austrian populace through the press, radio, and other media, aided by Austrians from antifascist, democratic parties, and organizations” as well as “implementing the supervision and censorship of the Austrian press, the Austrian broadcasting service, and the publishing houses.”14 It took the Soviets longer than the Americans to open information centers. The first Soviet Information Center (SIZ) was inaugurated on September 16, 1950, in the Porrhaus (Fig. 1).15 Its theater―which could host both movies and plays―had 600 seats and opened its doors to the public in March of 1951. Additional centers followed in Stadlau, Floridsdorf, St. Pölten, Wiener Neustadt, Linz-Urfahr, and Eisenstadt.16 A unique aspect of Soviet cultural work was the occupying power’s close personal and organizational connections to the Communist Party of Austria (Kommunistische Partei Österreichs―KPÖ) and its proxy organizations.17

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Soviet-Austrian Cultural Exchange The Association for the Promotion of Intellectual and Economic Relations with the Soviet Union (Gesellschaft zur Förderung der geistigen und wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen mit der Sowjetunion) in Austria was founded in 1924.18 On May 13, 1945, a non-partisan proponents’ committee made up of Ludwig Adamovich, Raoul Aslan, Herbert Boeckl, Oskar Maurus Fontana, Hugo Glaser, Paul Hörbiger, Josef Krips, Rolf Jahn, Oskar Czeija, Johann Böhm, Ernst Fischer, Leopold Kunschak, and Viktor Matejka called for the establishment of the Association for the Advancement of Cultural and Economic Relations with the Soviet Union (Gesellschaft zur Pflege der kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen zur Sowjetunion).19 The founding president of the Austrian-Soviet Association (Österreichisch-Sowjetischen Gesellschaft) was the physician and publicist Hugo Glaser. Ruth Fischer-Mayenburg, the wife of Ernst Fischer, was elected secretary general. Behind the scenes, the Soviet Union―which, via the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS), had a grip on the programmatic orientation—was involved financially and ideologically.20 At first the society had its seat in Palais Larisch facing the Stadtpark, and as of February 1947, in Palais Coburg.21 In the organization’s statutes, the following areas of responsibility are listed:

April 1945: The liberation of Vienna by Soviet troops. Die Brücke, no. 4, 1954

Poster, “Austrian-Soviet Friendship Weeks 1951.” Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, Poster Collection

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Fig. 3

The ornament on the main façade of the building in Tbilisi expressed the appreciation of the state planning commission Gosplan for the historical traditions of the Soviet republics. Cover, Victor D. Kokorin (with G. Leshava), government building, Tbilisi, Der Aufbau, December 1946

Fig. 2

Austrian study group in Moscow. Max Haller, Franz Jäger, and Theodor Klogger, Moskau, Leningrad, Sibirien. Ein Reisebericht, Vienna, 1952

Architecture.36 Its goal was to be a party committee of sorts for all Soviet architects. Though originally oriented to modern architecture, it quickly adapted to the new political conditions under Stalin.37 In Vienna, Mordvinov was received by, among others, City Councilor Leopold Thaller; Johann Gundacker, the director of the the City Planning Department; and Rudolf J. Boeck, the editor of the magazine Der Aufbau (Fig. 4).38 His lecture, hosted by the Austrian-Soviet Association (Österreichisch-Sowjetische Gesellschaft―ÖSG), on the principles of Soviet city planning, found no echo in Der Aufbau in contrast to 1946. In 1954, on the occasion of the Austrian-Soviet Friendship Weeks, Georgii M. Orlov, another Soviet architect, visited Austria.39 Orlov was sent in his capacity as head of the planning office for power plants at the Department of Energy. He was deeply involved in planning the Dnepr Power Plant and in the reestablishment of the industrial city of Zaporozh’e (today: Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine). In Vienna, the obligatory reception was held with representatives of the municipal government: Thaller, Gundacker, Boeck, and Ferdinand Hosnedl. Then Orlov went on to visit Graz, Salzburg, Kaprun, Innsbruck, Linz, Wels, Steyr, St. Wolfgang, and Klagenfurt. He meticulously listed the people he met during his travels in an article he wrote about his stay in Austria.40 Again, no traces of Orlov’s lecture trip can be found in Austria’s professional journals. A summary of his lecture was published in Die Brücke, the bulletin of the ÖSG, a non-profit organization. The themes he discussed ranged from the redesign of Moscow and a typical Soviet flat via the continuing development of national traditions in the multiethnic state to paying reverence to Austrian architecture.41 The architectural coverage focused on propaganda that cultivated the national image. The dominant themes were― and remained so during the entire period of occupation―the USSR’s reconstruction efforts and the attendant technological advances.

As its name implies, Die Brücke (The Bridge), the bulletin of the ÖSG, viewed itself as a mediator between the two states.42 From 1945, there was continuous coverage of architectural efforts to rebuild the Soviet Union in the Monthly Bulletin for Culture and Economy (Monatsheften für Kultur und Wirtschaft), as the report written by the Armenian architect Karo Alabian (previously published in the Pravda) on the completed reconstruction of Stalingrad (today: Volgograd) shows.43 Beginning in 1946, there was an increase in complaints sent to Moscow regarding the ÖSG’s ineffective propaganda. Among the problems were a weak board of directors, a lack of a well-trained propaganda cadre, and the absence of material support; the unwillingness of the KPÖ, VOKS, and Soviet Element of the Allied Commission for Austria to participate in these efforts was criticized.44 The association’s work was viewed disapprovingly:

“The Association stands apart from the political struggle taking place in Austria. In their work, the leaders of the association orient themselves to a narrow stratum of Austrian intellectuals, made up mostly of Viennese, neglect the work in the provinces, and essentially do not occupy themselves at all with Austria’s western zones. Seldom are workers and farmers taken up in the association’s ranks. The wife of Gen. Fischer, the politburo member of the KPÖ’s Central Committee who serves as the association’s general secretary—resists orienting the association to the masses. The association has almost completely stopped its involvement with the propaganda of truth about the Soviet Union. The association’s publishing house and the magazine Die Brücke lead a miserable existence, do not possess a specific policy, and sometimes entrust their pages directly to anti-Communist attacks.”45 As of March 1950, the magazine appeared under the new name Die Brücke Österreich-Sowjetunion, with a new graphic design and realigned content.46 The editorial policy was no longer governed by substantiated―nearly scholarly, literary― articles, but instead, form and content had been popularized to increase the readership. The architecture coverage remained an essential component of the editorial policy. While the earlier version had had a small format that had accommodated modest photo sections, the new format was that of a magazine, allowing for more lavish photo coverage. In the second issue of the new format, the report on the reconstruction of Warsaw was already more akin to a pictorial report. “The Wonder of Warsaw” (“Das Wunder von Warschau”) borrowed all the clichés of a heroic narrative: the volunteers from the populace and the construction of flats for the working people, equipped with all the modern conveniences, including central heating and bathrooms.47 The societal “democratization” was expressed in recreational and educational facilities, such as theaters, cinemas, schools, and universities, which were open to one and all. The accomplishments were lauded and credit given to the increased efficiency of the workforce, which was not based on exploitative working conditions but could be achieved thanks to the “collective work method.”48 A six-kilometer-long east–west artery―a comparison could be the Champs Elysées―was the centerpiece of the reconstruction. Strung like beads along this artery were housing settlements that were not tenements for the masses, but rather small, modern residential complexes with ample vegetation and social infrastructure distributed throughout (Fig. 5). The list of superlative achievements, presented with data on the completed projects, was hardly comprehensible to Austrians.49 The article was entitled “Ever More Dwellings. From the Single-Family Home to the Skyscraper” (“Immer mehr Wohnungen. Vom Eigenheim bis zum Wolkenkratzer”), and impressively communicated the range of housing forms available to the Soviets.50 The text was, in effect, an advertisement for the That’s How you Build in the Soviet Union exhibition. being shown contemporaneously (from May 6 to 21, 1950)

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The Agitators: Die Brücke and Exhibition-Making

Fig. 4 High-ranking officials of the Soviet architectural nomenklatura repeatedly visited Vienna. Arkady G. Mordvinov was received at the Vienna City Hall by city councilor Leopold Thaller, city planning director Johann Gundacker, and Rudolf J. Boeck. Die Brücke, no. 2, 1953

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Fig. 3

Fig. 2

Austrian study group in Moscow. Max Haller, Franz Jäger, and Theodor Klogger, Moskau, Leningrad, Sibirien. Ein Reisebericht, Vienna, 1952

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The Agitators: Die Brücke and Exhibition-Making

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Terminology 309

The Allies: A Localization in Vienna 313

Chronology

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Terminology 309

The Allies: A Localization in Vienna 313

Chronology

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Besides the Interallied Kommandantura, the Interallied Military Patrol operated as its executive body (Fig. 4). Each of the occupying powers additionally had its own military police, which was permitted to take action solely in its own sectors.7 Over and beyond that, the four occupying powers powers ran their own city military commands. The American city commandant’s office was at Peregringasse 4 (ViennaAlsergrund), and was moved in 1953 into the Sanatorium of the Vienna Merchants’ Association at Hartäckerstraße 45 (Vienna-Döbling). The British city commandant’s office stood at Reisnerstraße 40 (Vienna-Landstraße), and the French office, until April 1952, at Hotel Kummer at Mariahilfer Straße 71 (Vienna-Mariahilf), and relocated to the headquarters of the French Armed Forces in Vienna-Penzing after the hotel was returned to civilian use. The Soviet Union maintained its command center at Epstein Palace on Dr.-Karl-Renner-Ring 1 (Vienna-Innere Stadt).8 In addition to the city military commands, there were district military commands in each district, administered by the respective allies, depending on the sector division. The Interallied District Kommandantura was situated in the Hofburg (Vienna-Innere Stadt).9 Fig. 3

Relationships between the Allied Council and the Austrian government. United States Forces in Austria, Austria: A Graphic Survey, 1949

1 Walter Lippmann, The Cold War: A Study in U. S. Foreign Policy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947). 2 Bernd Stöver, Der Kalte Krieg. 1947–1991. Geschichte eines radikalen Zeitalters (Munich: Beck, 2007), 11–12. American forces dropped two atomic bombs—the first, on August 6, 1945, on Hiroshima; and the second on August 9, 1945, on Nagasaki. 3 Ibid., 21. According to Stöver, the Cold War era is divided into seven periods: (1) Formation and Official Opening 1945–1947; (2) Bloc Bonding 1947–1948 to 1955; (3) Escalation and Abandonment in Europe 1953–1961; (4) Shifting to the Third World starting in 1961; (5) Détente 1953– 1980; (6) Return to Confrontation 1979–1989; and (7) Dissolution of the Eastern Bloc 1985– 1991; see ibid., 20. 4 Ibid., 25. 5 Rolf M. Urrisk (ed.), Wien—2000 Jahre Garnisonsstadt, vols. 1–4/6, vol. 6, Die vier Alliierten 1945–1955 (Gnas: Weishaupt, 2015), 26–28, 38– 51. 6 Ibid., 28–37. 7 Ibid., 54–58. 8 Ibid., 59–78.

Fig. 4

Poster, “The international patrol” (design: Anton Marek). ÖNB Picture Archives, poster collection

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9 Ibid., 65.

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Relationships between the Allied Council and the Austrian government. United States Forces in Austria, Austria: A Graphic Survey, 1949

Fig. 4

Poster, “The international patrol” (design: Anton Marek). ÖNB Picture Archives, poster collection

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9 Ibid., 65.

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ISBN 978-3-03860-175-3 Printed in Austria ISBN 978-3-03860-175-3

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783038 601753

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