Category: OWHC 2022

Fifth stop: Vienna! The capital of Austria is a city of culture and history. By the Danube, the city’s first traces of human settlement trace back to 500 BC. From the 15th century onwards, it was also the house of the Habsburgs, a royal dynasty that ruled for hundreds of years and played a pivotal role in the history of Europe. Its marvelous Baroque beauty hides hints of the impact WWII had on the city and on the country. 

[A view of the historical city center of Vienna]

* DURING WWII *

Vienna was annexed by the Nazis in 1938, right before the beginning of WWII, in an ostentatious parade that counted with the presence of Hitler, who was himself austrian born. The occupation – known in German by Anschluss – lasted until the end of the war and brought tremendous suffering and loss. Local jews were persecuted and deported and the city was besieged and bombed a couple of times both by the Americans and the British, specially by the end of the conflict. 

After the end of the war in Europe, similarly to Berlin, Vienna was divided and governed by the winning allied forces – which is depicted in the famous 1949 movie The Third Man – for ten long years, until 1955.

[Karlskirche by Fischer von Erlach]

* WORLD HERITAGE 101 *

The Historic Centre of Vienna was classified by UNESCO in 2001, as it beautifully showcases the medieval and Baroque architecture and urban planning that characterizes central european cities. Vienna, for many years the capital of the long lasting Austro-Hungarian Empire, is also an important place when it comes to intangible heritage since it has been a major focal point for musical creation since the 16th century, being the city of famous composers like Mozart and Beethoven.  

 

* JOURNAL *

DAY 10: The Ringstrasse

In the latter part of the 19th century, Vienna was in need to expand its dense urban medieval perimeter. The medieval walls of the city were demolished and a new, major boulevard – the Ringstrasse – was built, surrounding the historical town. This major project encompassed noble, representative public buildings and enabled the city to incorporate the developing suburbs, resulting in the quick enlargement of the capital.

I spent my first day in the austrian capital walking along this main axis and got the opportunity to visit some of the magnificent buildings and parks that surround it. I started at Karlskirche, a major example of Baroque and of the spirit of the counter-reformation. This church is a major project by probably the most relevant Baroque austrian architect, Fischer von Erlach. From the top of its cupula, it is possible to admire the Vienna’s city center and how it stays course and coherent in a beautiful overlap between the different architectural styles that shape the city.

     

[The magnificient Baroque decor inside the church]

Then I continued my trip around the Ringstrasse to admire other buildings like the Wiener Staatsoper – the famous opera house, destroyed during WWII and reopened in 1955 with Beethoven’s “Fidelio” -, the Austrian Parliament – currently going through works in accordance to its original project – or the Wien Rathaus – the magnificent city hall building in neo-Gothic style.

DAY 11: Traces of Annexed Austria

My second day in Vienna was dedicated to visiting traces of the Anschluss, a very challenging period of occupation for the city and its inhabitants. My morning started at the Augarten, a public garden in the northern limit of the historical center that used to be a noble property and today is a extense public garden. 

In the middle of the greenery, two massive structures disrupt the landscape: the Flak Towers. These enormous constructions were erected by the Nazis as anti-aircraft defense during WWII, resourcing to slave labour. Vienna was not the only city getting them: both Berlin and Hamburg were also equipped with a couple of them. Even though their immediate purpose was to block Allied offensives, there were plans to revamp and make them major symbols of Nazi power once the war ended.

     

[On my way to the Augarten / One of the Flak Towers]

Nowadays, it is interesting to reflect upon how each people and each city dealt and deals with this somehow “uncomfortable” heritage. The majority of these towers in Germany were either partially or totally destroyed right after the end of the war as they evoke the dark times of the war and the destruction it caused, while in Austria, most of them still stand, serving as a memorial and a public awareness tool for the harsh aftermath of conflicts in cities. 

In the afternoon, I strolled around the city center and entered the Stephansdom – the city’s cathedral. From there, I walked through the thigh knit and classically harmonious settlement surrounding the royal Habsburg complex, passing by the Judenplatz – that used to be the center of the Viennese Jewish community in the Middle Ages – to check the site-specific that was built there – a petrified library, where books cover are not readable and where it is impossible to enter, remembering the cultural loss and the identity attack suffered by the jews during Nazi rule.

     

[A passage in the city centre / Judenplatz]

I ended my walk near the Albertina museum, where I made a last stop to appreciate one of the Hrdlicka Memorials. These small sculpted ensembles, created by the homonymous sculptor, evoke the many ways Austria witnessed suffering during the occupation and the war. The ones in the picture, in Albertinaplatz, use stone sourced using forced labour in Mauthausen, a concentration camp near Linz.

     

[The Royal complex / The Hdrlicka Memorial in Albertinaplatz]

DAY 12: A Divided City

I could not finish my days in the Austrian capital without a visit to Schönbrunn Palace, the major summer residence of the Habsburgs. Together with its sumptuous gardens, the ensemble has been inscribed in the UNESCO list for World Heritage Sites since 1996. The building that can be seen nowadays has an original Baroque project, by same architect as the previously mentioned Karlskirche, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, but the full complex nowadays is the result of a sum up of many interventions throughout the centuries.

      

[The Schönbrunn Palace / The Baroque fountains / The Gloriette]

Curiously, after the war and during the Allied occupation period that followed (1945 – 1955), the palace was used for both the British Delegation to the Allied Commission for Austria and for the headquarters for the small British Military Garrison present in Vienna, before becoming a museum again with the reestablishment of the Austrian Republic.

Back to the city center after lunch, I visited a beautiful church – Dominkanerkirche – that illustrates Austrian Baroque well – white and intricate. Before leaving for my next stop, I still had time to meet Regina Wiala-Zimm, the International Relations Officer for the City of Vienna that cooperates directly with OWHC, and a fellow traveler, Stefan Župan.

* HERITAGE HIGHLIGHTS *

– Heldenplatz – 

In front of the royal palace of the Habsburgs, the famous Hofburg, there is this significant square. In 1938, when the Nazis occupied Austria, Hitler did an impressive parade and speech here to show its power and announce the annexation of the country.

[Heldenplatz nowadays]

– Stephansdom – 

The cathedral of Vienna, a magnificent gothic church, suffered tremendously during WWII. Damaged during bombing, as Germans were retreating from the city by the end of war, intentional destruction was planned. Viennese german command Sepp Dietrich ordered the soldiers to “fire a hundred shells (at the cathedral) and leave it in just debris and ashes.” Luckily, a subordinate disregarded the order and more destruction was spared. After the war, efforts to reconstruct it started immediately.

     

[The Stephansdom / The Canova inside]

Prague was the fourth stop of the trip: a marvelous and culturally rich city, with a peculiar story regarding war(s). Crossed by the Vlatva, it is known by its magnificent city center that depicts very coherently all the periods the city went through. From being the official residence of several Holy Roman Emperors, to witnessing the first signs of the Reformation and being a bubbly cultural hub in the late 19th century, the city has a vast number of heritage sites worth a visit.

[A view of Prague and of the Vlatva]

* DURING WWII *

As WWII was beginning, Prague was the capital and major city of Czechoslovakia, a republic formed in 1918 that used to unite the modern day Czech Republic and Slovakia. Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia started even before the beginning of the war. In 1938, with the signing of the Munich Pact, a compromise between Germany and England, Sudetenland, a bordering region with strong affiliations to german culture, was annexed, in the hopes it would satisfy Nazis’ expansion intentions. However, in March of the following year, the rest of the country was occupied as well, as Hitler only gave two options to the at that time president Emil Hácha – occupation or total destruction.  

The capital of the Bohemia and Moravia Protectorate – as Nazis called it – lived years under terror during the full duration of the conflict. Even thought it was mainly spared of mass destruction due to shelling, as it was only bombed once by the end of the confrontations – and by accident! -, Prague witnessed profound transformations and the loss of important heritage sites, specially after 1941, under the rule of Reinhard Heydrich, also known as the Butcher of Prague. 

The Jewish Quarter was tremendously altered with the creation of one of the biggest ghettos created during WWII and the old town severely damaged as a consequence of the Prague Uprising, an attempt to liberate the city from the Nazis, only a couple of days before the cease of the conflict in Europe.

     

[The main square in the Old Town of Prague, classified by the UNESCO since 1992, and its famous Astronomical Clock]

* WORLD HERITAGE 101 *

The Historic Centre of Prague was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1992 and it is a great example of urban coherence and quality, combining harmoniously medieval structures, baroque churches and Art Nouveau buildings. Nowadays, Prague is a city visited by copious amounts of visitors, having to cope with the challenges brought by mass tourism, but at the same time, it seems to have been able so far to keep an uniqueness that provokes amazement in each single neighborhood.

* JOURNAL *

DAY 6: The City Centre

My first day in the Czech capital started with a walk through the old town – Stare Mesto – the medieval settlement from where the city later expanded. Starting at the main square, I admired the Old City Hall building, where the symbol of Prague – the Astronomical Clock – lies. It was heavily damaged by the Nazis as a retaliation for the uprisers at the end of the conflict and it took a couple of years to be repaired. However, and even though several architectural competitions were held in the following decades, the plot where the damaged part of the building layed remains empty and the wall that faces the square, clearly cut, speaks of that disruption and that event in czech history. 

     

[The main square in Prague / The Old City Hall, partially destroyed during the Prague Uprising, that was never rebuilt]

Walking through the organic medieval street network in direction to the river, there was still time to visit the Rudolfinum, the building where Dvórak premiered his famous “Slavonic Dances” and that nowadays hosts the Czech Philharmonic. It is a prime example of the not-so-obvious destruction that WWII left on the city: as a strategical point for Nazis, Prague and its buildings were often occupied by passing troops that used major architectural landmarks of the city in a way that often didn’t respect its richness, massively altering and altering its interiors. The Rudolfinum, for instance, was an entertainment hall for Nazis, where they would recreate plays and concerts inside to create entertainment and raise the spirits of high ranked German officers, while war was erasing Europe. 

     

[The Rudolfinum, now house to the Czech Philharmonic]

DAY 7: Bombed by Mistake

On my second day in the city, my daily exploration started with a visit to Malá Strana – also known as the Lesser Town – on the opposite side of Old Prague; a neighborhood founded in the Middle Ages and that was historically home for many ethnic German and Italian inhabitants of Prague. There, I admired a couple of beautiful churches, passed by the famous Lennon Wall – where locals used to creatively express their frustrations during the communistic period – and ended in Pétrin, the big green area of the city. 

     

[The Lennon Wall, used as an anonymous complaints during the communist period / The remains of the old walls of the city in Pétrin]

Back to the Old Town, I crossed the iconic Charles Bridge, whose construction was initiated in 1357, to substitute a previous wooden structure, by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. The statuary that adorns it is now mainly commissions from the Baroque period but additions have been made throughout the centuries. Even if the bridge survived the war structurally, it still suffered some damage during the conflict, since Nazis, as they were forcefully leaving the city by the end of the war, made a barricade to the Old Tower bridge gateway to slow the progression of opposing troops.

In the afternoon, I was lucky enough to join a group of local historians and architects from the University of Prague for a walk, as well as Mounir, a syrian architect that is finishing his PhD in the city and that sadly knowns firsthand the devastating and long lasting consequences war can have on cities, their heritage and people.

[Walking through the southern part of the city to check bombed buildings and its current state]

We walked through the southern neighborhoods – Nove Mesto -, to visited the area that was affected by one of the few bombings Prague witnessed during WWII, when Americans accidentally mistook Prague by Dresden. We passed by the worldly known futuristic Dancing House – a deconstructive building started in 1992 and designed by the star architect Frank Gehry – that was actually built in a plot that remained empty for a couple of decades due to this precise shelling. However, the most illustrative example of reconstruction in this part of town is the Emmaus Monastery, a gothic structure whose vaults were destroyed in the previously described event and that after a couple of reconstruction projects, the decision to add a new contemporary layer, representing its time, won in the 1960’s. Now, a Gothic foundation and a Modernistic tower co-exist in a somewhat harmonious way.

      

[The Dancing House / The Emmaus Monastery]

DAY 8: The Jewish Quarter

My third day in the city started with a really nice walk around town, with a local historian, Lukas, to observe newer projects that have been built in plots either destroyed during WWII or dismissed by the communist regime that followed, resulting in a very diverse approach to reconstruction and heritage preservation led after the conflict, varying, for example, depending on the location in the city or the typology of the building. 

In the afternoon, I dedicated the majority of my time to the Old Jewish Ghetto of Prague, situated in the northern part of the city. A true city inside a city, even if the area is not very big considering the thousands that inhabited it before WWII, and that for many reasons throughout the centuries were forced to concentrate and keep to this part of town. 

[The cemetery in the Jewish Quarter]

Nowadays, the neighborhood, completely included in the remaining urban system, hosts a significant minor number of jews, as many were deported and killed during the Nazi occupation of the country and many of those who survived decided not to come back. Nonetheless, the majority of the main structures that characterized the Josefov – also called like these to celebrate the Toleration Act, issued by Joseph II in 1781, granting the jews from Prague many rights – remain and have been carefully reconstructed and preserved. Among them, the synagogues – six in total – allow the visitors to have a glimpse of the rich history of the quarter, as some stand for centuries and date back to the medieval times, served as hubs for the sharing of fresh ideas or as a refuge for the jewish community during persecutions or pogroms. 

     

[The Ceremonial Hall / The view of the cemetery]

I had the opportunity to visit the majority of them and was touched by how each one of them plays a role in understanding the neighborhood, as some remain religious buildings and others were turned into museums or memorials.

DAY 9: The Hill Over Prague

To end my stay, my last day in Bohemia’s capital was dedicated to the Prazsky Hrad, a fortified structure dating back to early medieval times; a place of coronation for the Czech rulers and of surveillance during war and occupation.

The castle started being built in the 9th century and since then has been a seat of power for the king of Bohemia, Holy Roman Emperors and Czech presidents. It has been reconstructed countless times after fires and wars and nowadays is a complex structure combining many different architecture styles, even if the predominant one is the Gothic.

      

[The view from the castle’s hill / The ceiling inside the oldest rooms of the castle / The main entrance of St. Vitus Cathedral]

Next to it, one can also visit St. Vitus Cathedral. The current structure, built upon an older rotunda by Wenceslaus – a king and patron saint – dates back to the 14th century. It is a marvelous Gothic structure, whose completion only ended in the 20th century. Original elements coexist harmoniously with newer ones: for example, a new decorated window by Alfons Mucha, a famous Art Nouveau artist.

To finish the walk around the hill and overlooking the city, the southern gardens of the castle were a later add-on. Its current state results from a project from the 1920’s, by the famous slovenian architect Josip Plecnik, for the first czechoslovakian president, T. G. Masaryk.

 

* HERITAGE HIGHLIGHTS *

 – Pinkas Synagogue –

Today a memorial, this synagogue speaks of the harsh chapter of history related to the Holocaust. Its walls are covered with all the names collected of deported Czech jews. Thousands died during WWII and in 1945, after the war, the jewish population of the city was reduced to less than a fourth. Apparently simple but impactful!

 – Spanish Synagogue – 

Before WWII, Prague had one of the biggest and liveliest jewish communities in Europe. The old ghetto had a couple of synagogues, being the last one to be built, the Spanish Synagogue, in the second half of the 19th century. Its Moorish Revival style is unique and speaks of the contemporary Jewish Enlightenment, which produced many famous books, marvelous music and works of art. During the historical Crystal Night, a pogrom in the prelude of WWII,  in 1938, that purposefully destroyed many synagogues and jewish property in diverse cities around Europe, and it served as well as a shelter for the jews of Prague.

     

[One of the walls in Pinkas Synagogue, where the names of deported jews are organized by family name and city of origin / The interiors of the Spanish Synagogue]