Superblock – Free Spaces and Voids in Social Housing Blocks of the Red Vienna

Vortrag von Michael Zinganel am Institut für bildende Kunst, Fachbereich Textuelle Bildhauerei.

Michael Zinganel will speak about the planning history and mythology of the ambitious housing program of the so-called “Red Vienna” (1919-1934): Integrating service and community facilities such as laundry facilities, kindergartens, health and education facilities, clubs, and even cinemas – all structurally located at prominent areas in the accumulation of the so-called “superblocks” – and the entire housing developments’ significant representative function to the outside world not only aimed at developing and strengthening the tenant community and establishing the cultural confidence of a “new class,” but were also subtle control instruments in public spaces where, instead of promoting autonomous organization, professional institutions of the City of Vienna dominated with specific organizational measures.