Karl-Marx-Hof

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12.Februar-Platz

Karl-Marx-Hof (photo 2004)

Karl-Marx-Hof is one of the best-known Gemeindebauten (municipal tenement complexes) in Vienna, situated in Heiligenstadt, a neighbourhood of the 19th district of Vienna, Döbling.

Karl-Marx-Hof is built on land that, until the 12th century, had been under the waters of the Danube, deep enough for ships to travel over the area. By 1750, all that remained was a pool of water, which was drained by Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. Gardens were then built in the area, but these were removed in the middle of the 1920s to make room for the erection of the third-largest housing development in Vienna, a program undertaken by the social democrats, financed by a special tax named after councillor Hugo Breitner, commissioning locally and internationally renowned architects.

Karl-Marx-Hof was built between 1927 and 1930 by city planner Karl Ehn, a follower of Otto Wagner. It held 1,382 apartments (with a size of 30-60 m² each) and was called the Ringstraße des Proletariats, or the Ring Street of the Proletariat. Only 18.5% of the 1,000 metres long, 156,000-m² large area was built up, with the rest of the area developed into play areas and gardens. Designed for a population of about 5000, the premises include many amenities, including laundromats, baths, kindergartens (here's where the term originated!), a library, doctor offices, and business offices. Though color range isn't quite Miami Beach pastellic, the design variety of this housing program's buildings is quite an experience both socially and aesthetically. The City of Vienna still continues this housing philosophy, after a humbly-designed, sometimes boring, sometimes quite nice post-war era and a more brutal-designed phase in the 1970s having returned to caring for more sensitive and inventing concepts.

Karl-Marx-Hof was refurbished between 1989 and 1992.

Karl-Marx-Hof was well-known during the Februaraufstand (February Uprising) of the 1934 Österreichischer Bürgerkrieg (Austrian Civil War). Those engaged in the revolt barricaded themselves inside Karl-Marx-Hof, and were forced to surrender after the Austrian military and the Austrofascist paramilitary bombarded the site regardless of the unarmed dwellers, mainly worker families, with artillery. Karl-Marx-Hof was renamed Heiligenstädter Hof, but took its original name back in 1945. The heavy artillery damage was repaired in the 1950s.

At over one kilometre in length (1100m, 0.68 mile) and spanning four Straßenbahn (tram) stops, Karl-Marx-Hof holds the distinction of being the longest single residential building in the world.