Richard Lugner

Richard Lugner (Vienna 2008)

Richard Lugner (born October 11, 1932) is a successful Austrian entrepreneur in the construction industry, a Viennese society figure, and a former political candidate not affiliated with any of the Austrian political parties.^{[citation needed]}

Business career

Born in Vienna, Lugner got a licence to work as a building contractor (Baumeisterkonzession) in 1962 and at first specialised in the erection of filling stations and the renovation of old buildings. His company started to prosper, and he eventually became known to a wider public with the completion, in 1979, of Vienna's first mosque, situated on the banks of the river Danube. In 1990 he opened his own shopping mall, Lugner City, in a working class district of Vienna and, from the start, aggressively advertised his business by regularly inviting celebrities—starting with Thomas Gottschalk—who would perform there and sign autographs—a marketing strategy not very common in a city that, back then, hardly had any shopping malls.^{[citation needed]}

Through his shopping mall, Lugner was one of a small group of businesspeople who helped change Austrians' shopping habits by pushing to the limits the various regulations concerning opening hours. In a city where shops generally closed at 6 p.m. Mondays to Fridays and at noon on Saturdays to remain closed for more than one and a half days until Monday morning, Lugner strongly advocated late night shopping on at least one weekday and an extension of shopping hours to Saturday afternoon, even when that meant raising the trades unions' opposition.

Political ambitions

In the late 1990s Richard Lugner handed over his business to his two grown-up sons by an earlier marriage, Alexander and Andreas Lugner, and went into politics. In the 1998 presidential elections he finished fourth in a field of five candidates, receiving an astonishing 9.91 per cent of the popular vote; incumbent Federal President Thomas Klestil, who had been running for a second term of office, received 63.4%. For the parliamentary elections that took place the following year, the Lugners organised a separate platform called Die Unabhängigen ("The Independents") but, as they only received 1.02 per cent of the vote, did not get any seats in the Nationalrat. Nevertheless, at the end of the millennium, a survey found that more than 90 per cent of Austrians recognized the name Lugner.

Trivia

• Die Lugners ("The Lugners") was a reality TV show produced by a private television broadcaster which showed Richard and Christina Lugner, their daughter, Jacqueline (born 1993), and Richard Lugner's mother-in-law, Martha Haidinger, at home, at work, and on holiday.

• Christina Lugner has co-written a book, Fit für die Society. Wie Frauen sich erfolgreich machen ("Fit for Society. How Women Make Themselves Successful", 2004) (ISBN 3-7015-0473-3), in which she advises career women on questions of etiquette.

References

External links

• http://www.lugner.at/
• Richard Lugner at the Internet Movie Database