The housing project now known as the Karl Seitz Hof
was originally called Gartenstadt Floridsdorf. Floridsdorf is the 21st district of Vienna, Austria (21.
Bezirk, Floridsdorf). Floridsdorf is located in the northern part of
Vienna on the left bank of the Danube. The Gartenstadt Floridsdorf was built
west of the Pragerstraße between Floridsdorf, Jedlesee and Neu-Jedlersdorf. The
complex, built between 1926-31 after plans by Hubert Gessner, consists of
several superblocks around communal gardens.
This so-called garden city comprises of 1173 dwellings
(all in the form of apartments) with bathhouses, laundries, school, doctors surgery,
commercial spaces and several community spaces. The apartment blocks are five
floors high. The entrances are on the garden side. On the outside the long
facades are broken up by large gates and hanging bays and balconies. In 1951
the complex was renamed in honour of Karl Seitz the first president of the
second Austrian Republic.
The Gartenstadt Floridsdorf is a prime example -both
in layout, architecture and range of amenities provided- of the socialist
building program of the city of Vienna in the interbellum. This and many other
garden cities in Vienna were not
constructed along the lines of the baugenossenschaft
with family houses in the form of short terraces or semidetached houses, but
along the lines of the Gartenhof, a
model of high density housing pioneered in Germany.
These garden courts (Gartenhöfe) tried to marry
efficient land use and low building costs with a close knit social network in a
green setting with plenty of outdoor space. Allotment gardens are always a part
of these garden court developments. Not unlike the original aim of the garden
city the garden courts try to define a living environment that was not urban
and not rural at the same time, but communal and with access to green and the
experience of nature.
The housing complex is formal in layout with four
super blocks around a cross shaped public garden. At the front two such
superblocks are connected by a crescent looking out over what was once a large
square and now a park on top of a parking garage. The crescent shaped front
with a 9 floors high clock towers on the corners and ornamental gates is reminiscent
of a baroque cour d'honneur. Entrances, pillars and pilasters are enhanced with
majolica ornaments. The architecture is sober apart from these ornaments and
simple details that emphasize either the horizontal or vertical lines of the
cubist architecture.
With all the greenery inside and around the
superblocks with apartments the Karl Setiz Hof can truly be seen as a garden
city in the sense that it is a form of housing halfway between urban and rural.
On the Pragerstraße a single Gartenhof was built: the Alois Appel Hof (1). This
is not part of the original Gartenstadt Floridsdorf. The housing estate is focused
on the Karl Seitz Platz (2) and has a large public garden (3) at its heart. The
first superblock built has two courtyard gardens (4) in its midst. The laterer
blocks all have a large garden court (5). These green spaces vary in size due
to the skewed plot. In the largest one there is room for a swimming pool (6 -
D. Hoffmannhalle) and bathhouse (7 - Waschsalon). A school (8) and a clubhouse
(9) are located around the edges to also serve adjoining housing.
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