Rathaus
Austria
Stand on the Rathausplatz and look up, and the building seems to insist on the Middle Ages. It was in fact raised between 1872 and 1883, one of the historicist showpieces of the new Ringstraße, and its architect, Friedrich Schmidt, borrowed deliberately from the Gothic town halls of Flanders, Brussels on the Grand-Place among them. The point was not nostalgia but politics: a pointed reminder of medieval civic freedom, built by a confident middle class that wanted to make its presence felt, even in front of the emperor.
- Written with AI from the Wikipedia article Wiener Rathaus (de.wikipedia.org); facts only from there
- Show on OpenStreetMap
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