| Kaisermühlen is part of the 22nd district. It seems miles away from the city centre and usual tourist tracks, and yet it is only a short Metro ride from St. Stephen’s Cathedral. It takes its name from the boat mills that used to be moored along the banks of the Danube. Flood control engineering along the Danube in the 1870s cut the district off from the city centre, turning it into an unattractive suburb of Vienna’s rapidly growing working-class population. Allotments were laid out next to industrial sites, the city’s central laundry, waste dumps, and military rifle ranges. It takes a lot of imagination to visualize its amazing transformation into the modern “Danube City” it is today! <p> Its new landmarks are Vienna’s UN Headquarters, Austria’s tallest skyscraper designed by French star-architect Dominique Perrault, and a luxurious residential complex by Austro-Australian Harry Seidler, a student of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropis at Harvard University, and collaborator of Oscar Niemeyer in Rio de Janeiro. Popular public beaches along the Neue Donau (New Danube) and the Gänsehäufel bathing paradise on the Old Danube add to the district’s quality of life. The tour finishes with a visit to one of Vienna’s modern churches.</p> |
