The Late Medieval Street Layout of Vienna

Abstract

The present day street layout in Vienna's historical center is a product of the construction boom in the 13th Century, being the city's most present and also unnoticed medieval heritage. At the end of the 12th Century the city of Vienna occupies the area within the ancient fortification of roman Vindobona. Financially backed up through the ransom for Richard I, Babenberger Duke Leopold V decides to raise a new city wall, expanding the urban area by ca. 450%. As a consequence, the already commenced functional development to a late medieval city increases. By the end of the late Middle Ages Vienna has a complex hierarchically structured public space with several functional centers. The first planimetric representations of the city show it at the break of Renaissance (the plans of Bonifaz Wolmuet 1547 and Augustin Hirschvogel 1547), with a new fortification system to improve the one severely damaged during the Ottoman siege 1529. The paper at hand presents a new digital reconstruction of the late medieval street pattern of Vienna and a brief analysis of the public space at the beginning of the 16th century. The city plan is based on the GIS supported overlay of existing punctual research results on the urban development of Middle Age Vienna with the information content of several historical maps and the preserved medieval architecture. In doing so it represents a useful tool for further research on the city layout employing digital methods (e.g. the Space Syntax analysis mentioned in this paper). This paper is part of current PhD-research on the urban development of medieval Vienna and new means of interpretation and presentation of the medieval Viennese cultural heritage.