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The Karmeliterviertel is an inner-city neighborhood in Vienna, which underwent a significant revitalization and renewal. Since the opinions of Viennese urban researchers differ to a large extent whether gentrification occurs in Vienna at all, this chapter examines the question, whether the revitalization of the Karmeliterviertel can be defined as ‘gentrification.’ This question is elaborated in the context of Vienna's overall ‘soft urban renewal’ strategy. Despite the fact that direct displacement of households from the Karmeliterviertel was prevented by the mechanisms of Vienna's strict tenancy law, also the local coordination office played a certain role. As higher-status groups moved in the neighborhood, the infrastructure and the amenities changed and were adjusted to their demands. This cultural redefinition resulted in the replacement of restaurants, cafes, and bars, which served the needs of longtime residents and low-income groups. The revitalization of the Karmeliterviertel thus has to be termed ‘gentrification,’ as their social spaces were displaced and as they are less visible in the neighborhood. This form of displacement develops a similar dynamic as direct displacement, when social relations, bonds, and networks, which provide options, coping strategies, and sources of a place-based identity, are dissolved. As gentrification results in homogeneity, the main challenge for a city is to maintain spaces of different milieus and thus to preserve authentic places, characterized by heterogeneity and urbanity.

This chapter explores how architecture is used as a signifier in the development and promotion of urban megaprojects (UMPs). It argues that these projects rely on architecture to gain visibility. First, UMPs need to be highly visible in order to justify their exceptional status and second, they have to be visibly new and different in order to initiate the desired symbolic transformations with which they are attributed. Drawing on the case studies of HafenCity in Hamburg and Donau City in Vienna the chapter traces the logics of using architecture as a signifier and means of legitimizing the UMP. Data on the planning history of the two case studies, their administrative and institutional frameworks and the overall urban development strategies is combined with a qualitative text and image centered analysis of marketing material, planning documents, and press articles. The discussion shows how visibility is achieved by very different means. The question of how to distinguish the UMP from other projects and of how to make it uniquely identified with the particular city guides the debate in both cases. However, the lines of argument are not predictable or easily comparable from city to city and “global architecture” emerges as a contradictory and relative concept. Based on a succinct review of the related literature the chapter disputes the alleged uniformity of UMPs and argues for a meaning and discourse-oriented approach to the analysis of architecture as vehicle of urban change and political legitimation.

This contribution provides an account of the author’s journey from first receiving notice about the Music & Death conference in Vienna, to his eventual presentation there in December 2017. The lure and impetus for the whole project was an unknown uncle of the author who had studied, performed and died as a musician in Vienna, when the author was an infant. This chapter combines reflections on the author’s first visit to Vienna, with journal writing undertaken at the time.

Describes the development of the Austrian university system 1875‐1914. German influence was detrimental to Austrian universities′ hopes for improving standards, higher status and autonomy. German scholarship was linked with German nationalism – increasing conflict between German‐speaking and non‐Germanspeaking institutions in Austria. German scholarship commanded high respect and German universities attracted professors away. University expansion created a market for professors and the Austrian universities were at a disadvantage.

The migration background can influence the life satisfaction of migrants. The purpose of this paper is to examine the life satisfaction of migrants and particularly the satisfaction regarding their health in comparison to natives.

The life satisfaction of 50 Turkish-speaking migrants living in Vienna was compared with the life satisfaction of 50 native Austrians by the questionnaire of life satisfaction by Fahrenberg et al. (2000).

Turkish-speaking migrants had lower values than natives in all scales of the questionnaire concerning life satisfaction. Turkish-speaking women reported the lowest satisfaction regarding their health state. In the migrant group the satisfaction regarding health decreased with increasing age.

The Turkish version of the questionnaire was translated into Turkish by authors but not formally validated. Furthermore acculturation strategies as well as the mental and physical health state of the participant, which can crucially influence the life satisfaction of migrants, were not surveyed.

Migrants have lower life satisfaction possibly because of their physical and mental health problems. Therefore in countries with a high proportion of migrants the health-care system should be adapted for the needs of migrants, especially for the needs of women and older migrants in order to increase the utilization of the health-care services, primarily the use of the preventive health-care services.

The results of the present study can be helpful to develop strategies for improving the life satisfaction of migrants, especially the satisfaction regarding their health.

To the authors’ knowledge, the present study is the first research project in Vienna conducted to estimate the impact of migration background on life satisfaction.

Contemporary urban change is predominantly driven by migration and capital accumulation, with associated urban (re-)development projects – such as new-build gentrification – typically favouring the middle classes. Low-income residents in gentrifying neighbourhoods are often said to be displaced from their homes, either directly or indirectly, or to experience a loss of sense of place induced by the physical and social changes to the area. With the latter in mind, we investigate the perceived opportunities and threats of urban renewal experienced by stay-put communities in the wake of new developments and demonstrate how a loss of sense of place occurs via conflict between neighbours affected by the change. Our focus on transnational spaces comprising co-migrant Kurdish/Turkish communities in the two cities of Istanbul (Turkey) and Vienna (Austria) reveals not only how profoundly the impacts of neighbour conflict are felt as once-close and supportive neighbourly ties are severed but also how well-established neighbourly norms and obligations in transnational spaces accentuate the conflict in the first place. Moral codes that require neighbours to look after one another, along with local power dynamics of support in return for loyalty, set expectations that neighbours will take each other’s side when needed. Our findings reveal that the situatedness of residents to the development projects (in terms of proximity, residential tenure and openness to change) causes neighbours to take opposing sides and that the conflicts generated are accentuated by the perceived failure of neighbours to meet their neighbourly obligations. The result is a loss of sense of place and belonging for all residents – not just those detrimentally impacted by the development – wrought by rising hostility and avoidance among neighbours, and an overall weakening of neighbourly ties.

Currently, urban social movement studies pay much attention to the emergence of ‘new’ anti-racist and post-colonial transnational urban protest networks and protest formations. Drawing on ethnographic research, I illustrate such developments with reference to autonomous/anarchist Left-wing urban protest in Vienna during the last decade. I thereby combine (Neo-)Marxist critical urban theory and the discursive and cultural studies' inspired approach of radical democracy. I argue that this perspective on urban protest allows for an integrated analysis of its material and discursive groundings. Such an approach would point to material/ist, spatial and cultural aspects of urban protest politics and could thus be fruitful for further discussion, political analysis and political action.

This paper explores the development of a luxury retail shoe brand in Belle Époque Vienna.

Footwear retailing and marketing history is a neglected area. Unfortunately, no business records have survived from Robert Schlesinger’s shoe stores. However, it has been possible to reconstruct the history of the development of the Paprika Schlesinger brand from its extensive advertising in the Viennese newspaper, the Neue Freie Presse, with the guidance of the founder’s grandson, Prof Robert A. Shaw, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Birkbeck, University of London, England. This case study would not have been possible without the digitization of some major collections of primary sources. In 2014, the European Union’s Europeana digitization initiative launched a new portal via the Library of Europe website which provides access to selected digitized historic newspaper collections in libraries across Europe. The project partners include the Austrian National Library which has digitized full runs of several major historic Austrian newspapers, including the Neue Freie Presse. Other project partners which have digitized historic newspapers which are relevant to this paper are the Landesbibliothek Dr Friedrich Teßmann of Italy’s Südtirol region, the National Library of France and the Berlin State Library. An associate project partner library, the Slovenian National and University Library’s Digital Library of Slovenia, has also digitized relevant historic newspapers. Furthermore, the City of Vienna has digitized a complete set of Vienna city directories as part of its Wienbibliothek Digital project.

This paper suggests that Robert Schlesinger created one of the first European luxury retail shoe brands.

This is the first academic study of the historical development of the advertising and marketing of a European luxury retail shoe brand.

The biomechanical problem of investigating the behaviour of a maxillary partial denture is treated by non‐linear finite element analyses. The finite element models developed allow the solution of an inverse problem to find material data of the palatal tissue and the computation of pressure distributions between the palatal plate of the denture and the palatal tissue as well as the determination of the forces acting on the anchoring teeth. This information is essential from the physiological point of view in order to avoid configurations causing pain to the patient and to prevent the natural teeth from becoming slack. Such analyses can serve as a basis for the computer aided design of proper palatal dentures.