Rathaus: Vienna City Hall & the Rathausmann
Why is it significant?
Walk into the Rathausplatz and let the City Hall fill your view: pointed arches, stone lacework, a forest of pinnacles and, in the middle, a tower nearly a hundred metres high. It looks as if it had been shipped in from medieval Flanders... and in a sense it was.
Key Facts
| Place | Rathaus: Vienna City Hall & the Rathausmann |
|---|---|
| Address | Rathausplatz 1, 1010 Wien, Austria |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.21080, 16.35660 |
| Part of Walk | Vienna's Ringstrasse: The Grand Boulevard That Replaced the City Walls |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk into the Rathausplatz and let the City Hall fill your view: pointed arches, stone lacework, a forest of pinnacles and, in the middle, a tower nearly a hundred metres high. It looks as if it had been shipped in from medieval Flanders... and in a sense it was.
The architect, Friedrich von Schmidt, had spent years working on Cologne Cathedral, and he built this between 1872 and 1883, borrowing from the old town halls of Flanders and Brabant. The Gothic was a message, just like Hansen's Greek columns next door. It recalled the proud medieval cities that governed themselves, and Vienna's liberal burghers wanted to say exactly that, a few hundred metres from the emperor's palace.
On top of the tower stands the Rathausmann, an iron knight in armour holding a pennant, about three and a half metres tall without his flagpole. The story goes that no tower in the new quarter was allowed to rise higher than the spires of the Votivkirche nearby. Schmidt obeyed, kept his tower itself just below them... and then put the knight on top, which carries the whole thing over the limit. Viennese cunning, cast in iron.
The ground under the square was once a military parade ground, part of the glacis that the army was reluctant to give up, and the city only won it after long negotiations. Today the park in front fills with an ice rink and a Christmas market in winter and an open-air music film festival in summer, when thousands watch opera on a giant screen against that Gothic facade.
Inside work the mayor and council of a city of around two million people. Vienna is also one of Austria's nine federal states, so the mayor is a state governor too, and the council doubles as a state parliament. Now cross the Ring to the far side and face the building the City Hall was built to look at: the court theatre.