Vienna [antikvár]

Introduction Discover Vienna! Rich in tradition, the capital city and once royal seat is a marriage between a glorious past and a lively present Vienna is different. This slogan has long been used to attract visitors from home and abroad to Austria's federal capital - though occasionally it only gave rise to somé head-scratching. This curious theory, however, has more than just a grain of truth in it to this day, in many respects. Vienna really is different now, compared to the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. At that time, it had the air of an ageing screen goddess. A pretty morbid place with grey, crumbling faqades, grumpy elderly residents and, in the evenings, streets which were as quiet as a grave. Today, on the other hand, the bright and cheerful former imperial city welcomes its guests in fine style. Whether on Heldenplatz in front of the imperial backdrop of the Hofburg, in the revitalised Biedermeier quarters in the former suburbs, in the wide stopping streets or new ecological housing estates on the periphery: Vienna exudes optimism, prosperity and zest for life. The transformation began in the mid-1970s. The city- The venerable Gothic St. Stephen's Cathedral is the symbol of Vienna Old and new: fiacre and tram scape and infrastructure were given a complete make-over. This in-cluded the opening of Vienna's first U-Bahn line in 1978. A sizeable proportion of the largely ram-shackle buildings from past cen-turies was renovated. Not only buildings of cultural and historical value such as the Hofburg, the Karlskirche and the Belvedere, but alsó smaller churches and city palaces shone once again. Con-temporary architecture, too, was alsó able to distinguish itself in a number of showpiece projects, the most notable without a doubt being the Haas House on Stephansplatz. 1979 saw the opening of UN City, making Vienna, after New York and Geneva, the third seat of the United Nations. The 1970s alsó brought with them new cultural impetus. A