Ottakring Ottakring (Bavarian) | |
|---|---|
16th District of Vienna | |
 Coat of arms | |
 Location of the district within Vienna | |
| Country | Austria |
| City | Vienna |
| Government | |
| • District Director | Stefanie Lamp (SPÖ) |
| • First Deputy | Florian Saurwein (SPÖ) |
| • Second Deputy | Barbara Obermaier (Green) |
| • Representation (60 Members) | SPÖ 24, Green 13,FPÖ 10,ÖVP 5NEOS (Austria) 4,KPÖ 4 |
| Area | |
• Total | 8.67 km2 (3.35 sq mi) |
| Population (2016-01-01)[1] | |
• Total | 102,580 |
| • Density | 11,800/km2 (30,600/sq mi) |
| Postal code | A-1160 |
| Address of District Office | Richard-Wagner-Platz 19 A-1164 Wien |
| Website | www.wien.gv.at/ottakring/ |
Ottakring (German pronunciation:[ˈɔtaˌkʀɪŋ]ⓘ) is the 16thDistrict in the city ofVienna,Austria (German:16. Bezirk, Ottakring). It is located west of the central districts, north ofPenzing and south ofHernals.[2] Ottakring has some heavily populated urban areas with many residential buildings.[1][2] It was formed from the independent villages of Ottakring andNeulerchenfeld in 1892.
The district of Ottakring is located in the western part of Vienna between theGürtel (a substantial road around Vienna) and the hills of theWienerwald (Vienna forest). The district ofHernals borders to the north,Josefstadt andNeubau to the east, andRudolfsheim-Fünfhaus andPenzing to the south. The highest points in the district are theGallitzinberg (449 m), also known as Wilheminenberg because a palace (Schloss Wilheminenberg) is situated on its slope.
The buildings vary considerably in style. The working class settled around the industries and factories near theGürtel, resulting in a dense checkerboard pattern of residential housing. A little further up is a collection of villas around the Ottakring cemetery surrounded by an extensive number ofdeciduous trees.
The district is made up of 36.7%green space (of which 22% is forest), 45.4% buildings, and 17.9% transportation. Thaliastraße is the busiest and most commercially important street in the district. A total of 1.23% of the land area is used for agriculture. The once importantvineyards have mostly disappeared. Gardens are found primarily around castle Wilhelminenberg and towards the border to Penzing.
The original Ottakring was founded about 1,000 years ago by Bavarian settlers who cleared a small patch of forest on the cityward slope of the Gallitzinberg. (The exact date is not known because, as with most other places in the area, no document has survived.) It was situated where the Ottakring Cemetery is today, straddling a creek (theOttakringer Bach) which now has completely disappeared from view, forming part of Vienna'sdrainage systems. Originally the Ottakringer Bach flowed along what today are the streets of Ottakringer Straße, Abelegasse, and Thaliastraße; through Lerchenfelderstraße and the Minoritenplatz; and into the Donaukanal, an arm of theDanube river. The "oldest Ottakring" settlement was completely destroyed in 1683 during theBattle of Vienna. The village was rebuilt further downstream on the Ottakringer Bach, closer to Vienna. This nucleus, parts of which survived into the 1980s, was what became known asAlt-Ottakring in the 19th and 20th century.
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In 1888, emperorFranz Joseph I declared that he wanted to unite Vienna with the surrounding villages. TheLower Austrian government passed a law, theEingemeindung der Vororten zu Wien (Incorporation of Villages to Vienna) in 1890. On 1 January 1892 the resolution took effect. Despite initial resistance, the independent villages of Ottakring andNeulerchenfeld were merged into the 16th district of Vienna, which had 106,861 residents.
After incorporation, the area experienced rapid growth. By 1910, 177,687 people lived in Ottakring. Though the number of employment opportunities was limited, the number of workers was extremely high. This encouraged industries to move to the area.
AfterWorld War I, residential construction boomed. Between 1922 and 1934, 28Gemeindebauanlagen (community housing projects/municipal apartment complexes) with more than 4,517 apartments were constructed. Among this number were the 1,587 apartments of theSandleitenhof, which was the largest apartment complex in Vienna to date. The economic collapse of the 1930s brought great adversity to the district withunemployment surging to over 50%. The briefAustrian Civil War of 1934 brought major instability and fighting to the region. The local insurgency overpowered the army of the originalSocial Democratic Party, and the residential buildings escaped mostly unharmed. There was however heavy fighting around the workers' housing in theKreitnergasse Street.
DuringWorld War II, air defence of Vienna and some southeastern parts of the Third Reich territory were coordinated from theGaugefechtsstand Wien, situated at the Gallitzinberg.
After the war, Ottakring belonged to the French-occupied zone of Vienna (which was divided into quarters and split among theAllies). The efforts to rebuild the area were slow at first and eventually even the oldest parts of the district were finally renovated. The French replaced theNegerdörfelbarracks and construction continued.
Extension of thesubway line U3 into Ottakring in 1998 brought neighborhood revitalization to the areas surrounding the new subway station. The above-ground station marked the end of the U3 line, and earned the nameSchwesternturm (literally Sisters Tower, but originates from the GermanKrankenschwester, nurse) due to the secondary use of this residential building as a lodging for nurses. The empty factories of an old tobacco company and the long-unused stores beneath the arches for theSchnellbahn (fast local trains) were converted into a technical school (HTL,Höhere Technische Lehranstalt). The centre of Vienna can be reached in 13 minutes via the subway.
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Approximately 12,000 residents originate fromSerbia or the formerYugoslavia, and more than 4,000 fromTurkey. They tend to concentrate in the old, densely populated, and sometimes desolate inner-city parts of the district, while the western parts of Ottakring are suburban in character, almost exclusively Austrian, and relatively affluent. Vienna's demographic statisticians predict an exacerbation of this division, making ghettoization an increasing concern.
The "Balkan Mile" (Also known as "Balkanstrasse") is a neighborhood sitting on the border of the 17th and 16th districts of Vienna, centered along the major street Ottakringer Straße. It has a high concentration ofYugoslavian cafes, restaurants and nightclubs, where theSerbian language is mainly spoken, andTurbo Folk music is played. This stretch of the Ottakringer Straße is commonly referred to as the "Balkan Mile" (Balkanmeile), and represents a Yugoslav/Serbian enclave inVienna.[3]
| District Directors since 1945 | |
|---|---|
| Theobald Wiesinger (KPÖ) | 4/1945-1946 |
| Augustin Scholz (SPÖ) | 1946–1964 |
| Hans Hobl (SPÖ) | 1964–1970 |
| Josef Srp (SPÖ) | 1970–1979 |
| Alfred Barton (SPÖ) | 1980–1996 |
| Ernestine Graßberger (SPÖ) | 1996–2004 |
| Franz Prokop (SPÖ) | 2004–present |
The directorship was elected by a common vote until 1918. After that, theSocial Democrats designated the district as a worker's district. On 4 May 1919 the Social Democrats gained the great majority of the vote and voted the railroader Johann Politzer to be District Director. He held the position until 1934, when thePatriotic Front party took power in Austria. After the fall of theNazis in November 1945, the people were able to freely vote for the first time in 10 years. Of the 30 government positions, theSPÖ won 20 seats,ÖVP won 8, andKPÖ won 2. The SPÖ held their dominance for decades, until the start of the 1990s. In 1996, the FPÖ gained a lot of popularity at the expense of the SPÖ, with the SPÖ falling from 50.54% to 40.58%, and the FPÖ gaining 30.59%. The trend reversed itself in 2001, when the SPÖ rose back up to 49.45% and the FPÖ fell down to 20.86%. TheGreens took 12.54% in 2001, putting them at almost the same level as the ÖVP, which took 13.13%. TheLiberal Forum lost almost half of their support and with 2.47% took only one seat representation.
The left half of thecoat of arms stands for the once-independent town ofOttakring. The 3 green hills symbolise the three important features of Ottakring: Jubiläumswarte, Gallitzinberg and Predigtstuhl. The cross-shield and mitre hat stand for the monastery ofKlosterneuburg.
The right half of the coat of arms illustrates the origin of the name of "Neulerchenfeld". Alarch tree (German:Lärche) with circlinglarks (German:Lerche) sits in a field (German:Feld), giving the nameNeulerchenfeld ("new-larks-field").
Industries settled quickly in the district after it was incorporated into Vienna. In 1898 a tobacco factory opened on Thaliastraße (Thalia Street). Other notable new companies in Ottakring included photographic industries, such as Herlango, and factories producing industrial machinery, such as Österreichische Industriewerke Warchalowski, and Eißler & Co. AG. The textile industry was largest employer. FollowingWorld War II, many of the industries relocated to other areas, creating marked disparities between residential neighborhoods and areas with abandoned factories. The best known companies still operating in Ottakring are theOttakring Brewery and the coffee roasterJulius Meinl.
48°12′45″N16°18′38″E / 48.21250°N 16.31056°E /48.21250; 16.31056
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