By Chris Wilkinson Lviv gained many things from its association with Vienna while under Austrian rule. Among the most enduring have been Baroque and Secessionist architecture, railways, industrialization and a European cosmopolitanism that still permeates the city today. Many visitors to Lviv assume coffee and Viennese coffeehouse culture were also […]
Read More
In Vienna one can still find the covers to WWII civilian bomb shelters. Originally I thought these metal grates were either storm drains or vaults lights with missing glass, but I discovered that in fact they were covers for ventilation shafts and emergency exits. Across the territory of Nazi Germany […]
Anti-toilets or urine deflectors were placed in a city’s building corners to prevent people from urinating on the street. Such a solution to urban hygiene has been used for centuries, as, for example, can be seen in ancient Venice. Here pissottas (“pee bumps”) were installed as can be seen here and here. […]
Historic street signs still adorn many of Vienna’s buildings — at least, I assume the rectangular and oval metal plaques with building number and street name date from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as they look very similar to Lviv’s prewar street signs. Unlike in Lviv, the official language […]
Many of the old conscription numbers can still be found in Vienna, usually on plaques located inside a building’s entrance on the left-hand side near the door or above the second portal near the stairwell. House numbering was introduced in Europe in the eighteenth century (before that houses usually had […]
The most intersting vault light that I found in Vienna was the one made by the German copmany Luxfer, examples of which can also be found in Lviv.
A sampling of vault windows in Vienna: In Klosterneuburg
As I suspected, few doors were open or unlocked to Vienna’s residential buildings. Unlike Lviv, the vast majority of doors are in good condition and kept locked, usually with a key and not code. Therefore, I didn’t have the opportunity to see many entranceways. However, I lucked out and did […]
I was a bit surprised to find almost no ghost signs in Vienna. Here’s what I did find…
Antique sinks still in their original locations seem come to hard by, be it in Lviv, Prague, Vienna, or other Habsburg cities that I’ve visited. But in Vienna I did find a couple. On the other hand, I’ve come across quite a few water pumps in these cities. Here is […]
In Vienna, at almost every step there is an old manhole cover or storm drain. Fortunately, most include a date along with the manufacturer’s mark, and this is true even for modern ones. Below are square storm drains ranging from 1896 to 1957, posted in chronological order.
