Our cities’ and buildings’ physical spaces, urban and rural landscapes, hold secrets to how people used to live, hold traces of previous eras. Embodied in outdated signage, beautiful antique craftsman, and remnants of outdated infrastructures, these mementos of a bygone world serve as are our physical connections to the past.
Most of the buildings in Stockholm’s Old Town are still adorned with fire marks – plaques that showed that a building was insured in case of a fire. The signs, which depict a phoenix rising from the flames, were introduced in the 1740s. In the event of a fire, the fire brigade would […]
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Today I was very sad to discover that my favorite Soviet sign has vanished. This lovely fox sign, a remnant of a Soviet-era fur studio, used to protrude from my building, but as of recently, it’s been removed (and rather mysteriously I’d say because the storefront has been empty for […]
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. […]
Boot Scrapers Conscriptions Numbers Guard Stones Various
Traces of the past in Klosterneuburg, an ancient town right outside of Vienna. Boot Scraper Guard Stones Hoisting Beam for Lifting Goods Building Number and Conscription Number Metal Shutter
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…
