Wiener Rathauspark

The Wiener Rathauspark is a 40,000-square-meter green space owned by the Wiener Rathaus.

Today, the park serves as a place to rest while also being included in the region of events that now dominate Vienna City Hall Square (Ice Dream, Film Festival, Advent Magic, and so on).The City Hall Park was inaugurated on June 14, 1873, with the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone for the Vienna City Hall.

The monuments at the town hall park on the Ring side are dedicated to well-known politicians, while the one to Johann Strauss the Father and Josef Lanner stands out among the artists’ monuments.

The town hall park also has a number of exotic species, including a Japanese toad tree, a ginkgo or fan-leaf tree, and a red beech with split leaves.These flora anomalies stand out, as does a crimson beech planted to commemorate Emperor Franz Joseph I’s 50th year in power.

History

On the suggestion of Mayor Cajetan Felder, the park was established in 1873 to replace the abandoned Imperial and Royal parade and parade field at the Josefstädter Glacis.It was created by the municipal building authority and city gardener Rudolph Siebeck and is divided into two symmetrical sections, each centered around a fountain.The budget for the project was 165,380 guilders (about 1.5 million euros).

During the design of the 370 meter long and 160 meter broad section, certain disagreements developed.Friedrich von Schmidt, the town hall’s architect, desired a modest planting of shrubs and rose bushes in front of his structure.The town hall’s exterior would be obscured by trees.The city council required sparse vegetation for the same reason.In the park, Friedrich von Schmidt envisioned two towering colossal fountains.Furthermore, two diagonal roadways should traverse the region.City gardener Siebeck produced a plan to this effect in October 1870.

Mayor Felder, on the other hand, desired a park in the manner of the Stadtpark that would serve as a place for inhabitants to rest.Siebeck rescheduled and constructed a park with many trees.Instead, he painted the streets and put up meandering trails as in a city park.The two enormous fountains were removed and replaced with fountains that were substantially less expensive.The town hall park was finished on June 14, 1873, the day the foundation stone for the town hall was placed.

Cajetan Felder resigned as mayor in 1878, and Stadtgärtner Siebeck retired.Friedrich von Schmidt attempted to reconstruct the town hall park right away, with the help of architects Theophil Hansen and Heinrich Ferstel, as well as the Vienna city council.Lothar Abel, the new city gardener, proposed in 1879 that the park be transformed into a shrubby lawn.However, these designs could not be carried out in order for the park to keep its form.

Because mature plants were also included in the park’s design, some trees are older than the City Hall Park itself. The oldest tree is a maple-leaved plane tree that was planted in 1783, making her 240 years old.The plane tree (Vienna tree no. 252) is 30 meters tall, with a crown diameter of 21 meters, and a trunk circumference of 6 meters.

Vienna, Austria