Models and Solutions, Life and Practice in Social Housing in Vienna

Social housing is one of the key instruments of welfare provision in Vienna. that this is unique to the city is perhaps not suprising: the city of Vienna is one of Europe’s biggest holders of residential real estate (220,000 units), complemented by limited profit housing cooperations (lPhcs) (some further 136,000 units)^[1]. this is not just uniqueness through market power, however: beyond the immense share, it is the model itself that is unique. Developed over almost a hundred years, this model has been consistently adapted to changing economic, societal and spatial conditions. housing has been an enduring subject for changes to how the city has been built upon; it has always mirrored and reacted to its actual discoursive framing.

This text discusses the way in which the model of housing has evolved over time. First, it describes the transition from a political conception to the contemporary notion of housing as part of a liberalized and competitive model. Second, it discusses these changes in the practice of social housing using some key terms.
I will argue that housing substantially contributes to the city’s fabric, to its built structure and its image. Housing conditions are central to how a city’s quality of life is experienced. At the same time, housing has served as an instrument by which to govern the population. Social Housing has thus always been about more than providing affordable accommodation; it was and is entangled in economic interests, political powers and in society’s discourses on welfare: both in Post-War Austria and in contemporary deviations. Housing here is understood (beyond the object level) as a practice. It is a spatial practice, working on two levels: it reacts to the existing conditions acting upon the existing city and it envisions its possible futures, projecting new conditions and ways of living together. Thus it is always both forwards and backwards looking.
Housing operates between these levels and is constrained within these limits. Henri Lefebvre’s assertion that »(social) space is a (social) product« (Lefèbvre 1991, p.28; 68) – that space is both shaped as well as it is shaping finds questionable expression in social housing in the 20th century: that of »building new societies«. Even with scepticism about the causal relation between spatial form and society, the housing question cannot be dealt with in isolation from social processes. Constraints and scarcities, as well as desires and hopes, have been central to this ongoing development, not only for the dwellers and inhabitants of a city, but also for those involved in production and provision and the municipal administration.
In the first part of this text I will discuss how the model of social housing in Vienna has significantly changed in the course of its journey towards today’s liberalized, yet still regulated, system of competition. The changes in social housing since World War II illustrate a notable structural shift towards a predominantly economic and managerial conception of housing. I will focus on what has been done: on how the city has been conceived as a reality to operate upon; on what social housing aimed for and by what means the ensuing forms of housing came about. This is what I mean by a ›model‹ of housing. These models have evolved with changes and innovations both within and outside the housing system and with the perceptions, knowledge and practices involved. Reflection and emphasis on the model as a relational, changing and contingent one is indispensable for any consideration of prospective forms of social housing.
This brief genealogy is important: it outlines some of the substantial forces that have shaped the current model. The second part of the text moves away from the linear timeline and discusses the changing roles of government, subject and of lifestyle with regards to today’s housing. Exploring housing developments before 1945 and opening up the »political« aspect of housing, I will juxtapose aspects of city, of life and of spatial and societal »solutions« with the aim of retracing the changes in the purpose, the practices and the techniques of public housing provision in Vienna.

I. Housing after 1945 The Historic City and the Reconstruction of Post-War Vienna

Today’s image of Vienna is largely that of a historic city. Paradoxically, this is due to the way in which the city engaged with modernization and reconstruction after World War II. The attitude towards modernization was highly ambivalent. On the one hand, there was a strong endeavour to modernize, best exemplified by mayor Theodor Körner’s maxim: »[r]econstruction means making it better« (Singer 1965, p.83). on the other hand, the practice of social housing – a significant tool of modernization – has been rather restrained. Housing had become a priority concern after WWII, confronted as the city was with major destruction and with the homeless, returnees and expelled.
The political decision for new social housing, however, underlined the commitment of the municipality to the legacy of Red Vienna, the interwar period of Social Democracy and its social housing programme. Now, again, housing was conceived as a right and basic means of welfare. The plan for a new city included strong public activity and the call for »experts to dedicate to the common good« with »man – and not profit – at the centre of planning« (Marchart 1984, p.31), as »reconstruction must not be a private affair.« (Pirhofer & Stimmer 2007, p.29). Gemeinnützigkeit – to contribute to the common good – is a key aspect of social housing in Vienna. In addition to the municipality, so-called Gemeinnützige Bauträger (LPHCs), housing cooperatives whose profit is limited and must be re-turned into the housing production cycle, play an integral role.
Reconstruction implied a clear vision of a new Vienna in opposition to the historic city.^[2] »The Großstadt has to be decongested according to the Erkenntnisse of modern city planning«, stated the first issue of the journal Der Aufbau (Reconstruction) (novy 1946). Großstadt, here, reads as a clear concession to modern urbanity; Erkenntnis to science and »plannability«. With the installation of the »research centre for dwelling and building« and the activities and practices related to it, housing had become accepted as a means of social engineering and a way by which to build a new society. Within this process, the dwelling unit became a product open to the ideal of optimization, replacing the »architectural ethos« with the »quality of plan« (Stadtbauamt der Stadt Wien 1956).
Despite the grand vision of the ideal new habitat, however, many projects built at the time contrasted with the modernist vision of a decongested, green city (cf. Bobek & Lichtenberger 1966, p.125). Confronted with the actual need for dwellings, the lack of vacant land for large-scale development at a reasonable price and the city’s administrative zones by the Allies, the modern project seemed difficult to achieve. Thus reconstruction, in practice, often meant the pragmatic and literal re-construction of the existing city pattern. In other words: what actually got built often contradicted the visionary ideas of the modern city. Instead of decongestion the city was densified.
In the dilemma of whether to reconstruct the old city or build up a new one, the municipality focussed on one thing: building. Housing became an eligible tool for the governance of an upcoming society, in terms of bio-power with its capacity for family-planning or increasing health status and its contribution to the general economy at the same time as providing welfare. The post-war society had undergone a fundamental restructuring, with an ever-increasing amount of one- and two- person households. The municipality reacted to high demand by launching a Schnellbauprogramm (quick-building-program) (Schuster 1956). Designs such as the Duplex-flats^[3] contain both an immanent conception of the actual economic situation as conquerable and the conception of the nuclear family as the foundation of society.
Housing in Post-War Vienna thus provided basis for multiple forms of reproduction: the dwelling served as the place for recreation (the »other side« of labour); the place of consumption; of the reproduction of labour power; of social reproduction and beyond that the reproduction of the family by which all the former were anchored.
The model of reconstruction is thus characterized by its strong ambivalence: on the one hand it is a vision of a new society and a new city based on modern, scientific principles; on the other hand it employs a pragmatic practice that actually counteracts this vision.

The modern city outside the city

If the endeavour to modernize society by building on the outskirts of the city was rather restrained in the years directly after World War II, the 1960s brought about a gradual shift. With economic prosperity and the immediate housing- shortage having been overcome through reconstruction and the housing program of the 1950s, inner-city plots had become scarce and expensive; extension outside, therefore, offered a cost-efficient solution (cf. Biehl 2006, p.590). Faith in and utilization of emerging technologies explains the 1960s interest in prefabrication and serial production in housing. Lack of a skilled workforce together with the possibility of year round production was the reasoning put forward by the municipality; rising wages were also a consideration, and made it desirable to reduce labour-intensive production. Prefabrication advanced the post-war Stadterweiterung (City Extension), the concept of modernizing through extension.
The key term describing the paradigm of Stadterweiterung was growth: growth in terms of a constantly expanding economy; growth in terms of city expansion and growth in terms of bigger floor areas. The demand for housing was constantly high, increased further by prosperity and full employment. 1960s building production was a continuation of the »scientification« of the building and design process that emerged after World War II. Automation and pre-fabrication of building-elements followed the Fordist logic of efficiency and optimization.
A new splendid vision of urbanity, to be realized according to the principles of ›Light, Air and Sunshine‹ stood in opposition to the dense congested historic city blocks. At the edge of the city, axes for future developments were defined: one that realized modern functional separation in recurring linear patterns with Eastern Europe’s major standardized housing pre-fab system.^[4] For the layout of about 10,000 dwelling units, the »main principle« was the »functionally right allocation of spaces« to the »changing activities that were to be performed in the flat« (Wachberger 1978), resulting in standardized plans offering little flexibility and even less adaptability.
Many of the 1960s slab structures were built according to the urban development plan of Roland Rainer, although with ›slight‹ deviations. Rainer’s proposal aimed to raise general standards and surface area, so as to counter speculation and keep housing affordable, both of which were central to the city’s housing policies. Instead of Rainer’s 3–4 storey design, however, 5–9 storey buildings were realized: technical feasibility had prevailed over architectural thought. In only ten years 105,744 flats were built, with an average increase in size from 61sqm to 75sqm.
With growth being the main goal, and aided by increasing technologization, the dwelling came to absorb formerly exterior and communal facilities. This turn towards the private supported the supremacy of the nuclear family in society. Future and progress seem to be both the means and the end in the model of housing.

Reconsidering modernism

Up until the 1970s large parts of the historic city, especially of the Gründerzeitviertel^[5], remained untouched by post-war modernization. This led to a significant disparity between the modern outskirts and the historic City core.
The dense Gründerzeit-Blocks had been the symbol of miserable living conditions and the cutthroat activities of private landlords ever since Red Vienna, the interwar period that initiated social housing. The opposition to the Gründerzeit- Block not only marked the beginnings of Vienna’s large-scale social housing initiative; it had continued into the period proceeding World War II. Thus, the majority of historic housing stock had not undergone renovation. This resulted in about a third of the city’s population living in about 300,000 sub-standard flats without a proper bathroom or toilet.
Along with oil crisis, economic recession, a change of mindset in the young generation of ‘68 and the obvious need for re-developing the historic housing stock, the modern project faced severe criticism. Standardization; inadaptability; the separation of functions of living and working; the lack of social infrastructure and urban quality became the main issues. The problems of the modern post-war quarters were not only broached by the conservatives: more and more critique evolved by way of upcoming counter-cultures that had evolved in the niches off modernization. Large-scale projects that proposed to actually replace parts of the historic city became subject to severe scrutiny, resulting in house-squatting and in protests which called for a general and publicly funded upgrading of these quarters, essentially: preservation instead of replacement. A series of today’s alternative culture locations (Arena, Amerlinghaus, WUK; as well as parts of the Freihausviertel and the Naschmarkt) relate to or have been the focus of such citizens’ initiatives. considering this critique to have been voiced from the »progressive« side, from within, indeed, the modern project itself, we could even specify it as a form of modern self- critique.
The Historic Urban Renewal Act (Stadterneuerungsgesetz 1974) with its protection of historically valuable areas; the Dwelling Amelioration Act (Wohnungsverbesserungsgesetz 1969) and the introduction of the Gebietbetreungen – a local service institution, the function of which is to moderate upgrade processes, mark a change in the municipality’s attitude towards the old city. In the course of this process housing subsidies – until then preferentially earmarked for buildings by the municipality itself, or by housing cooperatives (LPHCs) – were extended to include the renovation of private housing stock. This led, on the one hand, to the liberalization of the model of housing subsidy and, on the other, to the involvement of individuals. By doing so, however, it extended the possibility of regulation to the restoration of the historic city. Subsidies and the provision of loans thus operated as techniques of subjectifying responsibility and competency by binding owners of private real-estate closely to the city’s authority and its regulations.
The concept of »soft urban renewal« (sanfte Stadter neuerung) attempts city upgrade at the block-level. It uses a participatory approach that involves landlords, tenants and authorities and aims for high residential satisfaction, to strengthen local businesses and to engage cultural diversity. This model – it was awarded UN Habitat Best Practice Example for sustainable urban renewal twice – was to avert radical gentrification accompanied by severe rises in rents. Nevertheless, it could not prevent long-term rental increases and demographic changes (Hatz & Lippl 2009, p.161), affecting most notably those not within reach of social and regulated housing.
The modern regime found itself exposed to growing scepticism. With the rediscovery of the historic cityscape, and with its upgrade at issue, the individual subject was becoming incorporated as an active agent in housing policy. By reallocating subsidies, the government entrusted responsibility to private figures. It employed, so to say, the individual subject in urban development in an entrepreneurial understanding.

The end of grand narratives

With this turn towards the refurbishment of the old city and soft urban renewal, the municipality’s housing policy lost the spatial uniqueness that had previously characterized it. New social housing was in fact pursued in the 1970s and was added to by city revitalization.
The Kreisky-era can be considered the time in which large sections of society achieved a certain wealth and the working class was considered to have upgraded to the standards of the middle class. Subsidized housing, which in Vienna had provided a substantial contribution, accompanied these developments. Apart from subsidizing new housing schemes, the municipality also aimed to fund private revitalization and building activity. In response to the discrepancies of and the critique on modernist paternalism, a multiplicity of spatial schemes unfolded, amongst which was the mode of Fordist city extension. The urban development plan from 1984,– STEP 84 – exemplifies the equal weight placed on city extension and the refurbishment of the historic city.
The instalment of the Vienna Property Acquisition and Urban Development Fund (Wiener Bodenbereitstellungs und Stadterneuerungsfonds) marked a shift towards quality- orientation (rather than quantity, which was the major goal after the war) and a focus on distinctiveness and difference. The housing stock built during the 1980s is characterized by its wide scope: ranging from small-scale upgrades to the grand gesture and a penchant for the spectacular and iconic, best exemplified by the Hundertwasserhaus.
This multitude of approaches as opposed to the one single »unique solution« could be described as a postmodern uncertainty: the end of grand narratives applied to housing in Vienna. Throughout the post-war period, for both the welfare state and social democracy, social housing had not only the function of satisfying demand and offering shelter, but had aimed at levelling out social inequality. Underlying this ambition for equality was the presupposition of a subject’s abstract, standardized and unified need. This »flatness« began to be critically reviewed – a process that entailed a shift in housing practice towards diversity in supply.
The critique on modernism unfolded alongside expanding lifestyles. Variety, difference and flexibility superseded the former recurring patterns. This increasing variety expanded the housing market, which was by then comprised of a multiplicity of agents. Governance and management thus evolved as the main municipal means in the practice of housing.

Housing today

With the widening supply range and market, at the urging of commercial developers and the conservative opposition, the model of housing provision has undergone a structural shift towards regulated competitiveness. Other European cities decided to sell out their publicly owned housing stock; in Vienna, the social housing program was continued, but the system was restructured in a significant way. (This renewal into a liberalized model came alongside the appointment of Werner Faymann as the new housing councillor in 1995.) The municipality withdrew from the active production of housing and contented itself with (1) administering the existing housing stock that it owned, and (2) managing the future housing stock by providing land, subsidies, regulations and themes for social housing. The Property Acquisition and Urban Development Fund, a service institution founded in 1984, was employed as the basic organ of this. Acting as the sole provider of land for social housing projects, it serves as a municipal regulative in terms of distribution and quality. Its main instrument is the developers’ competitions (Bauträgerwettbewerb) issued for housing developments above 200 – 300 units. In these competitions, architects and developers^[6] team up to deliver a project that is then measured against a quality scheme (the so- called columns of the Bauträgerwettbewerb) consisting of (1) architectural quality, (2) economy, (3) ecology and – introduced in 2008, (4) social sustainability. All projects have to pass the Grundstücksbeirat, an advisory board assembling experts from various fields dealing with social housing.
Since its introduction in 1995, about 50 competitions have been held all over the city. Most have been thematically focussed competitions, so as to challenge planners and architects to focus on specific issues in contemporary housing. competition thus broadened the range of dwelling-types.
The introduction of competition marks the last major restructuring in Vienna’s social housing provision. Today’s model is coined by regulated competitiveness. The framework the authorities set up for the current model attempts to combine both the possibility of municipal regulation and the productivity or the »invisible hand« of competition.

II. Contemporary Paradigms of Governing and of Life

Since the end of World War II, social housing as a system of welfare provision has not been questioned fundamentally by any of the political parties in the city government. For Social Democrats, it became the main project by which to even out inequality; for conservatives, it ensured social reproduction for a competitive economy; even Liberals conceived it as a means to sustain market mechanisms. With Austria being a conservative or corporatist welfare regime^[7] (Esping-Andersen 2007, p.167) and an integrated housing market (with commercial and regulated markets competing) social housing was thus either implemented by the municipality or by LPHCs in proximity to political parties. Allocation of shares followed the voting’s proportional representation; politics and housing were thus in direct relationship and involved institutions of all stripes.
The conservatives’ urge to liberalize the model in the 1980s was two-fold: beyond economic liberalization through the privatization and outsourcing of former public service was a bid to challenge the given order by the re-distribution of market shares. The introduction of competition as the last major change in the structure of social housing however came alongside a broad remodelling of social democratic politics all over Europe. The advent of New Labour with Tony Blair or Gerhard Schröder’s Neue Mitte, the so-called Third Way Politics emerging throughout the 1990s: all were marked by the introduction of regulated competition that aimed to maintain core-elements of welfare provision while orienting to (neoliberal) economic criteria.
The introduction of competition and other »moderated« forms of evaluation as adequate techniques in finding solutions and reaching consensus beyond and outside of the oppositional practice of dissensus in politics has been described as a post- political practice (Mouffe 2005, p.2): a de-politicized form of politics. Increased use of terms such as servicing; customers; quality competition; as well as the emphasis laid on the new and innovation accentuates this change towards a managerial understanding. The consequence for social housing would be prioritisation of the economic over the political or social element of housing provision. The optimised allocation of resources – the economic argument – appears logical, transparent and therefore preferable to the political or social conception.
The recent past in the practice of housing competition seems to prove the argument for efficiency. The introduction of competition, as has been underlined by interviewees (see text on interviews with actors involved in the current model in this issue of dérive), has considerably reduced costs while at the same time increasing the architectural and living quality. A belief does persist in the social caring mission as a necessarily interventionist practice, with current schemes putting emphasis on social sustainability; the trend among European municipalities, however, is to align themselves with entrepreneurism, and housing is unlikely to be an exception. For the time being, costs have been at the core of any consideration in subsidized housing. Efficiency is no longer a means: it is becoming an end in itself.
During Reconstruction and Modern city Extension, housing practice followed the already established logic of optimisation so as to lower costs and increase efficiency and production. Its model, we could say, was that of the Fordist factory. The administrative apparatus needed was large, and the recurring patterns, be they in the floor plan or in the design, were adjusted to »discipline«.
The introduction of competition can be considered as a highly productive extension of the critique of modern social housing (how and what to build). In competition, former critique becomes productive and propositional. The administrative apparatus has been reduced with the outsourcing of planning production. Its model, to follow, is entrepreneurism: where rivalry is the positive motivation for ever-new solutions at the best prices. A new, flexible economic rationale is becoming a major structuring device for the city, its objects, its citizens and their lives

Housing, dwelling and living

The changing face of social housing has also impacted on the interior of the flat. Dwelling has undergone particular cultural change and social housing has responded, accompanied and taken part in this change. It is not only the making of housing that has aligned itself to markets; it is the flat itself too. Although municipal intervention still counteracts rapid rental boosts, the widening range of supply, the growing significance of the user and the introduction of competition have brought about what could be described as the further commodification of the flat. With general rise in wealth, the »user group« has shifted and »upgraded«: today’s »post-utopian« housing programs and object subsidies target mainly middle-income groups; lower income groups rely on additional subject subsidies.
During the years of reconstruction and in the 1950s, the »scientific« approach to planning meant that the flat was organized with the objective of optimization. The optimal plan, so to speak, was the maximum of activities on the minimum surface area, so as to make dwelling available for the largest number possible. This has continued during City extension, with standardization and the typical plan allowing for the growth of the flat and the increased privacy of the individual dwellers. Up until this point, housing had been a merely quantitative matter as supply had been constantly below demand. When demand for housing had been satisfied at large, it allowed for further differentiation, along cultural, market and regulatory lines. If today’s society is characterized by individuation and by strong emphasis on the subject, this finds particular expression in dwelling. The flat is viewed as a vehicle for self- realization, creativity and flexibility. The disciplinary model and the submissive notion of how to behave in the functional floor plan, standardized and repeated in modernist housing structures, has given way to self-responsibility, self-invention and, as it is a model of differentiation, to competition. Apparent difference meets the market’s demands. »no flat is like another«: the characteristic slogan demonstrates how, in housing too, uniqueness has become a selling point. The critique of modernist paternalism involved a promise of a »gain in freedom«; this freedom has merged with contemporary forms of competitive capitalism that have expanded into a totality over life.

III. Housing before 1945 Housing, dwelling and life II

There is a clear sense, throughout all the models of housing, of »life« perceived as a category to be determined, rather than as a determined category. Exploring developments before 1945 and their relationship to »life« should allow us to retrace elementary changes in social housing.
Its potential to influence how life is led – in terms of demographics; family planning; forms of cohabitation – has been one of the enduring elements in the power aspect of social housing.
The separation of living areas from sleeping rooms, for example, and, furthermore, of parents from children, would have been hard to imagine for the majority of people right up until World War I. Social housing was a way of binding the population and the state closer together into co-dependence. When considering the goals of social housing and its relationship to »life«, the primary question is: who is it for, and who not.
It is its direct access to, the exclusion of and the judgement over life that harbours the Fascist potential of practicing »social« housing. I do not mean here the housing practice during Austrofascism: that period which reduced social housing to fighting pauperism; to »surviving« only; which conceived welfare almost as an act of grace of charity; which built scattered shelter-settlements (so-called Erwerbslosensiedlungen) outside the city, thus ruralising the urban housing question (Maderthaner 2006, pp.480 – 494). I mean, rather, the production and use of »bare life« of minorities that was decided upon by the Nazis that was introduced into the practice of housing »provision«: When housing scarcity became increasingly urgent and the megalomaniacal plan to erect 60,000 dwelling units turned out to be implausible, the municipality-party employed systematic clearance and Endlösung as the solution to the housing question »instead« of the »realisation of new city quarters«. As Hitler proclaimed: »To begin with, (...) all Jews are to be deported as soon as possible, followed by the Czech and others of alien race, who hinder uniform political orientation and opinion making of the Viennese Population. If, through such provision, you bring down the population (...) to 1.5 or to 1.4 million, housing shortage will be resolved in the best, the easiest and the fastest way «^[8] In about 50,000 »wild« and 8,000 »official« aryanizations people were taken away from their homes; the occupants were brought to so-called Sammelwohnungen (collection apartments) and further on to detention camps before they were, ultimately, deported. The modern discourse on hygiene found a monstrous conclusion in its translation into genocide in »modern« urban planning. Cleansing had become building.

An oppositional understanding of living and housing?

Although the relationship of social housing and »life« has recurred as a means of policing and regulating the population – as bio-power – we must not reduce power to simply domination. In the course of modernization, power always both overpowers and empowers society’s subjects. Housing as an instrument of power has not been an exception therein. In the notion of power to as empowerment, two paradigms stand out in particular: Siedlerbewegung and Red Vienna. To refer to them is to underline their difference to what came after: in their relation to the political. »Political« in this context is not to be confused with »everyday« politics, its institutionalized form; it is to be understood as an antagonism creating a »we« opposed to a »them« (cf. Mouffe 1993, p.111).
The rapid growth of Vienna in the Gründerzeit had stimulated massive housing production, the biggest the City had yet undergone. By the 1870s the grid had been implemented, allowing for repeated application, fast urbanization and maximum capitalization of land. Yet, because supply was perpetually below need, and with no system of rent control, overcrowded flats, Bettgeher^[9], and miserable living conditions characterized working-class housing at the turn of the century. When, during World War I, the situation worsened – due to war-time inflation, aggressive rent raises and expulsions by landlords – the royal government passed an emergency act to prevent uproar on the part of the families of soldiers. The Rent control intended for pacification, however, was not only incapable of solving the housing shortage; it resulted in a disrupted housing market with construction activity brought to a standstill – as it had become unprofitable – and no more change of residence, with hundreds of thousands left homeless.
When, in the interval, people had squatted land for self- supply and when, later, resources became even scarcer, they had their sheds extended and moved in, it became clear that they had taken a new charge of their lives. After the war, the shantytown-dwellers mobilized into cooperatives, forming the »probable most widespread example of physical self-help in housing in the 20th century in an industrialized nation«, as Peter Marcuse described it (Marcuse 1986, p.565). Unlike in other cities, the Viennese cooperative garden city movement formed up an outspokenly progressive, modern and urban alternative beyond capitalist and state-controlled production and distribution, even though it was later financially backed by the city. (cf. Blau 1999, p.90 ff.)
Many of the achievements of the »self-help« movement had been enabled by notions of sharing, by cooperative thinking and a strong idea of Gemeinnützigkeit.
It is particularly this drive to form an alternative in opposition to existing modes and demanding the space and support to do so (as has been done in protest marches) that accounts for the political nature of the settlement movement. Foucault’s remark, that it is the »people, who, refusing to be the population, disrupt the system« (Foucault 2010, p.66) applies to the way-paving meaning of the settlers’ undertaking for Red Vienna. Their active withdrawal from the existing housing market allowed for the creation of new structures beyond this market. With strong support from intellectuals and architects^[10] the settlers managed to establish new, alternative lifestyles and structures that outreached dwelling concerns^[11]. The cooperative movement was characterized by the strong agency of those involved: actors, institutions, the objects they produced and their relationship; modern and »traditional« knowledge; they all contributed to the project of a »different« life. Self-help, co-help and communality seem to be closely interwoven when faced with scarcity and miserable living conditions.
It was not until 1922 that the Social Democrats, who had provided financial and organizational support for the settlers, became capable of a major undertaking for new (and intended socialist) forms of living. yet Red Vienna found itself challenged by the building of »a new socialist society«; by the balancing act between on the one hand keeping up with international competitiveness – which could require unpopular measures – and on the other retaining the confidence of the voting public and not losing their support to the radical side. Lowering living and housing costs had emerged as a major goal and had actually – due to the rent control act, a federal law – come within reach. Fixed rents and a series of socially graded taxes set real estate on the way to becoming unprofitable and made the social housing programme of Red Vienna possible. Beyond its provision of dwelling so as to counter squalor, however, it must be considered as an attempt to build up socialism by reform and within Capitalism. The communal programs accompanying housing schemes and the high employment ensured by labour intensive production illustrate this endeavour. At length, even export rates increased. The controversial shift in emphasis from supporting settlers to creating densified public mass housing marks the change in the model of housing provision. Both the ends – what to build for – and the means – how to accomplish this – have changed and so, therefore, has the conception of how to live life.
Building »within« accounts as well for the spatiality of Red Vienna. (cf. Blau 1999, p.173) Instead of extension – and with the fiscal interventions’ result of low costs – the social democrats bought land scattered all over the city and pursued what can best be described as insular urbanism: within the existing city fabric they positioned buildings of varying size, concept and rhetoric. In a range from add-ons to uncompleted blocks aligning with the existing patterns to the so-called mega- or superblocks, cities within the city were created, in formal opposition to the rejected bourgeois city and creating new forms of living together. If programme and tax reform created a totality, insular urbanism was the action pursued. By the time of its violent abolition in 1934, Red Vienna had built 63.000 flats.

Summary and Conclusion

Social housing in Vienna is a reaction to the misery resulting from shortages over the course of the 19th century. Its beginnings are to be found in self-organized measures that in modern self-help found their way to cooperative and communal activity. The expansion of this onto the large scale was the project attempted by Red Vienna. The understanding of social housing in its beginnings was politically motivated – in the sense of an oppositional practice; it was then perverted by Fascism, with welfare and care being turned against parts of society in the quest for racial purity. After the war, as part of the reconstruction process, social housing aimed for the wealth of the greatest part of the population possible by embracing technology and growth as main agents of modernization. A growing critique of this method, and public desire to preserve the historically varied cityscape through social housing led to the adoption and then expansion of competition as an organizing device.
In retracing the models of social housing a shift in conception emerges: one that moves from a political to a governmental and, lastly, to a managerial and economic understanding. Solution, here, turns out to be a strictly temporary condition. It changes with time and context and yesterday’s solutions do not necessarily meet tomorrow’s demand. What is modern also necessarily changes with time. Social housing as a modern undertaking has to account for that. The functional plan of the 1960s is not necessarily functional in 2020.
Throughout the 20th century and up until the present day housing has been actively involved in regulating and governing. It has done so through a multiplicity of plans and strategies. Competition may be a good and appropriate technique in finding contributions; as a sole economic device on rental markets it has turned out to be a reason for social housing. Outsourcing and economization may have shifted responsibility; growing competitiveness, however, can be precarious for those involved. Much as we appreciate freedom and flexibility we have to be aware that self-actualization and self-fulfilment can end unstable and insecure: such as in temporary or precarious conditions of employment. The contributions against insecurity have been major achievements of social housing; they date back to the political understanding.
There are be good reasons for entertaining »social« housing again^[12] as a way to face re-growing inequality and current developments of poverty and instability. The present models of »social« housing have become hardly affordable for those living in precarious situations. For such prospective models of social housing some questions remain to be clarified: what is it to aim for, how is it to be done and who is it for?

footnotes

Michael Klein lebt und arbeitet in Wien. Er hat in Wien und Paris Architektur studiert und arbeitet als Lehr- und Forschungsbeauftragter an der TU Wien.