Vienna’s first reinforced concrete buildings were built around 1900. Their skeleton construction enabled wide-span spaces with high load-bearing capacity and made innovative multi-purpose buildings possible: residential and commercial buildings with loft-like wings, as well as theaters, cinemas, and factories. These were the scenes of accelerated urbanization. This book is the first to document the development of this pioneering building technology, implemented by master builders, designed by engineers and architects, and brought to fruition by determined clients. Around 90 buildings are analyzed in the book – from relatively unknown structures to icons of Viennese architecture – illustrating the spatial flexibility and construction quality of reinforced concrete and shedding new light on fin de siècle architecture in Vienna.

• 90 buildings from the pioneering years of reinforced concrete construction in Vienna
• From Viennese icons to lesser-known architectural gems
• Exhibition at the Wien Museum from May 22 to September 28, 2025