History of a Neighborhood reflects the History of the City:

Margareten is the fifth district of Vienna and is bounded to the north by the Vienna River and the southwest by the Gürtel which was once outer city wall and is now a multi-lane boulevard. Margareten is a heavily populated urban area with dense businesses and residential homes. The neighborhood around Kettenbrückengasse is popular with a young, student crowd, full of small bars, cafes, independent shops, and certainly the most charming corner of Margareten. There are few tourist sites, but under the surface, the history of this district reveals more about the character of the city.

Before the mid-19th century, Margareten was primarily suburban and then a craftsmen’s district. With increasing industrialization came a population explosion, by 1869, with in 921 houses lived around 54,000 inhabitants. By 1900, the number of dwellings reached 25,300 with about 107,000 inhabitants. As it turned into an increasingly laborer’s district, socialism was taking shape within the city. And so, Margareten was on the frontier of the movement. Within a few years, homeless shelters, educational institutions, and hospitals for the poor were built. Margareten Gürtel became the "Labourer's Ringstraße." The district became an experimental ground for communal living and the construction of large apartment blocks for people with low income. One of the first of these buildings was the Theodor-Körner Hof. The era of the "Red Vienna" ended in civil war and the establishment of a fascist regime by the conservatives. Margareten became a battle ground for a few days as a bastion for the social democrats.


This is Schönbrunner Straße with Amtshaus Margareten to the left and St. Josef's Church (1769) in the background. The Amtshaus is seat of the administration for Vienna's districts 4 and 5 since 1968, the building itself was built in 1867.



1919-1920, the Metzleinstaler Court, the first residential building of the municipality of Vienna

St. Joseph's was once the burial place of Franz Schubert until the moved him to the celebrity section of the Central Cemetery of Vienna.

During WWII, the many railways stations and lines connecting the city in Margareten brought on serious bombardment and destruction. In the years after WWII, The Gürtel turned from a popular living area into a terribly noisy region of Vienna and became the city’s primary red-light district. The population of Margareten gained a large number of people from Turkey and former Yugoslavia. The social status of Margareten continued to deteriorate until the 1990s. Since then, some revitalization projects of the new urbanization movement have helped the district to establish itself as a reasonably priced, but well-connected area in the heart of Vienna with a growing population of approximately 50,000. And, they do have some great shops in this area but you have to willing to wind through the lovely streets.