Walking across the western suburbs takes you on a journey through Austria’s twentieth century: 1 Over the decades, more and more open land has been developed to form the main residential part of the town. Starting from the church, you first reach a villa quarter and a cluster of public schools and arts centres from the 1900s to the 1920s. This part is dominated by private gardens and quiet streets that follow the hillside topography. 2 Just after the high school you find the first examples of National Socialist public housing. In a special treaty Hitler and Mussolini agreed on the relocation of German-speaking people from South Tyrol to Germany. This is how the Südtirolersiedlung – South Tyrol Estate – got its name. 3 After World War II, the social democratic city government built public housing blocks in the style of Red Vienna. Various agencies of the federal government also built housing for their employees pushing the border of the city more and more westwards. Soon they were joined by housing cooperatives that bought agricultural land from farmers to develop their projects, mostly rented apartments. With increasing mass motorisation, detached houses became increasingly popular consuming almost all of the valley’s land.
Leaving the station, you pass by a cable factory before reaching a bridge to the centre of the town. This part of the valley is very narrow; the Schlossberg, a hill with the ruins of a former castle, forms a barrier between the city and the suburbs at this point. The shape of the city centre remains unchanged, even although over the centuries it was reconstructed after town fires. Most of the buildings here date from the period after the last grand fire of 1792. Three parallel high streets serve as thoroughfares and lead to the central square. The square’s vast dimensions are unusual for Austria and a reminder of the town’s founder, the Bohemian King Ottokar II – Ceské Budejovice in the Czech Republic has a very similar shape. ˇ ˇ
this page, top: view from east in 1890, and right, the same view in 2002 showing the expansion up the valley. below: Bruck’s western suburbs, below, around 1900 and then around 1950 showing the 1920s arts centre in the front and the high school behind it. opposite page, top, the western suburbs in 2006 showing the old city centre, the zone of 1900-1920s villas and schools, postwar public housing projects and furthest west, and most recent, individual houses. below: freeway access to Bruck, left, and right, the construction of a new bridge over the Mur.
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