Walking around town these days you can see the rising arch of a new bridge over the Mur. With railway and freeway bridges right behind it, the sight of connecting infrastructures from different ages remains the most telling feature of Bruck’s townscape. –
Today, a 30-minute commute on mainline rail takes you to Graz, Styria’s capital, while Kapfenberg and Leoben, nearby small towns, are about 10 minutes away. With locals travelling greater distances for everyday needs, the city centre’s old shops came under pressure from shopping malls along nearby freeways. While small cities in the rest of the country rely on tourism to keep their towns alive, Bruck has a completely different strategy. Over the past century, the urban-rural divide between the compact city and the farmlands around it gave way to a new reality of continuous settlement. Nonetheless, in an area of urban sprawl in the valley and wonderful nature in the nearby mountains, Bruck still serves as focal point, as main meeting place.
Special thanks to Irmengard Kainz, Director of Bruck an der Mur City Museum, for providing the picture material, including the historic images from the Fritz Stark Archives.
81
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator