page_title: Augarten
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Augarten / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Der Flak-Leitturm im Augarten des 2. Wiener Gemeindebezirkes Leopoldstadt. Der Leitturm und der Geschützturm (rd. 400 m südwestlicher) wurden von 1942 bis 1944 nach Plänen des Architekten Friedrich Tamms errichtet. Weitere Flakturmpaare gibt es in Wien im Arenbergpark und in der Stiftskaserne (Geschützturm) / Esterházypark (Leitturm).
context_page_description: The Augarten is a public park of 52.2 hectares situated in the Leopoldstadt, the second district of Vienna, Austria. It contains the city's oldest Baroque park.
  In the north-west and north-east it borders on the 20th district, Brigittenau, in the north-east also on the former Nordwestbahnhof, from where the North Western Railway made its way to Bohemia, while to the south it faces the so-called Karmeliterviertel, the historical Jewish quarter, followed by the Leopoldstadt. Until 1870, the areas north and east of the Augarten were floodlands mostly uninhabited.
  The park is designed in the French Baroque style with elaborate flower gardens and impressive shady avenues of chestnut, lime, ash, and maple. Like most fenced public parks and gardens in Vienna it is open only in the daytime: the park's five gates close at sunset.
  The Augarten hosts a variety of facilities such as the Wiener Sängerknaben in the Palais Augarten, the Augarten Porzellanmanufaktur, the Augarten Contemporary, the Filmarchiv Austria, a retirement home, a Jewish academic campus, a paddling pool for children and sports fields. Significant testimonials to the Third Reich are two high anti-aircraft bunkers.
context_section_description: In 1614, Emperor Matthias had a small hunting lodge built in what was then called the Wolfsau, at the time a flood-plain (Au is an Austrian and southern German term for a riparian forest or flood-plain). Around 1650, Ferdinand III bought up the area around the nearby Tábor (which is a Czech word used here for a fortified checkpoint outside the city's walls) at a branch of the unregulated Danube. He established a formal Dutch garden and expanded the hunting lodge into a small mansion. In the 1660s, Leopold I acquired the adjacent gardens from the noble Trautson family and had it transformed into an all-comprising pleasure park. In 1677 he converted the Trautsons' garden mansion into a small palace (a so-called Lustschloss, a palace for pleasure only), to which he gave the name "Imperial Favorita". Later on instead of this one the name Old Favorita became established, since in today's 4th district a New Favorita (today: Theresianum) had been built.
  1683 was a bad year for Vienna and the Augarten: during the course of the Turkish siege the grounds and buildings were destroyed in their entirety, with exception of some parts of the walls. Not until 1705 were the gardens and the palace restored under Emperor Joseph I. The garden palace built at this time is now the headquarters of the Augarten Porzellanmanufaktur (Augarten porcelain factory), the second oldest porcelain factory in Europe. A few years later, in 1712, the new monarch, Charles VI, commissioned landscape architect Jean Trehet - also responsible for the creation of the gardens at Schönbrunn as well as at the Belvedere - to carry out new plans to develop the whole park, in French style. Today's Augarten is still based on this.
  After the opening of the Vienna Prater to the public in 1766, the Augarten was likewise opened on 1 May 1775 by Joseph II. On this occasion nightingales were settled and hunting of them was strictly forbidden. The entrance at that time was still guarded by soldiers, whilst inside the park grounds war invalids and other handicapped people maintained order. The inscription Allen Menschen gewidmeter Erlustigungs-Ort von Ihrem Schaetzer ("A place of amusement dedicated to all people by their Cherisher") can still be read at the main gate to the Augarten from Obere Augartenstrasse. To satisfy these high expectations, dining rooms and dance halls, refreshment places and billiard rooms were established and for all of them the restaurateur Ignaz Jahn was responsible as traiteur.
  Joseph II in 1781 ordered Isidore Canevale to erect a humble structure for the emperor and used to spend his summers there; it has become known as Josefsstöckl and is still existing today. Today's Heinestrasse linking this building to the Praterstern square has been planted as an alley on the order of the emperor. During the time of the Congress of Vienna the Augarten has been a most popular meeting place of the nobility.
  During the disastrous inundation which afflicted Vienna from February 1 to March 1 of 1830, the entire Augarten was flooded to a depth of 1.75 metres (5 ft 9 in). Two memorial plaques, one on the inner side of the main portal and another at the gate to Castellezgasse, commemorate this flood. With the regulation of the Danube from 1860 to 1870, the Augarten became permanently separated from the Danube river. The former riparian forest and plain changed to a cultivated landscape, which was no longer subject to flooding.
  After 1918, Augarten became a park administered by the federal government, and this stayed so until today.
  Between 1934 and 1936, the dictatorial Federal Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg lived in the Palais Augarten.
  During the Second World War, military authorities chose the Augarten as one of several places to erect massive buildings for anti-aircraft defence (flak towers) to protect the inner city from Allied bombing. During summer 1944 the construction of a 55-metre (180 ft) high tower with platforms for anti-aircraft guns and nearby also a 51-metre (167 ft) high control tower was begun but not finished. Their remains are still visible in the mid
caption: Tower near Rauscherstrasse
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