Santiago Neville

Studio led by Professor Timothy Collins

Red Vienna

Interventions

A historic example of addressing a vast population of unhoused and disenfranchised citizens can be seen in the Interwar period of ‘Red Vienna’, where government subsidized social housing was incredibly successful. The labor and feminist movements that brought the Social Democratic Workers Party into power in 1919 began a period of de-commodified housing in Vienna. By taxing the rich to increase revenue, the government began to build vast amounts of high-quality public housing. This project proposes an intervention into
the heart of the social housing estates on Margaretengürtel to provide the community with an alternative solidarity economy and services.