Döbling#

Doebling, 19th district of Vienna, area 24.90 km2, pop. 67,377 (1991), mentioned around 1114 as Tobilic (Toeblich), until 1891 two separate municipalities (Ober-Doebling and Unter-Doebling, separated by the Krottenbach stream), unified with Sievering, Grinzing, Heiligenstadt, Nussdorf, Kahlenbergerdorf and Josefsdorf to form the 19th district of Vienna in 1892; Salmannsdorf and Neustift, previously part of the 18th district, were added in 1938. Doebling reaches from the River Danube and the upper section of the Danube Canal over the hills of Nussberg, Krapfenwaldl, Cobenzl and Himmel (Bellevue) to the margins of the Vienna Woods, which extend from the Dreimarkstein hill over the Hermannskogel and Kahlenberg hills and end in the steep slopes of the Leopoldsberg hill at the River Danube.

Typical of Doebling are the old villages (winegrowing and Heurigen villages along the streams in the Vienna Woods) with large winegrowing estates (the most extensive winegrowing region of Vienna) and woods, and the exclusive residential area of the "Cottageviertel". In the course of the 19th century, Doebling came to be a fashionable summer holiday resort, and several poets, composers and writers lived there. More than any other Viennese district, Doebling has preserved its original character; but some important topographic features have been added in the 20th century: the Hoehenstrasse scenic road, the television tower on Kahlenberg hill, the rowing facilities at Kuchelau, the Hohe Warte football stadium, etc. Doebling also has several hospitals and sanatoria, parks and gardens (for example Setagaya-Park Japanese garden), open-air swimming pools and old cemeteries. The S 45 suburban transit line crosses Doebling, the Franz-Josefs-Bahn railway line, the U6 and U4 (terminal at Heiligenstadt) underground lines run along its outer borders. Passenger ships on the River Danube dock at Nussdorf.

Important buildings: several churches ( in Grinzing, Heiligenstadt, Neustift, on the Kahlenberg and the Leopoldsberg hills, etc.), only extant charnel house in Vienna (adjacent to St. Michael´s church at Heiligenstadt); Kleiner Zwettlerhof (1731); former University of World Trade (now institutes of the Faculty of Archaeology, University of Vienna), Schikaneder-Lehár lodge (1737); Maria-Theresia lodge, now the City of Vienna hospital of neurology; 5 Beethoven flats (memorial sites), including the Eroica house (L. van Beethoven lived there 1803/04 and worked on the "Eroica"); Beethoven-Grillparzer house (built at the end of the 18th century; L. van Beethoven and the then 17-year old Austrian dramatist F. Grillparzer lived there at the same time in 1808); Villa Hainisch (music school of the City of Vienna) Wertheimstein Villa (1834-1836, with frescoes by M. von Schwind; district museum and museum of viticulture), 5 villas by J. Hoffmann; Nussdorf weir (barrier in the Danube Canal by O. Wagner, 1894-1898); Central Institute of Meteorology and Geodynamics at Hohe Warte; International Press Centre (built in 1970), Pressehaus (Press Building, 1963); large council house estates (Karl-Marx-Hof, 1926-1930; Klosehof, 1924; Pestalozzihof, 1925; Rebechof, 1929; Schnitzlerhof, 1960); remains of late Roman buildings near St. Jakob's church at Heiligenstadt.

Literature#