Siedlerbewegung#

Suburban Movement (Siedlerbewegung): the English and German garden-city movement as well as a serious shortage of housing and jobs gave rise to an extensive suburban movement in Austria in 1918, particularly in large cities where numerous "wild settlements" emerged on the city outskirts and allotments were transformed into housing estates. The suburban movement was characterised by the coexistence of various ideologies, from leftist ideas of municipal housing to right-wing programmes of deproletarianization by creating owner-occupied homes. The suburban movement was organised and supported by various cooperatives whose umbrella organisation, the "Zentralverband der Kleingaertner, Siedler und Kleintierzuechter" (central association of allotment gardeners, settlers and small animal breeders), was founded in 1922 (renamed "Oesterreichischer Verband der Siedler, Einfamilienhausbesitzer und Kleintierzuechter" (Austrian association of settlers, single-family-house owners and small animal breeders) in 1946). The municipality of Vienna at first supported the suburban movement (8,340 dwelling units with garden-city character were built in Vienna between 1921 and 1933), but finally ended by committing itself to the provision of multi-story municipal residential buildings in 1923. Through the Federal Housing and Settlement Fund (BWSF Bundes-Wohn- und Siedlungsfonds) the federal government subsidised the construction of 8,654 dwelling units between 1921 and 1928. From the early 1930s settlements were built on the city outskirts (6,210 dwelling units between 1932 and 1937) to secure minimum self-sufficiency for those without jobs. The basic idea of providing single-family houses with gardens for the majority of the population was realised to a considerable extent during the Second Republic, but generally had little to do with the ideological background of the original suburban movement.

Literature#