The Café on the Bridge

architects Hemma Fasch, Jakob Fuchs
project Ship Station, Schwedenplatz, Vienna, Austria
written by Iris Meder

 

The Donaukanal in Vienna was originally one of the many courses of the Danube that meandered through the plains. After the river was regulated and made navigable in the 1860s, this watercourse, renamed ‘The Canal’, became a part of the 19th-century city, suitable for leisure activities on its floating bathhouses. The area saw Nazi atrocities in the nearby Jewish city blocks, later the withdrawal battles in the last days of the Second World War, and finally the post-war reconstruction to accommodate car traffic.