Ambivalences of Modernity–The City Planner Roland Rainer

Roland Rainer was one of the best-known architects and urban planners of post-war modernism in Austria. The Stadthalle in Vienna (1958), the Puchenau housing estate near Linz (1965-2000) and the ORF Centre in Vienna (1968-1974) are among his buildings. It is less well known that he went to Berlin as early as 1936, two years before Austria`s "Anschluss" to the National Socialist German Reich in 1938, and placed himself in the service of the German Academy for Urban Development, Reich and Regional Planning (DASRL), which was practically and theoretically subordinate to Albert Speer, the General Building Inspector for the Reich capital. Consequently, he was integrated into the National Socialist system not only through his early membership in the NSDAP, but also through his practice, hardly just through opportunism. In fact, he already developed his central theories on urban planning and architecture in the early 1940s at the DASRL. During this period, he conceived and wrote, together with his colleagues Johannes Göderitz and Hubert Hofmann, the first version of Die gegliederte und aufgelock erte Stadt, which was published in 1945 and became a standard work in German-speaking countries in its second version of 1957. This writing contains something typical for its time: it criticises the modern, densely populated city, it pleads for a garden city model in which living, working, traffic and leisure are disentangled and people live "at ground level". Only in the first version is this living "folk-biologically" propagated as the right way of living. Racist dictions like this are no longer found in the second version of 1957. But has the concept changed significantly as a result? The research project, a collaboration between the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (where Rainer taught as a professor) and the Architekturzentrum Wien (where Rainer`s estate is located), will be dedicated to investigating this question in two ways. On the one hand, Rainer`s historical development as a modernist architect will be examined in more detail for the first time; this includes his time as a student at the Vienna University of Technology in the 1920s. On the other hand, a current reassessment of the "ambivalence of architectural modernism" itself will be possible via Rainer`s concrete biography. Especially in the context of recent research on colonialism and racism in modern architecture, the question of the inherent biopolitics of garden city models can become substantial with the analysis of Rainer`s work. To this end, the "articulated and loosened city" as described by Rainer will be sketched for the first time and compared with other urban planning models. In addition, the complete estate will be reviewed and evaluated, and further material on Rainer will be excavated and analysed in archives in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. In this way, Rainer`s work is placed in a differentiated and well-founded context. Primary researchers involved Prof. Dr.-Ing. Angelika Schnell Mag. Dr. Monika Platzer Mag. Dr. Ingrid Holzschuh Dipl.-Ing. Waltraud P. Indrist

The research project was a collaboration between the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Architekturzentrum Wien. It was based on the transfer of the estate of Austrian architect Roland Rainer (1910-2004) to the Architekturzentrum Wien. After completing his architecture studies at the TH Vienna in 1936, Rainer moved to Berlin, joined the NSDAP, worked in the planning authorities of General Building Inspector Albert Speer, and returned to Austria at the end of the Second World War, where he became one of the most important modern architects. Researchers Angelika Schnell, Monika Platzer, Ingrid Holzschuh, Waltraud P. Indrist and Susanne Rick explored: How deeply was Rainer involved in the administration of the Nazi planning apparatus? What arguments did he put forward in his numerous writings on architecture and urban planning, particularly in light of the fact that Rainer championed the concept of the Garden City throughout his life? Can differences be identified in his writings and projects during the dictatorship and in the post-war period? Research in archives in Austria, Germany and Poland has provided a clearer picture, although biographical gaps remain due to losses. It has been proven that Rainer climbed the career ladder after moving to Berlin. He rose to the position of consultant in the Main Planning Office in Berlin, where he has participated in meetings on planning matters, which Albert Speer also attended. No evidence was found that Rainer was involved in a colonialist planning project or even in the construction and maintenance of a concentration camp. However, it can be assumed that, due to his high administrative position, he knew what the plans were for. Essays from this period document that Rainer had mastered Nazi diction. Well embedded in the Nazi planning elite milieu, in whose most important organs he published and drew on other planning colleagues from his immediate environment, he also used racist-nationalist arguments according to which the 'Germanic peoples' preferred a 'ground-level' way of living that had a direct connection to nature. However, his tone is not as fanatical as that of his colleagues, and no explicitly anti-Semitic statements have been found. Rainer used his old network from his time in Berlin for his professional career after the war. The fact that he pursued the idea of the 'gegliederte und aufgelockerte Stadt' because he trusted in the rhetoric and structure of planning diagrams, which appear scientific and modern, means above all that he continued their inherent ambivalences and contradictions. Rainer's post-war Garden City projects in particular reveal a partly traditional image of society and family dressed up in a modern architectural language whose relationship and interpretation remained open.