Besides its various urbanist and architectonic functions, the Ringstraße in Vienna also had a major political ambition to fulfill: the width of the boulevard was meant to surpass the dimensions of the Champs-Élysées in Paris and the Ludwigstraße in Munich. The 150th anniversary of the launch of this metropolitan space is now celebrated by six exhibitions as well as numerous publications that remind us that the cultural industry of present-day Austria does not lag far behind the goals set by the former imperial planners. The immense interest aroused by the urbanistic development of nineteenth-century Vienna may seem surprising, given that from 1981—the year that saw the finalization of the eleven-volume series edited by Renate Wagner-Rieger—the Ringstraße has been almost completely neglected by researchers. The anniversary has provided the necessary impulse for having a new look at the phenomenon, one based on unmined sources and guided by overlooked questions. One such attempt is the book by the Swiss historian of architecture Harald R. Stühlinger, on the 1858 urbanistic competition for the project of the Ringstraße.

In previous literature, the boulevard was presented mainly as a representative space, demonstrating the power of the neo-absolutist regime. The art historian Rudolf Eitelberger had already anticipated these views when the competition was launched, as his key demands were these: “first, to abolish the fortifications, and second, to provide glacis for monumental buildings” (55). This declaration of a major ideologue of Austrian historicism has drawn attention away from the fact that the goal of the expansion of Vienna was an all-inclusive modernization of the antiquated residential city. The emperor's wish—“Vienna must become a metropolis”—did not concern merely outside splendor but also the living standards of the population. Thus, by necessity, Stühlinger investigates not only the programmatic but also the pragmatic functions that the Ringstraße was to fulfill.

The older view was that the 1858 competition was also dominated by architectonic consideration rather than urbanistic ones, and aesthetic over technical ones. The notion stemmed from the fact that commentators and historians, starting with Eitelberger, contented themselves with presenting the victorious projects of Ludwig Förster, Friedrich Stache, and the partnership of August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll. Stühlinger has broadened the interpretive field by also including the other projects. In the plans that received lesser prizes or none at all, the considerations of representation were balanced by practical, sometimes even visionary, strivings for a systematic rebuilding. The conditions of the competition required a regulative plan of the inner city and a project of its expansion on the terrain gained by the elimination of the fortifications. However, the participants were also encouraged to make suggestions regarding the resolution of the general urbanist and infrastructural problems of Vienna. Their ideas were then the subject of an energetic discussion, which influenced both the 1859 official project of city expansion and various urbanist competitions from the turn of the century.

In his book, rich in material and clear in structure, Stühlinger demonstrates the entire gamut of problems troubling the then largest city of the German-speaking realm: a desperate lack of housing, a medieval street grid, poor water and food distribution, and so on. He provides a detailed description of the competition and analyzes all the projects whose documentation is extant. He enriches our understanding of the political constellations which made possible the competition as such as well as the subsequent expansion of the city. The interior minister Alexander von Bach and his chief of staff Franz Matzinger are identified as the intellectual and practical instigators of the entire project; they managed to overcome the resistance of the military lobby and convince Emperor Francis Joseph of the necessity of expanding the capital. Stühlinger pays special attention to the strategies of media communication, which prepared the public for the changes. He also shows that despite the demonstrative transparence and objectivity, supposedly guaranteed by anonymous participation, the competition was affected by behind-the-scenes machinations. Especially noteworthy is the unequal standing of the winners, as they participated in formulating the conditions and had access to better documentation. It is also scandalous that engineers employed by various ministries, while serving as members of the jury, also submitted projects and even received awards. However, it was thanks to them that the eventual official project included plans for infrastructural modifications.

In the final chapters, Stühlinger compares the expansion of Vienna with analogous urbanistic achievements in the five European metropolises (Munich, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, and Geneva) that constituted a framework of reference for the planning of the Ringstraße, and outlines the impact of the competition on urbanistic thinking in Austria as well as in the entire Western world. Stühlinger's book deserves high marks for conscientious heuristics and penetrating exegesis. The single fault of the book is that it fails to compare the projects submitted in the competition with the 1859 official project of city expansion. This collective product is mentioned only sparingly, with a brevity that contrasts with the voluminosity of the previous analyses and the sweeping comparative material. A reader interested in this issue will have to look in the other publications on the Ringstraße that the anniversary will doubtless bring.