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Kärntnerstrasse Pedestrian Zone

For many it is no longer conceivable that at one time traffic (cars) would have roared along Kärntnerstrasse.

But it was indeed so. And in the evening a couple of purple haired ladies armed with poodles would stalk up and down the boulevard.

Far and wide there was no café to sit down and relax. O.K., today, too, only tourists sit in street cafés and slurp thin coffee but at least there is no traffic.

Kärntnerstrasse enjoyed a certain notoriety in the past: in the sixties prostitutes promenaded up and down the street as well as the Kohlmarkt. The red-light district, however, was moving on to major thoroughfares such as the Gürtel and Felberstrasse.

Historical background

One of the oldest representations of Kärntnerstrasse has been passed down to us on the medieval Schottenaltar; here the artist has relocated the Visitation scene to Kärntnerstrasse (or perhaps Dorotheergasse). The Schottenstift’s gothic polyptych illustrates Passion scenes and scenes from the life of Maria. The artist integrated different views of Vienna as background to the individual scenes.

References to Kärntnerstrasse dated as early as 1257 have been found. For some time it was called Karnerstrasse as well as Venedigerstrasse, the latter because it continued on to Venice via Wiener Neustadt, the Semmering and Triest, facilitating a flourishing trade with far off places. The extension of Kärntnerstrasse in the 10th district is, therefore, called Triesterstrasse to this very day.

The main venue ― the starting and endpoint ― of the trade with the Adriatic coast was the "Neue Markt" (New Market). Its size of 90 x 170m accommodated innumerable dealers, craftsmen and merchants, who conducted their business there.

A commemorative plaque on the corner of Kärntnerstrasse and Walfischgasse tells the story of the city wall and the sieges it had to withstand.

About half way down Kärntnerstrasse stands the Malteserkirche (church of the Knight Hospitallers’). One would scarcely suspect a medieval church behind the neo-classical façade of 1810. Around the year 1200 the Babenberg Leopold VI brought the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem to Vienna; in 1250 a chapel was built and 100 years later the new Gothic structure erected.

The rather beautiful capstone on the entrance vault survives from this time. It depicts a lioness with her cubs ― a symbol of the resurrection. To be able to interpret the imagery of works of art, one has to rely again and again on a venerable small chap-book, as well as the Bible and a medieval sourcebook ― the “Legende Aurea”: the Physiologus (= Student of natural history).

Channel: Filmarchiv
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Weiterführende Links:

• Kärntnerstraße
• Kärntnerstraßen-Net