ARCH+ . VIENNA: THE END OF HOUSING (AS A TYPOLOGY)

If you're looking for examples of successful housing policy, you will sooner or later find yourself in 'Red Vienna'. Its myth is unbroken, not least because of the Vienna municipality's longstanding political insight that housing is a social task and must not be left to the market alone. In spite of this underlying consensus, the city's housing policy has undergone many metamorphoses and transformations over the course of an eventful century and has certainly become more market oriented. However, it has never lost sight of two key aspects: the need to build and maintain residential housing stock and sustain its long-term social commitment, as well as the continued policy of land banking. Set against this background and the enormous growth in Vienna's pop- ulation - which is now matched by a brisk construction sector and buoyant development - this publication focuses on the city as a means to examine the current state of residential construc- tion. If housing is being built today, then what form does it take? Do mono-functional typologies and the division of life and work into separate functional areas still correspond to the reality we experience? How social is social housing?