ABSTRACT
The tourist perception of aesthetically pleasing, heritage-oriented townscapes in central Europe, now made more accessible by the ending of the cold war, must never be mistaken for the much deeper and more complex values that are associated with historic building ensembles by the indigenous inhabitants of this highly varied region. The continuing existence of a deep respect for the intangible worth of ancient physical artefacts, irrespective of any revived cultural value they may acquire for the tourist, relates directly to two conflicting factors. These are, first, the late survival there, to a considerable degree until well into the twentieth century, in comparison with the Atlantic economic world, of both the social and physical attributes of preindustrial urban lifestyles and, second, the late arrival of the disruptive impact of comprehensive industrialization. By 1900, the general desire for change and modernity within developed countries was quite widespread. However, throughout Imperial Germany and the Austro-Hungarian lands, the cultural viability of numerous surviving historic town-scapes which encompassed a more corporate civic tradition than existed in western Europe and North America was threatened by a growing diversification of new social and spatial functions.
