ABSTRACT
Royal, princely, imperial or ducal palaces are usually hermetically sealed off from their surroundings for reasons of security and to emphasize their character as the seat of power and of the sovereign. The instruments to visualize this special character can be topographical, architectural, and stylistic, among others. Buckingham Palace, for instance, remains aloof from the lively metropolis of London by means of large parks and green areas, broad avenues where public traffic can be halted if necessary, and strong fences to keep people at a respectful distance. In addition to national borders and city limits, frontiers can therefore be found within cities and societies, dividing spaces of elites from those for people of subordinate status. The visual appearance of this special type of border is quite different from that of national borders. While at first sight these borders may look well-established (facades of buildings, fenced-off areas, etc.), they can turn out to be negligible in certain situations and to be characterized by overlap or permeability under special circumstances. In this sense, borders are not merely touchable barriers, but social and functional barriers within a city that can physically be crossed easily, perhaps unawares, and yet they can just as easily be completely closed. The following essay takes the Hofburg in Vienna as an example of such a border and concentrates on its nineteenth-century state until the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918.
