ABSTRACT
The complex was nicknamed the Ringstrasse des Proletariats to disparage the city’s Ringstrasse, designed for the wealthy and to symbolize the glory of the Habsburg Empire. The Karl-Marx-Hof came to symbolize a socialist response to the rise of National Socialism in Germany, but its development arose from Vienna’s needs for high-density inner-city housing. The rationalists, like the empiricists, considered the medieval city to be chaotic, dark, and dank. The rationalists’ generic designs evolved over time, but the logic behind them remained constant. The exemplars of rationalist urban thought of the first half of the twentieth century are diverse in character but show a consistent line of thinking. The rationalist housing schemes of the interwar years changed the block structure of cities in a new manner. The rationalists paid a lot of attention to the design of houses and housing complexes because of the huge demand for accommodations after the havoc of World War One.
