Augarten

The Augarten is a public park of 52.2 hectares (129 acres) situated in the Leopoldstadt, the second district of Vienna, Austria. It contains the city's oldest Baroque park. In the north-west and north-east it borders (since 1900) on the 20th district, Brigittenau, in the north-east also on the former Nordwestbahnhof, from where the North Western Railway made its way to Bohemia, while to the south it faces the so-called Karmeliterviertel ("Carmelite quarter"), the historical Jewish quarter, followed by the Leopoldstadt. Until 1870 (Vienna Danube regulation), the areas north and east of the Augarten were floodlands mostly uninhabited. The park is designed in the French Baroque style with elaborate flower gardens and impressive shady avenues of chestnut, lime, ash, and maple. Like most fenced public parks and gardens in Vienna it is open only in the daytime: the park's five gates close at sunset (signalled by a siren). The Augarten hosts a variety of facilities such as the Wiener Sängerknaben (the Vienna Boys' Choir) in the Palais Augarten, the Augarten Porzellanmanufaktur (Augarten porcelain factory), the Augarten Contemporary (part of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, the Austrian Gallery housed in the Belvedere), the Filmarchiv Austria, a retirement home, a Jewish academic campus (called Lauder Chabad Campus), a paddling pool for children and sports fields. Significant testimonials to the Third Reich are two high anti-aircraft bunkers (flak towers). There are two places in the park where meals or snacks may be had, the Bunkerei (partially housed in a former bunker) and on the premises of the Filmarchiv, and in addition two catering establishments, one of them in the Atelier Augarten. The Baroque park, the palace and the remaining part of the original park wall, dating from the early 18th century, are since 2000 listed as historic monuments.

In 1614, Emperor Matthias had a small hunting lodge built in what was then called the Wolfsau, at the time a flood-plain (Au is an Austrian and southern German term for a riparian forest or flood-plain). Around 1650, Ferdinand III bought up the area around the nearby Tábor (which is a Czech word used here for a fortified checkpoint outside the city's walls) at a branch of the unregulated Danube. He established a formal Dutch garden and expanded the hunting lodge into a small mansion. In the 1660s, Leopold I acquired the adjacent gardens from the noble Trautson family and had it transformed into an all-comprising pleasure park. In 1677 he converted the Trautsons' garden mansion into a small palace (a so-called Lustschloss, a palace for pleasure only), to which he gave the name "Imperial Favorita". Later on instead of this one the name Old Favorita became established, since in today's 4th district a New Favorita (today: Theresianum) had been built. 1683 was a bad year for Vienna and the Augarten: during the course of the Turkish siege the grounds and buildings were destroyed in their entirety, with exception of some parts of the walls. Not until 1705 were the gardens and the palace restored under Emperor Joseph I. The garden palace built at this time is now the headquarters of the Augarten Porzellanmanufaktur (Augarten porcelain factory), the second oldest porcelain factory in Europe. A few years later, in 1712, the new monarch, Charles VI, commissioned landscape architect Jean Trehet - also responsible for the creation of the gardens at Schönbrunn as well as at the Belvedere - to carry out new plans to develop the whole park, in French style. Today's Augarten is still based on this. After the opening of the Vienna Prater to the public in 1766, the Augarten was likewise opened on 1 May 1775 by Joseph II. On this occasion nightingales were settled and hunting of them was strictly forbidden.

Garden data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).