How Vienna produced ideas that shaped the West

Author:
The Economist

ACROSS the cobbles of Vienna’s Michaelerplatz the world of empires, waltzes and mutton-chop whiskers glowers at the modern age of psychoanalysis, atonal music and clean shaves. In one corner, the monumental, neo-baroque entrance to the Hofburg palace, seat of the Habsburgs; in the other, the Looshaus, all straight lines and smooth façades, one of the first buildings in the international style. This outcrop of modernism, designed by Adolf Loos, was completed in 1911, less than 20 years after the dome-topped palace entrance it faces. But the building embodied such a different aesthetic, such a contrary world view, that some wondered whether a society that produced such opposites in quick succession could survive. The emperor Franz Joseph is said to have kept the curtains drawn so he would not have to look at the new world across the square.

The sceptics were right. Imperial Viennese society could not survive. But the ideas and art brought forth during the fecund period of Viennese history from the late 1880s to the 1920s endured—from Loos’s modernist architecture to Gustav Klimt’s symbolist canvasses, from Schoenberg’s atonal music and Mahler’s Sturm und Drang to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy.

The article's full-text is available here.

Back to CIRSD recommends

Latest news

CIRSD Vice President Stefan Jovanović Speaks at Regional Conference on China’s Role in the Western Balkans

Belgrade, June 5, 2025 – Stefan Jovanović, Vice President of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), participated in the regional conference “Democracy Meets Strategy: Parliament’s Place in China Policy”, held in Belgrade. The event gathered parliamentarians, policymakers, and experts from across the Western Balkans to examine the region’s evolving cooperation with the People’s Republic of China. Read more

Despite Enticing Narratives, the International Community Has Fueled Bosnia’s Instability

In 1984, during the Sarajevo Winter Olympics, Bosnia and Herzegovina was presented to the world as Yugoslavia’s poster child—a picture that would fall apart only eight years later. Read more

Democracy in Iraq: A Facade for Corruption and Human Rights Violations

To guarantee the protection of the rights and freedoms of its people, the Iraqi government must be a true democracy. Read more

CIRSD Hosts Horizons Discussion with Professor Andrey Sushentsov on Russia’s Global Role and the Future of Multipolarity

Belgrade, April 2025 — The Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD) hosted a special edition of its acclaimed Horizons Discussions series, featuring an in-depth conversation between CIRSD President Vuk Jeremić and Professor Andrey Sushentsov, Dean of the School of International Relations at MGIMO University and one of Russia’s most influential strategic thinkers. Read more