A part of the staircase and the golden ceiling of the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), which was designed in Neo-Renaissance style by Heinrich von Ferstel (1877).

“This is something everyone knows: A well-used city street is apt to be a safe street. A deserted city street is apt to be unsafe.”
Jane Jacobs

The scenery above reminded me so much of Jane Jacobs’s concept of ‘Eyes on the street’. Jacobs argued that streets are safer when more people are on them and/or being watched by residents from their windows. She introduced this principle for a liveable and secure neighbourhood in her great publication ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York 1961)’. Her phenomenology of urban sace was an important influence on the so-called ‘New Urbanism’ movement and is still widely received.

Might sound like a joke, but actually is not. In Vienna every tree in a public park or next to a road, has an official number. So the one above is registered ovbiously under the number 1007. This system was established to facilitate the work of the so-called tree doctors (aborists).

Through a visit to the Viennese Chocolate Manufactory ‘Leschanz’ you can get an impression what Imperial Vienna looked like. The noble store is located in the first district of Vienna and was opened first in 1844. Quite soon it became supplier to the Imperial Austrian Court. Thankfully the original interieur of the shop in the Freisingergasse has not been adapted very much over the years. These days you can create your own chocolate or customize the offered products. You can choose from a broad range of chocolate delicacies, confectionary, cakes and other sweets.

Wiener Schokoladenkönig Leschanz
Freisingergasse 1
1010 Wien