‘In
Vienna the beauty lies at the corners, and mostly round the corners,’ as the Austrian
Vienna 205
writer Hans Weigel aptly puts it when comparing the two towns.29 Here there is no
uniform overall solution, but a series of autonomous transverse axes—of which the most
magnificent, Schwarzenbergplatz, was established before the Ringstraße development—
and building ensembles. The grandest of these surrounded the Maria TheresienPlatz/Heldenplatz,
which although never altogether finished, does work as a coherent
whole. Less coherent is the arrangement round the Rathauspark with four large building
complexes, each in its own style, with nothing in common except their location round the
same open space.