The Vienna Gasometers: From Gas Tanks to a Thriving Residential District

Four gigantic brick gas holders were built in Vienna between 1896 and 1899, each capable of storing up to 90,000 cubic meters of city gas used to power street lamps. The gasometers served the city for nearly a century, until Vienna switched to natural gas in the mid-1980s and the emptied giants stood vacant, protected as historic landmarks since 1978 and therefore impossible to demolish. For a decade, they hosted little more than illegal parties and film shoots, until the city launched a competition in 1995 to give them a new purpose. Four renowned architects — Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Manfred Wehdorn and Wilhelm Holzbauer — each designed one gasometer, combining apartments on the upper floors, offices in the middle, and shops and a cinema at ground level. The complex officially opened on October 30, 2001, and today more than 1,600 residents live in nearly 800 apartments within the historic cast-iron rings of the former tanks, forming a literal city within a city. It's a monumental example of how taking over a post-industrial giant directly from the city, paired with a shared, grassroots vision among architects, can turn a relic of the past into a thriving neighborhood.