On the Vienna Corso: Changing street use and street design around the Vienna State Opera House 1860–1949

Abstract

Technological changes have opened up new opportunities for historical research, which call for new methodologies to fully realise these opportunities. This paper presents the four-step interactive photo timeline analysis we developed to analyse large volumes of historical photographs from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. We present the results of a case study (regarding both street design and street use in Vienna from 1860 to 1949) in which we utilised interactive photo timeline analysis. The geographical research scope was limited to the streets around the Vienna Opera: street use and street design were analysed from the perspective of the street as transportation space and as urban living space. The development of the interactive photo timeline analysis methodology and the case study analysis benefited greatly from the interdisciplinary nature of the research team.

Capturing Gendered Mobility and Street Use in the Historical City: A New Methodological Approach

“…It shows changes not only in the urban environment but also in street activities: street sweepers, for example, disappear from photographs when other types of street workers such as shoe polishers and bill posters make their appearances. 37 According to the authors, it is precisely the systematic analysis of multiple photographs over a longer period of time that makes these developments visible. 38 Photographs are often considered to be more 'objective' than paintings, drawings or prints, materials that are more common for our period of study.…”

“…According to Carmen Gruber and her colleagues, the street 'can be seen as a complex set of mutual interactions'. 19 For the study of women's relationship to the street it is paramount to include both mobile and static uses in the analysis, as doing so allows us to investigate how the static presence of certain groups of people in streets affects others' opportunities to traverse these spaces, and vice versa. 20…”