It’s not politically correct to say we’ve lost a war, the “correct” version is that we’ve been freed. Which is correct. Technically though we’ve still lost a war.
And it was not any war. It was the first war in long centuries, that completely devastated all of our cities. Austria had been the center of an empire for hundreds of years. Austrian rulers had been the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire through much of the time since the late Middle Ages.
Sure, we had the 30 Years War, but that didn’t affect the Austrian heartland. We had Turkish invasions, and two times the Turkish troups even laid siege to Vienna, but neither was Vienna conquered, nor did the Turks reach the western parts of the country.
During the Napoleonic Wars Vienna’s walls had to be razed (like those of many other Austrian cities), but that was kind of a tribute of a temporary vasall state. The walls were not destroyed in an act of war.
World War I mostly happened at the borders. When it was over, the empire was broken apart. This was partially dictated by the victors, and partially it was due to centrifugal forces within. Vienna suffered from hunger and political unrest, but it was not destroyed.
World War II was different. In the aftermath, enormous numbers of apartment houses had to be rebuilt. Aesthetics often became an afterthought - if at all.
What we see today and the next two posts is much newer, but it is in the same tradition. Utilitarian architecture, reminding us of what was built in Eastern Europe at the same time, lacking any kind of beauty.