There was already a bridge over the Sill in the early modern period. This was the beginning of the fortified Fürstenwegwhich led all the way to Ambras Castle. The northern part of this early north-south connection is today's Pradlerstraße. A look at the development of this small area tells the story of Innsbruck's development between the 16th and 20th centuries.

Throughout the Middle Ages and early modern times, Pradl was one of many small, rural villages. Where the Leitgebhalle stands today, there was already a small chapel in the late 17th century. This place of worship was home to a copy of Lukas Cranach's Mother of Mercy, the original of which can be found in Innsbruck Cathedral. The northern façade of the house at Pradlerstraße 9 on the corner of Reichenauerstraße shows the Mariahilf-Gnadenmutter. This house was also the birthplace of the writer Rudolf Greinz (1866 - 1942), whose Tyrolean local history novels were so popular with readers that a street was named after him in Pradl during his lifetime.

In the 19th century, Pradl, like the other outlying areas, became an industrial boomtown. The farmhouses were gradually surrounded by modern apartment blocks and housing estates as the town expanded. This was accompanied by social tensions between the migrant workers and the "native" Pradlers. Even before Pradl was united with Innsbruck in 1904, large employers such as the Rhomberg silk spinning mill and the gas works had already settled here. Bakeries, butchers, small shops and restaurants opened. New houses and flats were needed for the employees and workers. Between the junctions of Amthorstraße/Pradlerstraße and Gumppstraße/Pradlerstraße, there are still several of these bourgeois residential and tenement houses worth seeing today.

Pradlerstraße 32 was the home and workshop of Rafael Thaler, a restorer and artist who was responsible for many façade paintings and frescoes in the Heimatstil style in and around Innsbruck. The building is decorated with his own works. House number 36 is adorned with a depiction of the wine merchant Benedikt Fritz. House number 38 is a marvellous example of the Heimatstil, which was characteristic of Innsbruck's architecture at the time. The wall painting of this corner house, also by Rafael Thaler, depicts two female figures who Trade und Trade represent. The bon mot underneath was an expression of the owners' new bourgeois, but still conservative, self-image.

„Arbeit ist des Bürgers Zierde,

Segen ist der Mühe Preis,

ehrt den König seine Würde,

ehret uns der Hände Fleiß“

The growing population not only had to be provided with work, but also with education and pastoral care. Between the farmhouses to the north and the residential buildings to the south of Pradlerstrasse, a new district centre was created around the landmarks of the Pradler extension, the Leitgebule school and the new parish church.

In the 19th century, the small church had become too small to accommodate the many new souls in Pradl. The Pradl church was built between 1905 and 1908. The lion portal made of red marble is impressive. The double doors were redesigned following bomb damage in the Second World War. The neo-Romanesque church represents the last hurrah of monarchical dominance in architecture. The building opposite, although erected at the same time, already points the way to more modern architecture. The Leitgebschule was built between 1907 and 1908 according to plans by Eduard Klingler. It was named after the Innsbruck writer Josef Leitgeb (1897 - 1952), whose stories and poems provide an insight into Austria's turbulent interwar period. At first glance, the bulky and sober cube appears surprisingly light, almost classicist in its details on closer inspection.

Between the old farmhouses of the early modern period in the south, the chic Wilhelminian style houses and the turn-of-the-century tenements, there are many housing projects that were built in the post-war period. Due to their proximity to the railway station, many buildings in Pradlerstrasse were victims of the air war. The bronze signs with the inscription

„Dieses Haus wurde in den Kriegsjahren 1939/45 zerstört und aus Fondsmitteln des Bundesministeriums f. Handel u. Wiederaufbau in den Jahren unter dem Bundeskanzler Ing. Julius Raab wiederhergestellt.“

point to this destruction and the subsequent reconstruction.

Since the 1950s, Pradl has developed into a typical residential neighbourhood for Innsbruck's middle class. Since the 1990s, Pradlerstraße has suffered the typical fate of city centre districts in Europe. During the Bavarian occupation at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the street was decorated with papules on both sides. During the industrialisation of Pradl and in the financially straitened interwar period, maintenance of the once beautiful avenue was gradually forgotten. As part of the road widening in the car-centred 1960s, the trees were finally sacrificed to car traffic. Long-established commercial and retail businesses were no longer taken over, new shops often opened only to close again shortly afterwards. Shopping was no longer done locally, but in the shopping centres on the outskirts of the town or in Sillpark. For some years now, there have been initiatives to revitalise the former boulevard.

The last decades of the 19th century were characterised Wilhelminian style in the history of Austria. After an economic crisis in 1873, the city began to expand during the economic upswing. From 1880 to 1900, Innsbruck's population grew from 20,000 to 26,000. Wilten, which was incorporated in 1904, tripled from 4,000 to 12,000. The infrastructure also changed as a result of technical innovations. Gas, water and electricity became part of everyday life for more and more people. The old town hospital gave way to the new hospital. The orphanage and the Sieberers asylum for the elderly were built in Saggen.

The buildings that were constructed in the young neighbourhoods were a reflection of a new society. Entrepreneurs, freelancers, employees and workers with political voting rights developed different needs than subjects without this right. Unlike in rural Tyrol, where farming families lived in farmhouses together with farmhands and maidservants as a clan, life in the city came close to the family life we know today. The living space had to correspond to this. The lifestyle of city dwellers demanded multi-room flats and open spaces for relaxation after work. The wealthy middle classes, consisting of entrepreneurs and freelancers, had not yet overtaken the aristocracy, but they had narrowed the gap. They were the ones who not only commissioned private building projects, but also decided on public buildings through their position on the local council.

The 40 years before the First World War were a kind of gold-rush period for construction companies, craftsmen, master builders and architects. The buildings reflected the world view of their clients. Master builders combined several roles and often replaced the architect. Most clients had very clear ideas about what they wanted. They were not to be breathtaking new creations, but copies and references to existing buildings. In keeping with the spirit of the times, the Innsbruck master builders designed buildings in the styles of historicism, classicism and Tyrolean Heimatstil in accordance with the wishes of their financially strong clients. Clear forms, statues and columns were style-defining elements in the construction of new buildings. The ideas that people had of classical Greece and ancient Rome were realised in a sometimes wild mix of styles. Not only railway stations and public buildings, but also large apartment blocks and entire streets, even churches and cemeteries were built along the old corridors in this design. The upper middle classes showed their penchant for antiquity with neoclassical façades. Catholic traditionalists had images of saints and depictions of Tyrol's regional history painted on the walls of their Heimatstil houses. While neoclassicism dominates in Saggen and Wilten, most of the buildings in Pradl are in the conservative Heimatstil style. For a long time, many people turned up their noses at the buildings of the upstarts and nouveau riche, such as Heinrich Hammer in his standard work "Kunstgeschichte der Stadt Innsbruck":

„Schon diese erste rasche Erweiterung der Stadt fiel nun freilich in jene baukünstlerisch unfruchtbare Epoche, in der die Architektur, statt eine selbstständige, zeiteigene Bauweise auszudenken, der Reihe nach die Baustile der Vergangenheit wiederholte.“

The era of large villas, which imitated the aristocratic residences of days gone by with a bourgeois touch, came to an end after a few wild decades due to a lack of space. Further development of the urban area with individual houses was no longer possible, the space had become too narrow. In 1898, the municipal council decided to authorise only blocks of flats east of Claudiastrasse instead of the villas in the spacious cottage style. The Falkstrasse / Gänsbachstrasse / Bienerstrasse area is still regarded as the Villensaggenthe areas to the east as Blocksaggen. In Wilten and Pradl, this type of development did not even occur. Nevertheless, master builders sealed more and more ground in the gold rush. Albert Gruber gave a cautionary speech on this growth in 1907, in which he warned against uncontrolled growth in urban planning and land speculation.

"It is the most difficult and responsible task facing our city fathers. Up until the 1980s (note: 1880), let's say in view of our circumstances, a certain slow pace was maintained in urban expansion. Since the last 10 years, however, it can be said that cityscapes have been expanding at a tremendous pace. Old houses are being torn down and new ones erected in their place. Of course, if this demolition and construction is carried out haphazardly, without any thought, only for the benefit of the individual, then disasters, so-called architectural crimes, usually occur. In order to prevent such haphazard building, which does not benefit the general public, every city must ensure that individuals cannot do as they please: the city must set a limit to unrestricted speculation in the area of urban expansion. This includes above all land speculation."

A handful of master builders and the Innsbruck building authority accompanied this development in Innsbruck. If Wilhelm Greil is described as the mayor of the expansion, the Viennese-born Eduard Klingler (1861 - 1916) probably deserves the title of its architect. Klingler played a key role in shaping Innsbruck's cityscape in his role as a civil servant and master builder. He began working for the state of Tyrol in 1883. In 1889, he joined the municipal building department, which he headed from 1902. In Innsbruck, the commercial academy, the Leitgebule school, the Pradl cemetery, the dermatological clinic in the hospital area, the municipal kindergarten in Michael-Gaismair-Straße, the Trainkaserne (note: today a residential building), the market hall and the Tyrolean State Conservatory are all attributable to Klingler as head of the building department. The Ulrichhaus on Mount Isel, which is now home to the Alt-Kaiserjäger-Club, is a building worth seeing in the Heimatstil style based on his design.

Perhaps the most important construction office in Innsbruck was Johann Huter & Sons. Johann Huter took over his father's small construction business. In 1856, he acquired the first company premises, the Hutergründeon the Innrain. Three years later, the first prestigious headquarters were built in Meranerstraße. The company registration together with his sons Josef and Peter in 1860 marked the official start of the company that still exists today. Huter & Söhne like many of its competitors, saw itself as a complete service provider. The company had its own brickworks, a cement factory, a joinery and a locksmith's shop as well as a planning office and the actual construction company. In 1906/07, the Huters built their own company headquarters at Kaiser-Josef-Straße 15 in the typical style of the last pre-war years. The stately house combines the Tyrolean Heimatstil surrounded by gardens and nature with neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque elements. Famous from Huter & Söhne buildings in Innsbruck include the Monastery of Perpetual Adoration, the parish church of St Nicholas and several buildings on Claudiaplatz.

The second big player was Josef Retter. Born in Tyrol, he grew up in the Wachau region. In his early youth, he completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer before he left the k.k. State Trade School in Vienna and attended the foreman's school in the building trade department. After gaining professional experience in Vienna, Croatia and Bolzano throughout the Danube Monarchy, he was able to open his own construction company in Innsbruck at the age of 29 thanks to his wife's dowry. Like Huter, his company also included a sawmill, a sand and gravel works and a workshop for stonemasonry work. In 1904, he opened his residential and office building at Schöpfstraße 23a, which is still used today as a Rescuer's house is well known. With a new building for the Academic Grammar School and the castle-like school building for the Commercial Academy and the Evangelical Church of Christ in Saggen, the stately Sonnenburg in Wilten and the neo-Gothic Mentlberg Castle on Sieglanger, he realised some of Innsbruck's most outstanding buildings of the period to this day.

Late in life but with a similarly practice-orientated background that was typical of 19th century master builders, Anton Fritz started his construction company in 1888. He grew up remotely in Graun in the Vinschgau Valley. After working as a foreman, plasterer and bricklayer, he decided to attend the trade school in Innsbruck at the age of 36. Talent and luck brought him his breakthrough as a planner with the country-style villa at Karmelitergasse 12. In its heyday, his construction company employed 150 people. In 1912, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War and the resulting slump in the construction industry, he handed over his company to his son Adalbert. Anton Fritz's legacy includes his own home at Müllerstraße 4, the Mader house in Glasmalereistraße and houses on Claudiaplatz and Sonnenburgplatz.

With Carl Kohnle, Carl Albert, Karl Lubomirski and Simon Tommasi, Innsbruck had other master builders who immortalised themselves in the cityscape with buildings typical of the late 19th century. They all made Innsbruck's new streets shine in the prevailing architectural zeitgeist of the last 30 years of the Danube Monarchy. Residential buildings, railway stations, official buildings and churches in the vast empire between the Ukraine and Tyrol looked similar across the board. New trends such as Art Nouveau emerged only hesitantly. In Innsbruck, it was the Munich architect Josef Bachmann who set a new accent in civic design with the redesign of the façade of the Winklerhaus. Building activity came to a halt at the beginning of the First World War. After the war, the era of neoclassical historicism and Heimatstil was finally history. Walks in Saggen and parts of Wilten and Pradl take you back to the Wilhelminian era. Claudiaplatz and Sonnenburgplatz are among the most impressive examples. The building company Huter and Sons still exists today. The company is now located in Sieglanger in Josef-Franz-Huter-Straße, named after the company founder.