In the district of Höttinger Au, an unobtrusive structure spans the Inn, representing a small but significant piece of Tyrolean and European transportation history. The 104‑meter‑long Karwendel Bridge is part of a technical masterpiece of the fin‑de‑siècle era, connecting Innsbruck with southern Bavaria. The box‑girder bridge, built from riveted steel truss elements, requires only a single pier in the river to carry the heavy weight of rail traffic across the water. The bridge was renovated in 2007. One quickly realizes the forces acting on it when standing on the wooden pedestrian walkway as a train thunders overhead. As part of the Mittenwald Railway—also known as the Karwendel Railway—this photogenic steel truss bridge stands as an impressive testament to the outstanding engineering achievements of the time, achievements we take for granted today. The line connects Innsbruck via Seefeld and Mittenwald with Garmisch‑Partenkirchen. Engineer Josef Riehl (1842–1917) succeeded in conquering the 600‑meter elevation gain up to the Seefeld plateau thanks to the spectacular routing of the railway across the Martinswand high above Zirl. The son of an innkeeper from Bolzano, Riehl skillfully exploited the new possibilities of modern engineering and finance. As a young man, following his studies in Karlsruhe and Munich, he gained his first experience in railway construction on the Brenner Railway, the Puster Valley line, and several routes in the eastern parts of the empire. At only 28, he founded his own company in 1870, using his private assets as start-up capital. He recognized the need for secondary and tertiary railway lines in addition to the major routes in the vast Austro‑Hungarian Empire—needs that public authorities were financially unable to meet. Riehl took responsibility for financing and for the entire value chain of construction, which he then delivered as turnkey projects. Roads, railways, power plants, and even the necessary railway stations were built under his leadership. With the Hungerburgbahn, the Puster Valley Railway, and the Stubai Valley Railway, Riehl opened up much of the inner‑Alpine Tyrolean region to residents, tourism, and commerce. In total, he realized 250 kilometers of railway lines in Tyrol alone. One of his masterpieces was the highly challenging Karwendel Railway. Plans to connect Innsbruck and Garmisch had existed since the late 19th century. One of the most ardent advocates for linking Tyrol with Bavaria was Mayor Greil, beginning in 1890. In 1904, Austria and Bavaria reached an agreement to build the routes between Reutte and Kempten as well as Innsbruck and Garmisch. On the Austro‑Hungarian side, the State of Austria, the Province of Tyrol, the city of Innsbruck, and several other municipalities—financed by the Creditanstalt für Handel und Verkehr—formed the Mittenwaldbahn AG, with a total project volume of just under 24 million crowns. According to the Austrian National Bank’s currency calculator, this corresponds to more than 170 million euros today. Josef Riehl, together with Wilhelm Ritter von Doderer, received the concession from the Ministry of Railways for the construction of the line. The particular challenge lay in overcoming the steep elevation difference between the Inn Valley and the Seefeld plateau over a short distance, and doing so without the use of steam locomotives—relying instead solely on an electrified railway. The project required far more than laying tracks in mountainous terrain. The breathtaking route from Innsbruck up to the Seefeld plateau cut directly through the Alps and required the blasting of several tunnels, the construction of viaducts, stations such as the Westbahnhof in Wilten, and even a dedicated power plant on the Ruetz stream. In 1912, Riehl was able to hand over the project to its operator, the city of Innsbruck, within the agreed budget. To this day, the Karwendel Railway operates as a single‑track regional line and is popular among hikers, skiers, and cross‑country enthusiasts who want to reach the Seefeld plateau without the traffic congestion on the Zirler Berg. The best view of the Karwendel Bridge can be enjoyed from the Freiburger Bridge, located further east.

When the university began its work in 1669, it consisted of only a handful of professors and students pursuing their studies in Innsbruck. The number grew steadily, and by the mid‑eighteenth century around 600 students were already enrolled. Today, the university is one of the city’s largest employers and, with its many locations between the airport and Rossau, the largest user of real estate in Innsbruck. The university’s first location was not on Innrain but on Herrengasse, near the parish church of St. James. A lack of space forced students and professors to move to what was then the edge of the city. After three years of construction, the first completed building was the university library. In 1914, construction of the main building began according to plans by Josef Retter. Ionic columns adorn the entrance area of the palace‑like complex in the historicist style, whose construction dragged on for more than ten years due to delays caused by the war. Even before its completion, the university was used for other purposes for the first time: during the war years, the half‑finished rooms served as a military hospital. Only after 1918 did the historicist main building begin its service as an educational institution. While the double‑headed eagle still adorned the entrance of the library opened in 1914, after the abolition of the monarchy the main building had to make do with the inscription Universitas Leopoldino‑Franciscea as a gesture of reverence to the House of Habsburg. The old reading room in the library is particularly worth seeing.

Over the course of the twentieth century, the university grounds on Innrain were steadily expanded to accommodate the growing number of faculties and students. Today, the entire campus forms a loosely connected yet interesting composition of architectural styles from the twentieth and twenty‑first centuries. The modern Agnes Heller House connects surprisingly harmoniously with the neo‑Baroque buildings beside the GeWi Tower. To the west of these lies a student residence. The University Bridge, opened in 1931 to relieve traffic congestion on the Inn Bridge near the Ottoburg during a time of increasing private car use, separates the modern parts of the university on Herzog‑Otto‑Ufer from the main buildings. The bulky Georg Trakl Tower looms with its daring roof construction over the orange building section below, which houses the New Mensa. In 2023, the building was named after the poet Georg Trakl (1887–1914), who lived in Innsbruck for a short time and is buried in Mühlau, and who took his own life in Galicia under the horrific impressions of the First World War. The ten‑storey building houses the Brenner Archive. Particularly controversial is the forecourt of the main university on Christoph‑Probst‑Platz, with the memorial designed by Lois Welzenbacher commemorating members of the university who fell in the First World War. Like many representatives of modern architecture and art of the 1920s, Welzenbacher was drawn to the excitement and novelty emanating from fascist movements. At least on paper, Mussolini and his associates aimed to completely reshape society in the spirit of Futurism. Welzenbacher’s enthusiasm in this regard was not exceptional. Young, ambitious people with aspirations for advancement, disappointed by the bleak post‑war situation, in particular felt addressed and reassured by the promise of renewal in all areas of life. A pan‑German mindset was widespread in the population anyway. Members of various student fraternities positioned themselves ideologically between pan‑German nationalism, conservative Catholic Austrofascism, and National Socialism. Scientific antisemitism and anti‑socialism were socially acceptable among academics of the time. Vice‑Rector Theodor Rittler inaugurated the memorial with the words: “Germany, may your Reich come!” The fraternity slogan “Honour – Freedom – Fatherland” was only expanded in 2019 by adding the word “Which” to each element. The renaming of the square as Christoph‑Probst‑Platz commemorates the Innsbruck medical student who was executed in 1943 as a member of the resistance group White Rose. A memorial plaque on the monument also recalls Probst and the university’s less commendable period between 1938 and 1945. A second plaque commemorates the liberation theologians Ignacio Ellacuría and Segundo Montes, two alumni of the University of Innsbruck who were murdered by the regime in San Salvador in 1989.

On the riverside facing the Inn, young people gather today in a relaxed atmosphere. The low wall above the river, better known as the Sonnendeck, has in recent years become a genuine point of contention in city politics. The student‑driven concept of meeting in public space without mandatory consumption clashes with the regulatory zeal of municipal officials and politicians.

The narrow building with its striking façade on Josef‑Hirn‑Straße houses Innsbruck’s largest student fraternity, Austria. Next to the entrance, a bronze plaque commemorates the fraternity’s founding on 9 June 1864 and bears its motto “In Veritate Libertas” (“In truth there is freedom”). This makes Austria one of the oldest of Innsbruck’s many student fraternities, whose often imposing fraternity houses can still be encountered, especially in Wilten and St. Nikolaus. Austria’s own “Bude” (fraternity house), however, is of more recent date. The building was financed and constructed by the members themselves in 1902. Old photographs show that it initially stood alone and was only gradually surrounded by other houses. With its distinguished appearance, turrets, and bay windows, it stands out markedly among the surrounding residential buildings. During the First World War it served as a military hospital. Today, the fraternity house contains several parlours, bars, and rooms for studying and celebrating together.

How did the founding of myth‑enshrouded fraternities such as Austria come about? In the nineteenth century, liberal and national‑state aspirations among students and professors also became increasingly popular at the University of Innsbruck. Members of the university demanded civil liberties, a free press, and a constitution. The long‑established feudal order was increasingly challenged in favour of a modern state modelled on France and England. It was above all students who, in 1848, supported the relatively moderate revolution in Innsbruck. They organized themselves into student fraternities. The fraternity system originated in the medieval university milieu, where professors and students were grouped into Landmannschaften, that is, according to nationality or language groups. Each Landmannschaft with sufficient members had its own clothing, insignia, and orders, cultivated its own traditions, and sought to assert its interests within university life. From this spirit emerged the first corps and groups at German universities after the Napoleonic Wars, which saw themselves as the nucleus of the German national idea. While conservative subjects formed paramilitary associations among the riflemen, these fraternities enjoyed great popularity among academics. Within the fraternity system there were and still are different forms. The majority of Austrian fraternities that still exist today have a traditionally Catholic background. There are, however, also fencing fraternities that are politically positioned far on the right. In the early modern period, students were permitted to carry a sword—the gladius deambulatoris—after completing their first year at university. The fencing fraternities have preserved the tradition of bearing arms and engaging in duels of honour to this day. Most still do not admit women to their ranks. They are hierarchically organized and function through their own rituals. The four guiding principles of Austria, still valid today, are the Catholic faith (Religio), fatherland (Patria), scholarship (Scientia), and friendship (Amicitia).

From the nineteenth century onwards, Catholic student fraternities formed a connecting element between Church, politics, and the university. Although a strong, centralized state similar to France was envisaged as a replacement for the fragmented Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation or the German Confederation, a democratic republic was rarely demanded. Catholicism, monarchy, a multi‑ethnic state, and German nationalism—definitions of the “fatherland” varied widely among the different fraternities. The entrance area of Austria’s fraternity house, displaying the Habsburg double‑headed eagle and the Tyrolean eagle, offers a clue to the orientation of this fraternity.

Student fraternities are still powerful networks. A glance at the list of Austria’s former members reveals bishops as well as leading conservative politicians across the decades. Several provincial governors, mayors of Innsbruck, and Federal Chancellor Julius Raab were members. The display of sabres, ribbons, and caps at events and processions may appear ridiculous at first glance to uninitiated observers. The customs, traditions, and practices are certainly antiquated and not to everyone’s taste. For outsiders, the intellectual world of the fraternities is difficult to grasp and often contradictory. Members of Austria were involved in Catholic resistance to National Socialism. Appropriately, the aphorism above the portal reads: “I was built as a shelter and refuge for human rights and free speech.” On the other hand, Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg—both chancellors of the brief period that would enter Austrian history as Austrofascism—were also members of Austria.

As Innsbruck grew in the 16th century, new residential areas had to be developed outside the walled medieval city center and the Neustadt. Innrain, today a busy thoroughfare with dense development, became in the 16th century the preferred residential district for the expanding administrative class of the princely residence city. The construction of the Church of St. John was owed less to concerns for the spiritual well‑being of the new residents than to false accusations made against a civil servant. In 1721, the court construction clerk Josef Dörflinger had a small chapel built. The reason was his rehabilitation following dismissal proceedings. In keeping with the spirit of the time, he had vowed to build a chapel if only his reputation were restored. In his search for a patron saint whose story matched his own situation, he chose the then‑modern Bohemian priest John of Nepomuk (1350–1393). According to legend, John of Nepomuk refused to break the Seal of Confession when King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia demanded details of his wife’s confessions. Angered by his refusal, the king had the pious priest tortured in Prague and then drowned in the Vltava River. A few years later, construction began on the Church of St. John at that very site, following plans by Georg Anton Gumpp. In 1735, the church was solemnly consecrated and officially dedicated to John of Nepomuk, who had meanwhile been canonized by the Pope. He suited not only the newly exonerated court construction clerk Dörflinger but, as the patron saint of bridges, was also a fitting choice for Innsbruck.

Architecturally, Gumpp embraced the High Baroque style with its characteristic onion‑shaped towers. The temple‑like entrance area of the church is adorned with a beautiful ceiling fresco by Josef Schöpf. The painting depicts the Providentia Divina, divine providence. While the cornucopia pours out wealth and abundance upon the righteous, the lower right section shows Hell, where sinners suffer God’s punishment for their dissolute earthly lives. The church interior is also richly decorated and shines in dazzling white. On the north side of the church’s exterior façade, a commemorative plaque honors the members of the Catholic student fraternity Leopoldina who died in the world wars. The Church of St. John is also known as the “New University Church.” When the university emerged from the Jesuit College in 1669, the powerful Jesuit order oversaw higher education in Innsbruck. For a long time, university services were held in the Jesuit Church. When the main university later relocated to Innrain, the Church of St. John became geographically closer to the students, even though it belonged to a different order than the university itself. In 1993, Bishop Reinhold Stecher (1921–2013), after whom the square in front of the church is named, elevated the Church of St. John to the status of University Church. The square in front of the church commemorates Reinhold Stecher, who remains very popular in Tyrol to this day, and offers a lovely view of the freestanding church. Until 1985, this small inner‑city oasis was a parking lot. Converting it into a car‑free zone was an early decision by Innsbruck standards, considering how long it took to turn Maria‑Theresien‑Straße into a pedestrian area.

It is a characteristic of urban expansion and development that infrastructure not only changes technically, but also in terms of its positioning within the municipality. Cemeteries and hospitals not only grow, but often relocate towards the new peripheral areas. When Innsbruck grew from a small community on the bridge into a city, the cemetery was moved from the parish church within the city walls next to the city hospital to today's Adolf-Pichler-Platz. The expanding Hofburg under Emperor Maximilian required the space of the old churchyard. In the 19th century, as more and more buildings grew up around the hospital church and the Gottesacker, both institutions moved westwards. The Tyrolean art historian Heinrich Hammer (1873 - 1953) described the relocation in 1923 in his book Art history guide through the buildings and monuments as follows:

„The city's oldest cemetery was located around St. Jacob's parish church; apparently because of the expanding Hofburg of Maximilian I, it was moved outside the city in 1510 to the Hl. Geist-Spitalskirche, where a Gothic double chapel (below in honour of St. Michael and St. Vitus, above St. Anne) and (1571, 1591) arcades were built as early as 1510-16. After this „old“ cemetery had been enlarged several times (1849), the city decided in 1855 to build a new cemetery in the west of the city, opened part of it in 1856 and at the same time stopped burials in the old cemetery, whose chapel and graves were then demolished in 1869 with the barbaric destruction of most of the old gravestones; its place is now taken by the state secondary school built in 1869 and the Karl Ludwig-Platz marked out in 1896.“

The relocation was not only due to lack of space; contemporary ideas of hygiene were no longer compatible with a cemetery located in the city centre. Although the enlightened Emperor Joseph II failed with his attempt to introduce greater rationality into attitudes toward death—most famously through reusable folding coffins—new times also began in Catholic Tyrol after 1848. In 1855, the city of Innsbruck announced a competition for the design of a new cemetery. The specifications called for a rectangular layout and a design modelled on an Italian campo santo. Carl Müller prevailed with his contemporary, modern design featuring several entrances and artistically designed arcades that enclosed the grave fields now located north of the consecration hall. The new cemetery was constructed in the summer of 1856 on undeveloped fields in Wilten, south of Innrain. The arcade was decorated by Franz Plattner, August von Wörndle, Mathias Schmid, and Georg Mader—one of the co‑founders of the Tyrolean Stained Glass Workshop—in a late expression of the then‑fashionable Romantic Nazarene style. In 1859, the artist Josef Gröbmer (1815–1882) from Bruneck created the statue of the Resurrected Christ above the former main portal at the northern entrance.

A walk through the well‑kept grounds with their old trees is like a museum visit and a journey into the past. The monuments and grave sites not only display a wide range of artistic styles, but also reveal much about those buried there and the circumstances of their times. Many graves, such as the monument of the Unterberger family and the neo‑Gothic vault of the Innsbruck composer Josef Pembaur, are—like the arcades—adorned with Nazarene‑style paintings, pointing to the deep piety of the deceased. By contrast, the gravestone of the Social Democratic Innsbruck political couple Maria and Martin Rapoldi was designed as a mosaic in the characteristically sober, republican style of the interwar period. The androgynous‑looking figure carries a palm branch and a crown, beneath which the Innsbruck city coat of arms stands proudly as a secular symbol. The restrained, bourgeois honorary grave of Josef Kiebach also bears the city’s coat of arms. The grave monument of the last governor of the Imperial and Royal Monarchy, Josef Schraffl (1855–1922), with its baroque, suffering Crucified figure and stone eagle, reflects the general mood of Tyrol in the aftermath of the First World War, when the region was divided at the Brenner Pass. Under Arcade 96 lies the tomb of the pan‑German nationalist mayor Wilhelm Greil, depicted handing German oak leaves to a veiled female figure reminiscent of antiquity. The Trentino sculptor Andrea Malfatti designed the Oberer family grave in Arcade 48, featuring the Transfiguration of Christ, and the Lodron family grave with a mourning maiden figure in Arcade 52, both in an Italian naturalistic style. In 1909, the Innsbruck master builder Josef Retter commissioned a neo‑Gothic chapel as a family burial site in the newer southern part of the cemetery. With its romantic ivy growth, it could now easily serve as a film set. The massive wooden door is framed by a mosaic close to the Jugendstil aesthetic.

Some of the elaborately designed monuments, honorary graves, and family burial sites of prominent Innsbruck citizens are controversial. A bust commemorates Prelate Anton Müllner, who produced inflammatory war‑mongering works under the pseudonym Brother Willram. Particularly “patriotic” is the war memorial of the fencing fraternity Suevia, whose motto “Freedom, Honour, Fatherland”—shared with other pan‑German fencing fraternities such as Libertas in Vienna—is crowned by a martial figure. The first post‑war mayor Anton Melzer (1898–1951), who was removed from the city council after 1938 and imprisoned for a long time in the Reichenau camp, has his artistically designed honorary grave in close proximity to the final resting place of Egon Denz, mayor of Innsbruck during the Nazi period.

The oldest honorary graves, like the crucifix at the centre of the northern section of the grounds, were transferred in 1858 from the old municipal cemetery to the new central cemetery. These include the grave of court sculptor Alexander Colin (1527–1612), who served under Ferdinand I and created his own monument depicting the Raising of Lazarus during his lifetime, as well as that of Josef von Hormayr (1705–1779), a representative of early Enlightenment thought in Austria and Chancellor of Tyrol. A particularly macabre monument near the northern entrance commemorates this relocation. Created in 1775 for the tomb of the Counts of Wolkenstein‑Trostburg—one of Tyrol’s oldest noble families—it was erected by the city directly in front of the main entrance in 1873. That same year, the Innsbrucker Nachrichten praised the monument in an All Souls’ Day report on the cemetery:

„Leaving the cemetery after this brief review, we come across a well-known monument from the old cemetery, partly hidden behind cypress trees. The town council had the former Wolkenstein monument restored by the sculptor Grissemann and placed here in memory of all the remains transferred from the old cemetery. This important marble work from the end of the last century, with its somewhat foppish old man holding the hourglass over the high coffin, the Grim Reaper, and the beautiful female figure facing him, who turns away from him in horror, is an ornament to our cemetery, which has almost become a centre of Tyrolean art.“

The monument depicts Saturn, the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Chronos. The artistically designed figures in the style of classical antiquity fit in surprisingly well with the 1870s, which were characterised by the onset of historicism. Saturn was the Roman patron saint of time, agriculture and fertility. According to legend, the father of heaven devoured his own children to prevent them from depriving him of his power as ruler. However, his son Jupiter, the Greek Zeus, was saved and was able to overthrow him. The monument shows Saturn in the form of an angel of death, mercilessly holding an expired hourglass in front of a grieving woman bent over a skull, while a child at the foot of the sarcophagus covers its face with a veil.

Three years after the inauguration of the new municipal cemetery, the city opened a Protestant section south of the main grounds—structurally separated, of course, to preserve Catholic order in Tyrol. Five years later, the Jewish section followed, likewise enclosed separately. The former Jewish cemetery on Judenbühel in St. Nikolaus had to be relocated after repeated acts of desecration. In 1961, during the Eichmann trials, this sad history repeated itself when the Jewish section of the West Cemetery was again desecrated by unknown perpetrators. In 1889, the cemetery doubled in size after becoming too small within just over thirty years. The former terminus with the cemetery chapel became a connecting section, and the main entrance was relocated to the eastern end. During the brief economic upswing of the interwar period, the site—now known as the West Cemetery following the opening of the Pradl Cemetery—was once again expanded and modernised. In 1927, the chapel at the centre of the grounds was rebuilt in a cubic style with a pyramidal roof, based on plans by municipal architect Franz Wiesenberg. The stone ensemble above the entrance to the new consecration hall, depicting God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is designed in the sober style of the interwar period. Gottlieb Schuller and Rudolf Jettmar created the paintings, while Franz Santifaller carved the wooden figures symbolising Faith, Hope, and Charity. Inside, mosaics by the Tyrolean Stained Glass Workshop adorn the walls. Fortunately, the old vestibule with Franz Plattner’s frescoes The End of the World, The Last Judgement, and The Heavenly Jerusalem was preserved. In accordance with the modern ideas of the First Republic, the cemetery was also given a small urn grove. The shift from the pompous orthodox burial rite to bourgeois cremation was one of the first measures taken in the revolutionary Soviet Union of the 1920s to demonstrate a break with the monarchist system of Tsarism. In Innsbruck, where Social Democracy was strong, the urn grove represented only a partial success. The planned crematorium proved to be a step too far and failed—like Joseph II’s reusable coffin—due to protests from the Catholic segment of Tyrol.

In 1939, the developer Neue Heimat (note: today’s Neue Heimat Tirol) constructed housing estates in Wilten, Pradl, Reichenau, and Saggen that are still known today as the South Tyrolean Settlements (Südtirolersiedlungen). The most imposing of these estates was built between Egger-Lienz-Straße and Franz-Fischer-Straße under the planning and execution of Theodor Prachensky and Jakob Albert. At first glance, the architecture may appear monotonous and unspectacular; however, from the urban-planning perspective of the 1930s and 1940s, what emerged here was not merely a housing complex but an entire new district. To understand the contrast created by Prachensky, one must recall Wilten in the late 1930s. To the east and north, the South Tyrolean settlement bordered the bourgeois Gründerzeit residential buildings; to the south, the Südring had not yet been built, and to the west toward Zollerstraße, the area was still largely undeveloped and empty. The scale and dimensions of the settlement are best appreciated from above, for example from the Ferrari curve on the Brenner federal road. The two- to three‑storey buildings—painted in vivid red and yellow since the most recent renovation instead of the original grey—are grouped around generous, interconnected inner courtyards. Individual green spaces are enclosed by low stone walls, giving the entire ensemble the character of an inner-city fortress. The entrance to the settlement from Stafflerstraße toward Speckbacherstraße, marked by Neo‑Romanesque columns, functions as a city gate through which one enters the complex. As with the Pembaur block, Prachensky likely sought here as well to establish a connection to Innsbruck’s history through the projecting bay window above the eastern side of the passage—the composition strongly recalls the Golden Roof in the Old Town. The use of Hötting breccia as a building material for the passage further emphasizes this local reference.

The origin of the South Tyrolean settlement reflects Tyrolean history in the first half of the 20th century. After the First World War, the historic region of Tyrol was divided at the Brenner border. Under Mussolini’s fascist regime, the German-speaking population of South Tyrol was subjected to increasing repression. This led to tensions between Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. While Mussolini aimed to Italianize the German-speaking South Tyroleans, Hitler had promised to unite all German-speaking ethnic groups. In 1939, the two dictators agreed to offer the German-speaking population of South Tyrol the option of resettlement from Italy to the German Reich. German propaganda promoting the relocation under the slogan “Heim ins Reich” (“Home into the Reich”) proved effective.

"South Tyroleans, confess yourselves! A difficult but proud hour calls on you to confess for your blood and your people, to decide whether you will finally renounce your German nationality for yourselves and your descendants or whether you will proudly and freely confess your German identity. You are not choosing between your homeland and Galicia, but between a South Tyrol that has become alien to us and the land that the Führer will assign to us in the German Reich. The decision is difficult, but not in doubt for a moment, because we know what we owe to the call of our German blood, the German people and our Führer. We sacrifice the clod to the great goal, the great, holy German Reich."

A large portion of the German-speaking South Tyroleans chose emigration northward. Innsbruck, as the capital of the Reichsgau, was expected to accommodate many of these so‑called Optanten. Authorities anticipated between 20,000 and 50,000 new residents. Construction of the settlements began as early as August 1939 in many peripheral areas of the city, in a spirit of anticipatory obedience. In order to bring the resettlers “home” as quickly as possible, every lever was pulled despite the war. The German Labour Front (DAF) assumed organizational responsibility and founded the housing company Neue Heimat for this purpose. In the first construction phase of the special South Tyrol program, the City of Innsbruck planned 1,000 apartments; nearly 2,000 more were to follow by 1944. In addition to housing, shops, inns, schools, kindergartens, and administrative offices were planned. As the war continued, funds, building materials, and labor became scarce, yet just over 2,100 apartments were ultimately completed across the city. When the blocks between Egger-Lienz-Straße and Franz-Fischer-Straße became ready for occupancy in 1942, the situation had changed dramatically from the time of the plebiscite a few years earlier. The tide of war had turned, along with enthusiasm for the Heim ins Reich movement. There were now too many apartments for too few “returnees” willing to leave their Italian homeland. As a result, over 40% of the apartments were allocated not to South Tyroleans but to “deserving” subjects of the National Socialist system.

During Allied air raids between December 1943 and December 1944, several buildings on Speckbacherstraße were hit. None had to be demolished; the structural fabric largely remained intact. In the 1960s, the buildings were extended by two additional storeys, followed by renovations and a change in color from dreary grey to more vibrant hues. Between the blocks lies the traffic training park, where Innsbruck children earn their cycling license under police supervision. At the corner of Speckbacherstraße and Franz-Fischer-Straße, a silent witness to the construction of the South Tyrolean settlement has survived. At first-floor height stands a stone figure created by the South Tyrolean sculptor Alexander Lanner, who in Innsbruck also produced the Führer bust in the wedding hall of the Golden Roof and the Princess and the Frog King fountain sculpture in the Hofgarten. The man, standing rigidly and gazing resolutely northward toward the Old Reich, is intended to represent a typical South Tyrolean in Merano costume—a symbol of the Optanten who professed allegiance to the German ideology of blood and soil and left their homeland as a result.

As in Innsbruck’s other South Tyrolean settlements, the period following National Socialism and the war was marked by the reconquest of the Catholic Church. Between the housing blocks and the West Cemetery, the Parish of the Holy Family was established—some fifty years after an initial planning phase around the turn of the century—in response to the city’s growth and pastoral needs. For decades, Wilten residents who did not belong to the Sacred Heart parish on Maximilianstraße or to the Basilica had to attend services in provisional emergency churches. In 1957, Bishop Paulus Rusch consecrated the first church in a truly modern architectural style.

When the Innsbruck city council decided in 2016 to fell “the willow,” a storm of outrage broke out. Every native Innsbrucker immediately knew which tree was meant. The city councillor responsible for urban planning was flooded with emails in which indignant citizens vented their emotions over the loss of the tree. All the shouting and protestations were to no avail. The willow was simply too old and, given its considerable size, posed a safety risk—its removal was unavoidable. The tree at the center of the controversy stood on Sonnenburgplatz, a small inner-city roundabout in Wilten. Its drooping branches and foliage formed a canopy over a stone fountain consisting of two intertwined dolphins spouting water into two shell-shaped basins. The square offered neither a comfortable bench nor did it commemorate any particular event in the city’s history. No famous artist had designed it, and hardly anyone was aware of the fountain’s former name, Salz- und Pfefferbüchselbrunnen. Only with the imminent disappearance of the willow did Innsbruck’s residents consciously rediscover this long-overlooked square, one that had largely faded into the background of everyday life. That the fountain stood at this location was also pure coincidence. In 1886 it had been installed on the forecourt of the railway station to offer arriving guests a fittingly modern welcome to the up-and-coming tourist city of Innsbruck. The two dolphins, symbols of peace and harmony, were chosen accordingly. When Baron Johann von Sieberer realized his plan in 1905 to erect the far more pompous Union Fountain to celebrate the unification of Innsbruck and Wilten, the dolphin fountain was relocated to Wilten, to its present site near the Wilten State Railway Station opened in 1883—today’s Westbahnhof. The coats of arms of Innsbruck and Wilten were likely engraved into one of the basins at a later date. The stately Sonnenburgplatz itself had developed into an upscale residential quarter of Wilten from the 1880s onward. Its name recalls the sovereign court of justice Sonnenburg, which originated in the Middle Ages above Bergisel. Similar to Claudiaplatz in the Saggen district, residential buildings for the affluent bourgeoisie were erected in what was then still the independent municipality of Wilten, in keeping with the architectural style of the time. The architectural highlight of the ensemble is the Sonnenburg on the southwest side of the square, built in 1902 in the style of Historicism, with its imposing balcony and rich ornamentation. Also worth seeing are the Gründerzeit buildings in the side streets. The statues of bare-breasted ladies and bearded gentlemen on the house at Sonnenburgstraße 17, as well as the attractive façades of the colorful buildings in Stafflerstraße west of the square, allow for a small journey back in time to the Belle Époque. A postcard from 1910 shows the spaciousness and splendor of the square, on which a female cyclist presents her modern sporting equipment—without a willow, it should be noted.

By the way: the newly planted tree is growing vigorously and will soon become a worthy and stately successor. The more intriguing question is whether it will be possible to enhance Sonnenburgplatz by removing traffic to such an extent that it might once again become a postcard-worthy motif in Innsbruck’s urban landscape.

The Tyrolean Stained Glass and Mosaic Workshop was not the largest, but probably the most internationally renowned industrial enterprise in Innsbruck in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The influence that the company and its founders had on the city can hardly be overstated. The architecture of the factory building in Wilten reflects the extraordinary skills of its artists and craftsmen. Unlike many other entrepreneurs, the art‑minded founders placed great emphasis on the aesthetic quality of their premises. Co‑founder and master builder Josef von Stadl created a factory complex whose core structure has survived to this day. The facility had to strike a balance between art workshop, exhibition space, offices, and industrial production for large commissions involving more than one hundred windows. Entering the complex, which opened in 1870, from Müllerstraße, one immediately notices the marble plaque framed by mosaics commemorating visits by Emperor Franz Joseph I. The statue of Saint Barbara above the entrance, like the rest of the core of the three‑storey main building, has been preserved to this day despite numerous renovations. The neo‑Romanesque main building, adorned with gold lettering, evokes a church in its architectural language. A medieval‑looking lamp in the Tyrolean national colours hangs in front of the entrance. In the inner courtyard, several surviving works in different styles bear witness to the artistic craftsmanship of various periods. Opposite the entrance portal, the façade is decorated with a Habsburg coat of arms featuring the double‑headed eagle and a gold, Orthodox‑inspired depiction of the Mother of God with Christ the King on her lap. In the rear courtyard of the main building, the production halls and workshops added in 1884 can be examined. A Jugendstil mosaic of the Virgin Mary hangs somewhat off to the side in the passageway between the building wings. The gable of the western façade on Glasmalereistraße is crowned by a gold Madonna with the Christ Child.

At least as fascinating as the building itself is the history of the Tyrolean Stained Glass and Mosaic Workshop. After centuries during which stained glass painting had sunk into obscurity, this craft experienced a revival in the wake of the new historicist architectural styles and under the patronage of King Ludwig, in the form of Germany’s first industrial stained glass workshop. In Tyrol, it took a series of coincidences and three remarkable men to bring this important craft for sacred architecture back to life. Josef von Stadl and Georg Mader from Steinach, together with the Innsbruck native Albert Neuhauser, founded the Tyrolean Stained Glass Workshop in 1861. Just four years later, more than 450 windows had already been produced. The workshop expanded, making a move to the Baur House, owned by textile manufacturer Franz Baur, necessary. Soon, these premises also became too small for the company and its future plans. In 1869, construction of the new factory complex in Wilten began. In the same year, production of the company’s own raw material—glass—started in the workshop under the technical direction of the inventive Neuhauser. When space within the factory became too limited for glass production, a company‑owned cathedral glassworks was built in 1872 on the fields of Wilten at what is now Schöpfstraße 19, where the precious raw material was produced on a larger scale until 1899.

After the economic crisis of 1873, the construction industry flourished thanks to mass commissions from public authorities, and with it the Tyrolean Stained Glass Workshop. From the outset, the company distinguished itself through its strong connections and extensive network not only within the Danube Monarchy. As early as 1871, the first overseas commission left the workshop bound for the United States. During this period, the company was a regular participant in the popular world exhibitions of the time. In 1874, Neuhauser had to leave the company for health reasons. He was succeeded by Albert Jele as the new director and partner of the stained glass workshop. Under Jele’s leadership, the company expanded significantly. Jele was an art historian, well travelled, and fluent in several languages. With its international branches, the Tyrolean Stained Glass Workshop became a global player in its field. In 1880, the company expanded to Vienna. Jugendstil artists, Expressionists, and modern architects had discovered the colourful windows from Wilten for projects beyond church construction. The artworks were delivered as far afield as India and Australia. In 1891, the new management opened a branch in New York to avoid U.S. import tariffs of 45 percent. Meanwhile, Neuhauser founded the Tyrolean Mosaic Workshop. In 1900, his solo venture merged with the parent company to form the Tyrolean Stained Glass and Mosaic Workshop. In Innsbruck, the parish churches of St. Nikolaus, Dreiheiligen, and Hötting, the Wilten Basilica, the Convent of Perpetual Adoration, the Collegium Canisianum, as well as the Chamber of Commerce, TIWAG at Landhausplatz, and the hospital feature mosaics created by the Wilten art workshop. The two cemeteries in Pradl and Wilten also display examples of the mosaic workshop’s craftsmanship at various locations. On the low buildings on Müllerstraße, a mosaic above the entrance recalls the former purpose of the otherwise inconspicuous house. The adjacent building at Glasmalereistraße 8 was constructed the following year by Innsbruck master builder Anton Fritz as a residence for Jele on the newly laid‑out Glasmalereistraße. The architect adhered to the neo‑Romanesque model of the factory building opposite, using church‑like round arches and Jugendstil elements. Above the entrance door, a window in the style of the fin de siècle depicts a boat. In 1929, the Mader family purchased the house and had it extended by a third floor by Franz Baumann in the style of New Objectivity, while retaining the original structural core. Although the golden age of stained glass craftsmanship ended with the fall of the monarchy, the company managed to survive. Fresh impulses from changing artists and artistic directors—including prominent figures such as Hans Andre, Max Weiler, Ernst Nepo, and Max Spielmann—kept the business going. In 1929, alongside the vertical extension of the Mader House on Glasmalereistraße, a renovation was carried out according to plans by Franz Baumann. In 1944, the stained glass and mosaic workshop was severely damaged in an air raid. Reconstruction began immediately after the war. Since 2000, a guesthouse has occupied the western part of the listed building. To this day, the company produces high‑quality leaded glass, now in its fifth generation. From the historicism of the Belle Époque through the Expressionism of the interwar period to abstract art after 1945, the stained glass workshop has accompanied Tyrol’s architectural and artistic scene for more than 150 years. The most famous works in Innsbruck are probably the windows of the Municipal Baths on Salurnerstraße, St. Nikolaus Church, and the Protestant Christ Church.

An imperial wedding and an imperial death within just a few days in the summer of 1765 briefly made Innsbruck the center of Europe. The Triumphal Arch (Triumphpforte) commemorates the events that took place in Innsbruck. On August 5, Maria Theresa’s son Leopold married the Spanish princess Maria Ludovica in Innsbruck. For the wedding party arriving from southwestern and eastern Europe, Innsbruck was an ideal meeting point to seal the union, as the former residence city already had experience hosting royal and princely weddings. But this time, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Despite all efforts, the cultural program in the small city could not match the tastes of the noble society. Innsbruck, despite its glorious past as a residence city, had been little more than a provincial town for nearly 100 years. Unstable weather and the groom’s bout of gastroenteritis dampened the mood. News of the bride’s uncle’s death did not help either. The greatest misfortune came shortly after the wedding: on August 18, the groom’s father, Emperor Francis Stephen I of Habsburg-Lorraine, died of a stroke.

Originally, the wooden arch was intended only as a temporary, festively decorated entrance to the city for the wedding. Reviving the Roman custom of triumphal arches for major events of the imperial family was not unusual. A similar arch had been erected for Emperor Charles VI’s ceremonial entry into the city. In 1774, Maria Theresa had her triumphal arch built permanently in stone, modeled after the ancient Emperor Constantine’s arch, to commemorate both her husband’s death and her son’s wedding forever. The southern side of the arch, facing Leopoldstraße, expresses joy over the wedding of the future Emperor Leopold II. The portrait of the couple is flanked by figures of Providentia Divina (Divine Providence) and Constantia (Constancy). These two virtues were considered essential by the Habsburgs, legitimizing their power over their subjects through divine right, which ensured the stability of the realm for the common good. On the northern side, facing Maria-Theresien-Straße, the angel of death looms in baroque grandeur, symbolizing grief over the emperor’s sudden death. The arch was built using remnants of the city wall and demolition material from the suburban gate at today’s southern Old Town entrance, which had been removed in 1765 during modernization. With the Nordkette mountains to the south, Palais Sarnthein to the west, and the Winklerhaus to the east in the background, the Triumphal Arch today is no longer a memorial to the most disastrous wedding in the city’s history but a stunning photo spot. It’s worth getting up early, as daytime traffic can be quite disruptive if you want to capture a perfect shot.

The Winkler House often escapes the notice of inattentive passers‑by—unjustly so, for it is not only one of Innsbruck’s few Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) buildings, but also one of the city’s most remarkable houses. The two parts of the building, consisting of a commercial section on Leopoldstraße and a residential section on Maximilianstraße, stand out clearly from the surrounding architecture. In 1873, the Innsbruck city pharmacist Franz Winkler (1833–1895) had the building extended to its present height. His successor as owner of the house, Innsbruck lawyer Josef Winkler, commissioned the Munich architect Anton Bachmann to replace the classical façade with the then‑modern Jugendstil façade. From Leopoldstraße, the façade with its rich and expansive ornamentation can be admired. The animals, mythical creatures, and masks on the capitals are typical of the playful Art Nouveau style. In the frieze zone above the commercial section is a mosaic of a Byzantine Madonna—an extremely unusual depiction of the Virgin Mary for Innsbruck. Instead of the suffering Mother of God, she is shown adorned with jewels and elaborate headgear. Above the entrance to the shop on the ground floor, Moorish dancers contort their bodies, a reminiscence by the artist of Innsbruck’s history. This courtly dance from the time of Maximilian was also immortalized in sculptural form on the Golden Roof. The part of the Winkler House on Maximilianstraße is less colourful, but no less worth seeing. In particular, the bay window decorated with two mythical creatures points to an imaginative and creative patron. Beneath it is the inscription:

“Let each see how he goes about his ways, Let each see where he stands, And whoever stands, Let him take care not to fall.”

Jugendstil was an expression of a new bourgeois self‑understanding around the turn of the twentieth century. It represented a form of rebellion against long‑established values that the aristocracy—especially in the Austrian monarchy—continued to embody despite the changes after 1848. Enlightened citizens increasingly saw themselves as individuals beyond Catholic hierarchies and the emerging technocracy. Sensuality and nature were set against rationality and rigid social structures; bodily awareness became a symbol of a new era. Life reformers rejected the rigid structuring of time and the obligation to submit in every respect to rapidly advancing technology and rationalism. Human beings—body, mind, and soul in harmony with nature—were to take centre stage. Jugendstil as an artistic movement aligned itself with these currents. Like Romanticism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it sought to reintroduce a sense of mysticism into life, away from a structured and sober reality. Its splendour hinted at a new and better age, a Golden Age. The clear forms of Classicism and the pure rationality they represented were to be overcome by the playfulness of Jugendstil.

The Winkler House thus stands in contrast to the majority of buildings erected in Innsbruck around 1900. This becomes particularly evident when comparing its architecture with the austere main post office opposite on Maximilianstraße, which was designed in 1908 in the typical style of Austro‑Hungarian imperial administrative buildings. Unlike Vienna, from where Jugendstil—driven by artists such as Otto Wagner and Gustav Klimt—began its triumphant advance, this style never truly established itself in Tyrol. City pharmacist Franz Winkler, however, proved open to modern art not only in choosing his residence but also in the design of his final resting place. An expressive modernist, cubist image adorns the Winkler family grave in the arcades of the West Cemetery in Wilten.

People in Innsbruck born before the 1990s may still nostalgically remember the omnipresent logo of Innsbruck’s Adambräu beer that once adorned countless taps across the city. Until recently, a large mural featuring the iconic Adambräu lettering—showing two men cheerfully clinking glasses—could still be seen on a residential building in Knollerstraße. Unlike today, when any reputable bar offers a fine selection of domestic and international beers, nightlife in earlier days often meant choosing only between Zipfer and Adambräu. The brand has now disappeared from bar counters and supermarket shelves, but parts of the brewery buildings still exist. The story of Adambräu began in Wilten, at the estate of Windegg, better known as Palais Stachelburg. With a Gothic building core dating back to the 15th century, the property was once the residence of the Counts of Stachelburg. Their successors, the Barons of Sternbach, gave the house its Baroque appearance in 1730 and expanded the main building by adding side wings. Anyone with the opportunity to visit can admire the elaborate stucco decorations and the house chapel inside. At least since 1820, spirits were distilled and served in the Stachelburg. In 1825, Franz Josef Adam purchased the estate and opened his brewery and restaurant. A few years earlier, he had moved from Mals in the South Tyrolean Vinschgau to Innsbruck, where he worked as a silk manufacturer and general goods merchant, eventually obtaining full citizenship in the city. Adam redesigned the façade into its present form and added a fourth story. After his death in 1830, his equally enterprising wife Elisabeth took over the business. She also commissioned the construction of the Bretterkeller inn above Wilten Abbey, which still exists today. Their children initiated a long period of frequent ownership changes when they sold the property in 1835. In 1886, the owners Heinrich Jenewein and Hermann Winter—operating as Adambräu Wilten OHG—expanded the Stachelburg with a loggia that served as a salon and stage. A garden pavilion for concerts, in line with the fashion of the time, was also added. The Exl-Bühne theater troupe even performed at Adambräu in its early years. Thanks to high‑quality furnishings, ample beer, music, and theater, the establishment grew into one of the city's most popular venues. Shooting festivals, singing evenings, and club meetings filled both the seats and the coffers of the brewery.

The First World War changed the business dramatically. During the lean years of wartime, consumption in Innsbruck’s restaurants declined sharply. By the end of the war, the brewery’s output had fallen to just 614 hectoliters. In 1917, a cooperative of 20 Innsbruck restaurateurs took over the struggling company as Gastwirtegenossenschaft Adambräu Gesellschaft mbH to secure the city’s beer supply. On 20 February 1918, during the first air raid on Innsbruck, several bombs struck the brewery grounds. The nearby wooden bridge over the Sill canal was hit, and more than 700 windowpanes shattered from the blast. The greatest damage occurred when a direct hit destroyed the cooling house’s irrigation condenser. The leaking ammonia gas led the terrified population to believe they were under a large‑scale gas attack, provoking panic throughout the city.

Eight years after the bombing, the most striking and most debated alteration to Innsbruck’s cityscape took place: the reconstruction of Adambräu. Following plans by Lois Welzenbacher, the cooperative had a new brewhouse built in the style of White Tyrolean Modernism. The asymmetrical building—with its sharp, jagged form, smooth white surface, and irregular metal-framed windows—provoked strong reactions. The red cooling house with its industrial crown beside it also stood out prominently. Welzenbacher’s design, together with the administrative building of the Innsbruck Electric Works, was intended to mark a new architectural era beyond historicism and to create a clear contrast between the modern, industrialized city and the old one. While the building’s exterior underwent a dramatic transformation between 1926 and 1931, the brewery itself maintained its traditional focus: supplying Innsbruck’s gastronomy. In the economically booming 1950s, festivities returned with new optimism. Adambräu became one of the most sought‑after venues for balls and celebrations. In the 1960s, now operating under the name Adambräu Gesellschaft m.b.H., the company began selling its beer through retail outlets. In 1994, the Adambräu was taken over by Brauunion, which dominates the Austrian beer market. Although the brand survived for some time, the brewery in Innsbruck eventually ceased production.

Welzenbacher’s modern buildings were placed under historic protection in 1996. The former cooling hall was unfortunately converted into office space without much sensitivity, losing much of its distinctive character. The brewhouse, by contrast, was carefully restored in 2005. Rainer Köberl and his team from aut.architektur und tirol placed great value on preserving the industrial identity of the space, both inside and out. Today, the University of Innsbruck’s Archive for Architecture is housed in the historic brewhouse. True to Welzenbacher’s vision, the renovation embraces form follows function and the unique aesthetics of White Tyrolean Modernism. On the otherwise unremarkable Südbahnstraße, the ADAMBRÄU signage on the façade still recalls the building’s history. In the former Ansitz Windegg, visitors can admire the 15th‑century Gothic vaults while enjoying a game of billiards.

Wiltener Platzl, today a popular meeting place for Innsbruck’s youth and student population, has its roots—so to speak—in Roman antiquity. At the corner of Leopoldstraße and Dr.-Karl-von-Grabmayr-Straße, a mural dating from the 1950s commemorates the Roman military camp Veldidena, which was located directly at the access point to the Via Raetia leading toward the Brenner Pass. Four massive watchtowers and a wall more than two meters thick enclosed the fortress, in which over 500 soldiers were stationed. Along this traffic route, a new lifestyle made its way into the Inn Valley. Around the military camp, a trading outpost emerged: a village with an inn, weapon forges, brickworks, and various crafts. The land surrounding Veldidena had to be cleared for livestock. Equipment and clothing needed to be produced and repaired, and the soldiers had to be fed and entertained. Nor did the Bavarian settlement halt the growth of the village around Wilten Abbey, whose center lay near today’s Gasthof Haymon. According to the abbey’s land register, Wilten consisted of a large manor farm, two mills, twelve farmsteads, five feudal holdings, thirty small houses, and a brewhouse where beer was produced for the monastery’s cheerful daily life. Long before Innsbruck’s main traffic artery, the Südring, ruthlessly cut through the city from the 1960s onward, a kind of medieval “belt” developed along Leopoldstraße between the Graßmayr Bell Foundry and the Triumphal Arch. As early as the Middle Ages, a second local center emerged at the Lower Village Square. At the beginning of the 17th century, the village already counted 80 houses and a respectable population of 600. By 1775, Wilten had grown as far as today’s Leopoldstraße 22. Fifty-six townhouses and eighty agricultural holdings, along with five inns and seven noble residences, were home to around 1,000 people. While the abbey and the Leuthaus housed the administration of the village, parishes, and the monastery’s estates, economic and civic life unfolded here—where Wiltener Platzl and Kaiserschützenplatz are located today. Merchants and travelers came from the Brenner road to Innsbruck to pay their toll at the customs station near the Triumphal Arch. The farmhouses clustered around the village well gradually developed along this main thoroughfare into bourgeois residences, noble estates, workshops, and shops. The diversity of architectural styles still bears witness to the lively activity of past centuries. House Leopoldstraße 27 was home to a farrier by at least 1428. Together with number 25, it forms a fine example of residential buildings from the first half of the 19th century and of Biedermeier architecture. Not only did the economically difficult period following the Napoleonic Wars cause a slump in construction, but many of the rather unremarkable buildings from this era were later swept away by the fervor of Historicism after 1880. The core of the building opposite, at Leopoldstraße 30 and 32, can be traced back as far as the 12th century. Where a fashion boutique and apartments are located today, merchants once unloaded their goods at the Materialisten Ladele outside Innsbruck’s city limits in order to reduce the expected burden at the customs station. The square building at today’s Liebeneggstraße 2, decorated with Baroque murals, developed together with the Welsberg Schlössl at Leopoldstraße 35 in the 15th century from a farmstead into the Liebenegg estate. In 1601, both buildings were confirmed as a Freisitz, which also included a farmhouse with meadowland. In 1824, the Imperial-Royal gubernatorial registrar had the Liebenegg estate raised to four stories and converted into a rental building. The stately mansion at Leopoldstraße 22 is known as the Steidlevilla. Its core dates back to the 17th century, but in the 19th century it was transformed from a noble residence into a neoclassical villa, entirely in keeping with the bourgeois building boom of the time. It was named after Richard Steidle, co-founder of the League of Tyrolean Antisemites and leader of the Tyrolean Home Guard. During the political turmoil of the interwar period, a true crime story unfolded here in the form of a political assassination attempt: in 1933, Steidle was shot and seriously wounded in front of his villa by the German National Socialist Werner von Alversleben. A little further toward the city center stands one of Innsbruck’s most traditional inns. In 1901, the Trentino natives Heinrich and Maria Steneck opened the wine restaurant Steneck. The establishment was particularly popular among Innsbruck’s Italian-speaking population. Although the Innsbruck locals long regarded the Walschen with skepticism, the exceptionally good cuisine was nonetheless gladly accepted. Both the later Italian Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi, as a young student at the University of Innsbruck, and Benito Mussolini are said to have enjoyed specialties and wine from their homeland here during their time in Innsbruck—before they went on to shape the fate of Europe. Generations of Innsbruck residents have enjoyed schnitzel, sausages, and fries at affordable prices at the Stenni, as the now timeworn establishment is affectionately known. When Heinrich Steneck passed away on December 22, 1953, the Innsbrucker Nachrichten took a touching farewell, on behalf of the entire city, from the founder of this Innsbruck institution.

Der steigende Verkehr seit den 1980ern nahm dem ehemaligen Dorfzentrum seinen Charme. Erst mit der jüngsten Neugestaltung des Wiltener Platzls has succeeded in making this historic square more attractive again. The modern village square with its fountain and seating area is a popular meeting place for residents and walkers alike. Between the two buildings of Ansitz Liebenegg is the modern building in which the Wilten neighbourhood meeting place, a service provided by the Innsbruck Social Services is housed here. The Leopoldstrasse and the Leopoldstraße continue their tradition as a commercial centre outside the city centre. Wiltener Platzl continues to this day. Unlike other main streets in the peripheral neighbourhoods, shops of all kinds flourish here. Boutiques, studios and other small shops manage to establish themselves in the latest hip neighbourhood. Grätzel ebenso wie alteingesessene und neue Lokale am Wiltener Platzl zu behaupten.

The inn “Gasthaus zum Riesen Haymon” is a fixed and defining part of Wilten. When examining the development of this traditional establishment, one can trace the history of the district from the Middle Ages to the present day. Unlike the Golden Eagle or the White Cross, the Haymon did not emerge in the early modern period as an inn for travelers and merchants. For a long time, a farmhouse stood on this site—one of the many agricultural properties under the rule of the Abbot of Wilten. In the 15th century, the building was expanded in the Gothic style, and the mighty cross vaults inside still bear witness to this today. In 1679 the Counts of Lodron transformed the farmhouse into the manor “Augenweidstein.” The stone entrance gate is a remnant of this expansion. A votive image of the Blessed Virgin, venerated in Wilten since late antiquity, offers visitors a pious blessing in the Baroque style of the time:

„Protected by the divine mother, Augenweydstein will be helped in all hardships and dangers.“

It was not until 1840 that a tavern opened in the Augenweidstein manor. At that time, many property owners from the aristocracy found both the need and the opportunity to turn their real estate into profitable businesses in the hospitality and leisure industries or to lease them out as inns. South of the monastery, an establishment had already existed since the 17th century—today’s Bierstindl. As the city grew, the number of holiday visitors on church feast days and walkers on the Bergisel increased, making it possible for a second inn to thrive. Twelve years later, Johann Gruber purchased the Haymon at auction and operated it under the approval of the Abbot of Wilten. To make use of the space in the former palazzo, several of the many rooms were rented out as apartments, as shown by a lodging advertisement in the 1857 issue of the Innsbrucker Nachrichten:

„Im Gasthause zum Haymon Nr. 6 in Wilten… zwei schöne Quartiere im 3. Stock, jedes mit drei heizbaren Zimmer, Küche und Speisgewölbe, Holzhütten und Waschkuceh-Antehei, Estrichkammer… zu vermiethen.“

In the following decades, the inn frequently changed owners and tenants. What remained stable—and survived even the end of the monarchy—was its popularity among the Innsbruck bourgeoisie as well as its close connection to the Wilten Abbey and, by extension, to conservative political associations and affiliated organizations. During the economically difficult interwar years, these two factors were essential for the business’s survival. The Haymon housed the Catholic youth club of Wilten. Associations and institutions such as the Archduke Karl Ludwig Veterans’ Association, the Tyrolean Homeland Society, the Wilten Riflemen, and Catholic student fraternities like Cimbria chose the inn as their meeting place. On its house stage, plays with politically fitting themes and telling titles such as “One’s Own Blood” were performed. During the years of Austrofascism under Chancellors Dollfuß and Schuschnigg, the local chapter of the Fatherland Front—the unified political party—held consultations at the Haymon and organized lectures for groups such as the Maternity Protection League. As part of the church-political network, the Haymon accommodated visiting members of the Homeland Defense during events and parades. Between 1938 and 1945, the inn also remained connected to the Church. While Catholic associations and monasteries were dissolved immediately after the Nazi takeover, the Gasthaus zum Riesen Haymon initially persisted as a thorn in the side of the anti-clerical regime. The innkeeper Heinrich Pfeifer lost his license only after several reports accusing him of “political unreliability,” including his refusal to decorate the house for the Führer’s birthday. After the war, this led to a trial before the Innsbruck People’s Court between Pfeifer and the former block warden who had denounced him. Such cases occupied prosecutors and judges to a large extent during the denazification process. Business at the Haymon soon recovered. During the years of economic growth in the 1950s, the inn was able to flourish again. The chestnut garden, the cozy dining rooms, and the traditionally Austrian dishes served there met the Innsbruck population’s longing for the “good old days.” The newly designed exterior also fit this nostalgia. The large-scale façade paintings by Raimund Wörle (1896–1979), created in 1956, depict Thyrsus and Haymon—two knights who, according to legend, are tied to the founding of the Wilten Abbey. The post-war representation of these legendary figures is particularly interesting. Wörle, who had received instruction from the well-known painter Rafael Thaler during his school years at the Innsbruck State Trade School, had been a member of the Innsbruck Secession before the war. The shimmering armor of the two figures and the cubist rendering of their faces reflect late influences of Art Nouveau. Next to Thyrsus, who holds a tree trunk—said to be a native Tyrolean slain in single combat by the northern immigrant Haymon—stands the Austrian coat of arms. Although Thyrsus is still portrayed as a blond giant, he now has Austrian nationality. Germanic he was meant to appear, but after the years of National Socialism he was no longer necessarily to be associated with “German” identity. When business declined in the 1990s and the inn closed its doors, residents of Innsbruck collected signatures to preserve the Riese Haymon. After several changes of tenants and various culinary concepts, people can once again enjoy traditional Austrian cuisine within the old walls of the Wiltener Oberdorf.