WUK

It's 1855 on Währinger Straße, and Vienna's industrial boom is reshaping this corner of the Ninth District. What's rising here isn't just another factory—it's the precision engine that would build the trains connecting an empire. This red brick complex became famous for producing the delicate stage machinery hidden inside the Vienna State Opera, and intricate ironwork for the grand Votivkirche. But when the stock market crashed in 1873, even prestige projects couldn't save the factory from decline. Here's what tourists rarely know: in 1979, this entire twelve-thousand square meter complex sat abandoned and condemned for demolition. City planners wanted condos and commercial space. But then something remarkable happened. Social workers, artists, architects, students, and pensioners flooded these streets with protests. They called themselves "Save the TGM" and refused to let it disappear. They won. In 1980, the Verein zur Schaffung offener Kultur- und Werkstättenhäuser—the Association for Open Culture and Workshop Houses—took over and began the transformation you see today. As you walk through those heavy wooden doors, you'll step into vast exhibition halls that still echo with the machinery of production... but now it's creative production. Concert stages fill spaces where factory floors once vibrated with industrial power. The exposed brick walls, massive timber beams, and soaring ceilings are all architectural DNA from the 1855 construction. Over two hundred thousand people visit here annually. It's become one of Europe's largest independent socio-cultural centers, proof that sometimes a community's refusal to accept demolition can transform a city's cultural future. The working-class activism that saved this building is still thriving inside these walls.