When the old seat of Habsburg power was trans­formed into a modern metropolis, the imperial resi­dence assumed unexpected proportions. Beginning in 1860 Emperor Franz Joseph I moved all of the ma­jor political and cultural buildings of the city-from the opera and the theater to the parliament, city hall, university, and even the Kaiserforum-to the area where the old city defenses had once formed a ring around Vienna. The world's largest construction site at the time, the famous Ringstrasse later became a place where the prosperous middle class established a site for their own building projects, which rivaled those of the court and nobility. This volume brings the "society of the Ringstrasse" to life; it tells the sto­ry of the architects and artists involved in this fasci­nating ensemble and of everyday life behind the façades. Contemporary photographs capture the wealth of this architectural legacy and are shown alongside previously unpublished historical photo­graphs. (English edition ISBN 978-3-7757-3773-9)