Constructed in 1896, the four gasometers of Vienna’s Gaswerk Simmering are a marvel of indomitable industrial architecture and innovative modern repurposing.
When they were completed in 1899, Vienna’s telescopic gasometers were the largest in all of Europe, each with a volume of some 90,000 m³, seated in a water basin and enclosed by a brickwork façade .Once, these massive round buildings were used as storage tanks for the gas that was dry distilled from coal before being distributed into the city gas network — first for street lamps, then, by 1910, for cooking and heating in homes. Their scale is still impressive in the cityscape, each one towering 70 meters tall and measuring 60 meters across.
