Otto Biba

After the city walls of Vienna were torn down and the surrounding moat filled in, a magnificent boulevard was to be built in its place. The Society of Friends of Music (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde) then received a plot of land from Emperor Franz Joseph I for the construction of a new Music Society (Musikverein) building, since they had grown out of the previous one on Tuchlauben, one of the most distinguished streets of the inner city. (English full text)