Vienna combines drama and elegance like no other. For centuries the heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire , the stately city on the Danube, has been defined by vast palaces and imperial grandeur -but behind the Baroque opulence, Vienna is also a place of genteel coffee house culture, epicurean tradition, and a heritage of both delicate and daring music, art, and design, from Johann Strauss to Egon Schiele, from Gustav Mahler to Josef Hoffmann. This volume is a treasure trove of photography from the last 175 years , following the evolution of Vienna from imperial capital to modern metropolis. Like a visual walk through time and cityscape , hundreds of carefully curated pictures trace the developments in Vienna's built environment and the cultural and historical trends they reflect, whether the urban Gesamtkunstwerk of the 19th-century Ringstrasse or the experiments of "Red Vienna" in the 1920s, when the city had a social democrat government for the first time. Through these remarkable photographs, we discover not only the great landmarks and lesser-known corners of Vienna, but also the ubiquity and the tumult of its history. We see the cultural blossoming of the fin de siècle , when radical innovators such as Gustav Klimt , Egon Schiele , Adolf Loos , and Sigmund Freud turned Vienna into a "laboratory of modernity"; the clashes of 1934; the ascent of Nazi dictatorship; and the horrors writ by the Holocaust in what was once one of the most populous and multi-ethnic cities on earth. More recently, fascinating postwar photographs explore the Vienna of the Third Man, at once a city in ruins and a hub for spies . The book closes with the most recent pictures, celebrating the emergence of today's Vienna-one of the most attractive cities in Europe, in which rich history once again coexists with international flair and vibrant contemporary culture.