Lamarr skeleton

Viennese ruin as a time bomb for an entire street block

Every day of standstill at the department store construction site on Mariahilferstrasse will pay off in the long run.(Bild: Peter Tomschi)

The clock is ticking for the concrete skeleton of the department store on Vienna's Mariahilfer Strasse: for neighboring buildings in particular, the construction freeze means growing danger - or horrendous, ever-increasing costs. Meanwhile, Vienna's political parties have very different ideas about what to do with the shell of the building.

Even years of construction standstill can do little to harm the concrete structures of the ruined Lamarr department store on Mariahilfer Strasse. Construction expert Remeco Rainer Reichel is convinced of this. He sarcastically calls the shell "the Lamarr ruins" and it is not without reason that he uses the comparison with the flak towers in Vienna - once steel and concrete are there, they are difficult to get rid of. However, the surrounding area is in danger.