The Austro Modern

The countries of Central Europe cannot simply be understood as catching up with Western modernization. Rather, the article shows how technical developments proceeded in the car factories Lohner in Vienna and Austro-Daimler in Wiener Neustadt, and how the light and powerful gasoline engine drove aircraft construction (the Taube by Etrich) and airship construction. Austria was the leader in aircraft construction around 1910. The creative milieu in Vienna is evident from the fact that the headquarters of the Lohnerwerke was a mere 150 meters from Sigmund Freud's practice. On the technical level, the innovations of Ferdinand Porsche are described, who first built electric cars at the Lohner company before turning to gasoline-powered automobiles at Austro-Daimler in Wiener Neustadt, where he became technical director in 1908 and made a name for himself designing racing cars. Austria achieved a leading international position in the field of racing cars. On the strategic level, the work of Camillo Castiglioni is discussed, who established links with the financial world, raised capital and developed strategies for founding and managing companies. For example, Castiglioni founded Motor-Luftfahrzeug-Gesellschaft in 1909 and became a director of Austro-Daimler in 1909. The paper develops a model that depicts the interplay between Porsche, the technical innovator, and Castiglioni, the strategic innovator, and explains the success of Vienna's unique innovation network around 1910. The paper gives an outlook on the interwar period. The innovation scene shifted to the newly founded state of Czechoslovakia. The article touches on the Tatra 87 automobile (exhibited in the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich) from the Tatra factories in Nesselsdorf and the innovative production concepts of the Bata shoe factory in Zlín, which went far beyond Fordism. These contributions to Czech modernism were forgotten due to 6 years of German occupation from 1939 to 1945 and subsequent 40 years of communist rule.