"Krone" proposal:

Build “Lamarr Park” instead of destroying Michaelerplatz

A park instead of the concrete ruin on Mariahilfer Strasse would actually make the city more climate-friendly - unlike the reconstruction of Michaelerplatz.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV, APA Picturedesk, stockadobe)

Michaelerplatz is to be made "climate-friendly" through redesign. A comparison shows: The "Krone" idea of a park on Mariahilfer Strasse would also have far more benefits in terms of the ecological balance sheet: The arguments for disfiguring the square are extremely thin.

Long before the excavators started rolling onto Michaelerplatz, the "Krone" caused a sensation with the idea of a park instead of the ruined department store on Mariahilfer Strasse. Our readers were persuaded by the arguments: the park would crack the heat island of the new building and would also be good for the economy: Mariahilfer Strasse would have something that no other shopping street has - instead of another off-the-peg global department store.

Park could store tons of nitrogen oxides
The city sees the redesign of Michaelerplatz as "contemporary" in view of climate change. By this it means a few flower beds and just nine trees, which in future will block the view of the Hofburg, St. Michael's Church and Loos House, surrounded by paving slabs with an airfield look. Experts doubt that this will make the square even a little cooler in summer.

Twice the size of Michaelerplatz and green
A "Lamarr Park" would look quite different: This would have an area of around 7500 square meters, making it twice the size of Michaelerplatz - and with a truly unsealed surface and green meadow instead of stone slabs: The lawn alone in the new inner-city park would store around ten tons of CO₂, plus the trees.

Michaelerplatz is to lose its unique appearance.

(Bild: Zwefo)

The park on Mariahilfer Strasse would be as big as Kardinal-Nagl-Platz in the third district. There are exactly 50 trees there. This means that a Lamarr Park would bind around half a tonne more CO₂ every year than the redesigned Michaelerplatz.

Vienna needs urban greenery more than you might think
A look outside the box shows that Vienna needs more real green spaces, especially in urban areas, instead of isolated token trees: the European Environment Agency shows that Vienna has trees on 34 percent of its surface area.

With a figure of 34 percent, Vienna is only slightly above the European average of 30 percent, and only because the Prater and the Lainzer Tiergarten improve the statistics. In other words: one more argument in favor of the park, and one more argument against disfiguring Michaelerplatz.