Archive - Oil in Neusiedl

Agnes Tatzber, 1018442

Visual archive Oil-reflections through built environment How fossil fuels shaped attributes an capabilities of the society in Neusiedl an der Zaya

Critical Strategies: History and Theory + Research Methods Trimester 2, 2021 Tutor: Andrea Bagnato Piet Zwart Institute Master of Interior Architecture: Research + Design

1912, Work on the fields 1

date: 1912, photography source: Messinger Ferdinand

Neusiedl an der Zaya is located in the upper east corner of Austria, 60km from the border of Vienna, and is probably one of the least noticed areas in Europe. (Skarics, 1993) The first written record of the village dates back to 1245. One cannot read very much about the history of the village. Until the 1930ies the people lived almost exclusively from agriculture. On this image you see how it looked like before the land was consolidated, with narrow fields and grain fields at harvest time.

1914, first drillings

An important day in the history of oil in the Vienna basin was 10. January 1914, when the first oil was produced from a depth of 164 meters in the Czech part of the geological formation. The daily production was about 15 tons. Just before the outbreak of the first world war, oil was discovered near the Lower Austrian border in Egbell/Gbeliy in Slovakia. This deposit gave hope for further occurrences in the depths of the Austrian soil. Due to records the first well was drilled in St. Ulrich, north of Neusiedl an der Zaya by a military task force of about twenty men consisting of pioneers and well drillers as well as Turkish experts in the summer of 1915 under the leadership of Bergrat H Vetter.

The geologist Vetter discovered the roughly forty-kilometer-long fault of the Steinberg quarry, which runs southwest of Neusiedl. He was followed by Friedrich Musil (18811954), one of the most important Crude oil pioneers in Austria, a short time later. Musil drilled 635 meters deep but nothing notable was found.

date: 1914, newspaper cutout Sammlung Erdölmuseum Neusiedl

2

1940 , aerial view - direction west

The aerial view shows the village arranged along a main road and closed to the streetfront. For a long time, so-called "Streckhöfe" were typical in the Weinviertel and the entire Danube region. This particular farmhouse variant is characterized by the planned form of construction with a clear focus on agriculture.

Luftaufnahme - Richtung Osten, photo date: ca. 1940 source: Heinz Roman

3

1970, farmhouse of the Hubinger family 4 barn for machines and straw gate to the fields stables

food storage

main housing area second dwelling unit

Hubingerhaus, photography, date: approx.1970 source: Heinz Roman

The main building of a „Streckhof“ is located directly on the road, connected at right angles behind it are other utility buildings such as stables, storage rooms and workshops. Is bordered on the sides by neighboring yards and thus does not have additional walls and fences to enclose the private space.

1930, Pipeline building 5

Archiv Rohstoff Geschichte collection OMV-Bildarchiv

Near Zistersdorf a pipeline is being installed. Many hundreds, perhaps thousands of kilometres of pipeline have probably been laid in the Vienna Basin since then. In the pictures from the beginning of the 1930s, the physical effort involved in laying the small-sized pipe is clearly perceptible. And in addition the - at least on the surface - temporary technical intervention in the landscape.

1937, Steinberg querry

The geological findings from the boreholes drilled up to 1937 were presented by Karl Friedl in a profile through the quarry. The map from 1937, a few months before the annexation, shows the geographical location of the boreholes lying on the Zistersdorf oilfield.

Zistersdorfer Ölfeld, map, date: 1937, source: book Ruthammer, G., 2013. Öldorado Weinviertel: zur Geschichte des Erdöls im Weinviertel.

Winkler-Hermaden, Schleinbach, p.57

6

1938, Drilling St. Ulrich I 7

source: archive Rohstoff Geschichte, collection Karl Brabec

With the annexation, at the latest, the mineral resource became a concrete component of Nazi war planning. The Bitumen Law de facto expropriates the owners from their drilling rights.

German corporations coordinate the exploitation of the deposits. A massive expansion of the wells for the war economy of the Second World War took place. The Nazi regime's plan: to use these wells to conquer the oil fields of the Caucasus. Here the opening of the St. Ulrich 1 well on 25.9.1938.

Baraks of the workers 8

postcard from 1958

Ölfeld, photography, date: 1958, source: Heinz Roman

During the Second World War, a total of more than 400 drillings were carried out in the Neusiedl area, which made it the centre of oil production in the German Reich. In 1944, the highest annual production from around 470 drillings around Neusiedl amounted to more than 800,000 tonnes of oil. About half of this came from boreholes in the municipal area of Neusiedl. Van Sickle alone employed 500 to 600 workers, not only local drillers but also numerous conscripted French and Ukrainians as well as prisoners of war. Numerous barracks had to be built to house the workers, located south of the brick canteen building and west of the Van Sickle fields. Before the Red Army liberated and then occupied the oil deposits in the Weinviertel, the production facilities were largely paralysed. Personnel and essential equipment were taken to Upper Austria, engine spark plugs were moved aside and other machine parts were often merely buried, so that the reconstruction of the facilities took a correspondingly long time.

1955, Stalin bust 9

The Soviet enterprise maintained plant security guards—the communist Werkschutz—which acted as an armed quasi-paramilitary organization of several hundred members. Its task was the protection of the factory equipment and the oil fields but also surveilling those employees that did not belong to the KPÖ. Soviet propaganda in the “Russenbetriebe,” first of all through a factory newspaper but also by way of lectures, exhibits, cinema shows, and stage plays, aimed at consolidating a communist spirit and influence in the enterprises. Even though the SMV operated as a stronghold of the KPÖ, this massive propaganda onslaught failed to turn the greater part of the workforce to communism. By 1954, fifty percent of the SMV employees were still either without party affiliation or members of the Socialist, Christian conservative, or even nationalist parties.

Ruthammer, G., 2013. Öldorado Weinviertel: zur Geschichte des Erdöls im Weinviertel.

Winkler-Hermaden, Schleinbach, p.88

There was a bust of Stalin in the park in Neusiedl. A "new settler", possibly not a communist, in a not quite sober state, gave Stalin's head such a heavy punch that it broke off his nose, like the sphinx of Gizeh - according to the story, he only narrowly escaped deportation to Siberia.

1955, Dismantling of the Soviet Star 10

11

Change of the lettering, photography, date: 1955, private source: Heinz Roman

Source: Feichtinger (ed.): ÖMV-OMV. History of an Austrian Company, p. 312

During the later occupation period, the SMV was unable to properly exploit the Lower Austrian oil fields and failed to reach the planned production targets. The refineries in operation had become technically outdated and produced poor-quality gasoline. Investments came too late; the Soviet economic establishments in Austria had been run down. It failed to adapt to the demands of the market, was utterly incapable of innovation, and produced products of poor quality. With the transfer of the oil sector in 1955 to the Austrian authorities, the Soviets also handed over their complete control of the industry. Consequently, American and British oil companies did not regain a foothold in Austria. It was these specific circumstances that allowed for the exclusive Austrian control of the oil sector and the spectacular rise of the state-owned OMV to a leading European oil and natural gas corporation.

1965, Construction at the Van Sickle refinery 12

date: 1965, photography, private owner: Renzhofer Clemens

The end of the occupation meant the end of a long period of stagnation for most companies in Lower Austria. Only now did people begin to invest and modernise again. In 1956, Van Sickle built an atmospheric crude oil distillation plant in Neusiedl, which soon also processed imported products from Eastern Europe. Since then, the company was also able to process the extracted crude oil itself and to distribute products tailored to the Austrian market. As a result of the often improper extraction of oil from the deposits during the war and the Soviet occupation, the deposits in and around Neusiedl were soon largely exhausted. Between 1955 and 1957 alone, oil production at Van Sickle fell from around 34,000 to 27,000 tonnes per year; its share of total Austrian production was thus less than one percent. The image shows the construction of the bubble distillation plant at the Van Sickle refinery in Neusiedl.

1954, construction gas-station

A fuel tank is stored in front of a typical Lower Austrian farmhouse, waiting to be buried in the ground. Building a gas station means that the transformation from horse power to the use of engine-powered machines is also taking place in the local population. On the level of the local community the discovery of fossil resources has overturned the old, agrarian, socio-political order.

Tankstellenbau, photography, date: 1954, source: Bierbaum Franz

13

1970, Pastor Gradisch at the Barbara celebration 14

source: Archiv Rohstoff Geschichte collection OMV Fuhrpark Prottes

One of the most popular feasts was the traditional miners‘ Barbara celebration. „Even in the design of the church interior of St. Leonhard's Church in Matzen, oil and its mining play a central role. Drill bits and stylised pumps are probably to be found in very few sacred spaces worldwide.

Combining work and faith was, however, especially the concern of Günther Gradisch (19261982), a priest who is still highly revered in Matzen today. Even today, former ÖMV trainees report in our history workshops how impressed they were when welding took place in the church during the Barbara service. And to this day, the Easter candle in St. Leonhard rests on a drill core and a roller chisel.“ (translation from german: http://www.rohstoff-geschichte.at/?p=1150, 17.05.21)

approx. 1980, workers on an oil platform 15

Franz Liboswar, photography, date: ca.1980, private source: Viktoria Tatzber

The oil network is embedded in the political system. It was easier to get a desired job at the OMV (Austrian Mineral Oil Administration) if you joined the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ). I was told that for this reason workers coming from a peasant community that was used to vote the Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party, ÖVP (Austrian People's Party), switched to vote the SPÖ.

The extraction companies utilized the social ideas to improve workers well-being with the aim to increase their stamina and discipline and reduce industrial protest. They began to offer all kinds of services. According to reports, there were special insurance programs, including provisions against industrial accidents, sickness and unemployment, as well as pension payments form their own pot in retirement.

approx. 1982-88, Workers covered in oil 16

source: private family archive of the ÖMV board director TR. Ing. Richard Tlustos

Heavy equipment and hard physical labour are a particularly conspicuous subject of photographs from the oilfield. The documentation and the deliberate staging of work not infrequently merge.

It is especially the male work at the drilling rig, the handling of oversized and often dangerous machinery, that is not only documented but also staged in a special way.

1956, Book cover

It is precisely this production of "men and oil" by Othmar Franz Lang from 1956 - that bears witness to the real challenges of this working world than a sober factual report. „In addition to the technical equipment, the literally pathetic core of the work in the oil field becomes recognisable: that human labour here, as hardly anywhere else, opens up natural forces and makes energies usable that would otherwise have remained hidden under kilometre-thick layers of rock.“

Lang, OthmarFranz, 1956.

Männer und Erdöl. ÖsterrBundesverl, Wien.

17

1965, view towards the village 18

date: 1965, photography, private owner: Renzhofer Clemens

On the territorial level, in the agricultural landscape countless drilling rigs and oil pump appeared. The creation of new environments that replace or permeate the old structures have pushed us into a modern world of contradictions and ambiguities. The merging of folk culture of the rural area with the industrial, mining culture of the oil industry transformed the village. Fossil fuels helped to create both, possibility of modern life and its limits. The narrative of oil is very strong in this village, people have lived with and of oil for a long time and they were really adamant to keep it around. A closed refinery will change the local economy enormously.

1980, Deep exploration

Around 1980, the oil price reaches an absolute high. The Iranian revolution causes lasting uncertainty in the global supply situation. And global politics have local consequences, even in the Weinviertel and its deep geological development. In the years around 1980, drilling in Zistersdorf reached a depth of 8553 metres, almost a world record at the time. The example shows in a special way how the exploration of geo-history is linked to the political and economic circumstances of the present, how the highest prices result in the deepest drilling.

source: Wessely, Godfried: Geological results of deep exploration in the Vienna basin, in: Geologische Rundschau 79 (1990), S.517

19

approx. 1982-88, A burning probe

Mining oil is a the polluting and dangerous economy. In these times the river Zaya shimmered in all colors because of the oily water. Fish and other living creatures disappeared. The cooling water for the machines and the polluted water which was used for the drilling was directly led into the river.

source: private family archive of the ÖMV board director TR. Ing. Richard Tlustos, Album_II

20

ÖMV works bus 21

Werksbus der ÖMV bei Neusiedl. source: Archiv Rohstoff Geschichte, Sammlung OMV-Bildarchiv

The extraction companies utilized the social ideas to improve workers well-being with the aim to increase their stamina and discipline and reduce industrial protest. (Mitchell, 2011, p.27) They began to offer all kinds of services. According to reports, there were special insurance programs, including provisions against industrial accidents, sickness and unemployment, as well as pension payments form their own pot in retirement. There was a bus that picked up the children from home in the morning and drove them to the kindergarten. Oil companies had their own hotels in holyday regions in which the workers and their families could stay for a little amount of money, to recover and enjoy their holidays.

services for the community 22

Van Sickle ÖMV

Leisure activities: - football field - public pool - indoor pool - tennis court

Tyrolia

Oil companys

residential area

Leisure activities

The oil companies offered all kinds of services to the employees. According to reports, there was a bus that picked up the children from home in the morning and drove them to kindergarten. The municipality could also afford doing more and built an infrastructure of all kinds of recreational activities in an area the workers had to pass on their way to the work.

Ölfeld, photography, date: 1997, source: Heinz Roman

The road from the Village to the Companies.

1979, Clubroom

The club room in 1979. At that time it still belonged to OMV, where a canteen meal was served.

Clubsaal, date:1979, photography private owner: Heinz Roman

23

1980, 50 years of crude oil celebration

The narrative of oil is very strong in Neusiedl. People have lived with and of oil for a long time and they were really adamant to keep it around. Wine, oil and bread is written in big letters on the club room.

date: June 1980, analoge photography private owner: Messinger Ferdinand

24

1960, main square

This picture shows the flooded main square after a thunderstorm on the left the shaft in which the maypole was placed, a strong local tradition to celebrate the coming summer.

Hauptplatz, date: 1960 private owner: Heinz Roman

25

1960, main square

The main square around 1960. You can see the garden of the Bierbaum family (mayor) being ceded to the municipality. The transformer is moved to Treibhausgasse.

Hauptplatz, date: 1960 private owner: Heinz Roman

26

1960, Bahnstraße/Hauptstraße 27

Bahnstraße/Hauptstraße, date: 1960, source: Heinz Roman Skilift, date: 1983, source: unknown

A black/white photography from 1960 shot at the main crossing in Neusiedl is focusing on an arrow shaped sign which directs you to the surface lift (T-bar).

1994, Skilift 28

Skilift, date: 1994 private owner: Heinz Roman

On skis in the only slightly hilly landscape. A crowd waiting to waiting to be pulled up the hill. The ski lift was dismantled in 2007. To build a skilift in this rather flat region reflects the prosperity of the community of the time. It is certainly not a place where one would make profit with ski tourism. The lift was therefore intended solely for the amusement of the local population.

23.06.1963, opening of the public swimming pool

The lower half of these pictures shows an amused crowd of people attentively following the opening ceremony. Six men in striped full-body swimming costumes with gift baskets in their hands are about to take their very first plunge into the pool. However, the upper half of the picture is significant. In the depths, one recognizes the church of St Ulrich. But even before the church, in the fields between the people and the horizon, you can count more than 10 iron towers, which seem to enclose the crowd of people. The image seems to create a unity between the oil industry and society.

Freibaderöffnung date: 1963, source: Heinz Roman

29

1967, public swimming pool slide 30

Freibad Rutsche date: 1967, source: Heinz Roman

The emotional dimension is considered the main source of sense of belonging to place: it is especially determined by the landscape’s symbolic meanings, mainly through important memories, social relationships and quality of life.

1976, public indoor swimming pool 31

Hallenbad date: 1976, source: Heinz Roman

Mining has changed this community, at present times the few remaining old grid winding towers remind of this wealthy period. The public swimming pool has survived until today, the indoor swimming pool, the ski lift and the miniature golf course unfortunately not. But the political-economic system of industrial society which came into being through the extraction of Petroleum still remains.

1984, canteen public indoor swimming pool 32

Hallenbad innen date: 1984, source: Heinz Roman

This picture shows mainly young people spending their free time in the indoor swimming pool, chatting, drinking and smoking. The interior is almost exclusively made of plastic, a material that emerged with the rise of petroleum.

1976, Minigolf course 33

Minigolf, date: 1976 private source: Heinz Roman

The miniature golf course was built in 1976 and removed in 2007. In the background you can see the indoor swimming pool - it was demolished in 2007 and converted into a fire station.

1976, municipality advertising folder

„You should get to know it, the beautiful and well-kept place at the foot of the Steinberg, the Marktgemeinde Neusiedl an der Zaya with the districts of Neusiedl and St. Ulrich.

Quiet hiking trails lead along cornfields and vineyards into the silence of the surrounding deciduous forests. Sulphur spring and lookout on the local mountain are popular hiking line. Here in the loess soils with sunny position, grows a well-known good drop, which is served to you in comfortable restaurants to exquisite meals.

A recreation center is a popular meeting place for people from near and far. Sports enthusiasts will find here a new indoor swimming pool with sauna, tennis courts, ice skating and roller skating rinks and a modern outdoor swimming pool.“

Gemeindefolder date: 1976, source: Marktgemeinde Neusiedl an der Zaya

34

1976, Viktor Adler Siedlung 35

Some former peasants did not need large spaces for agricultural work anymore and split their long plots into two parts to give half of it to, for example, their children to build on it.

Viktor Adler Siedlung, photography, date: 1976, source: Heinz Roman

The layout of the houses of the increasingly wealthy (still under the dictates of value production and therefore exploited and alienated from labor ) working class is a completely different one.

The village starts to expand into the wide with single-family houses for one generation and without adjacent utility rooms. The village was extended with the Viktor-Adler settlement.

1980, Barbara stone 36

currently:

Hauptplatz, photography, date: 1997, source: Heinz Roman

The main square with a monument of Saint Barbara, the saint of the oil workers. The 40 ton heavy stone comes from the Blockheide in Waldviertel.

It´s brought with an ÖMV truck from Mr. Bolenar Gerwin and Pretsch Franz in 1980.

1983, main square 37

Hauptplatz date: 06.1983, source: Heinz Roman

The monument of the Barbara stone in the ensemle of the main place in 1983. On the image private owned cars park around the empty fountain. Another indication of the extent to which companies shape local traditions and public place.

2020, Drilling rig model in the town hall

Asperger Karl and Stoppel Franz finishing the assembly of the Plexiglas box for the miniature drilling rig set up in the vestibule of the town hall.

By appointment someone will unlock the doors the oil museum where one can see a, for a long time unchanged, permanent exhibition about the historical and technical developments and a collection of minerals.

date: 2020, digital photography, source: Dorfkreis Neusiedl ID:0865277

38

2021, OMV ‘Werk Neusiedl’

The OMV still owns a large area in Neusiedl called ‘Werk Neusiedl’ The whole area is fenced off for safety reasons. From the outside you see large brick halls and tanks. A road sweeper driver told me that he used to clean the halls from time to time for this, the OMV removed equipment that was standing around.

For a while they used them to try to reprocess oil-contaminated soil. Now nothing much happens there. For a while there was a conversation about opening a workshop for the wind turbines there.

date: 05 2021, digital photography source: Agnes Tatzber

39

2020, Horse-head pumps 40

date: 18.10.2019, photography, NZZ article by Matthias Benz

Between the fields in the soft, hilly landscape, the ‘horse-head’-pumps still slowly move up and down. Surely not unintentionally, the polluting and dangerous economy has quietly stepped back. “…the fossil economy produced wild inequalities that left much of the world behind while conferring the privileges of energy along unfair, and wholly undesirable, racial, national, gender and class lines.” (Szeman, 2016, p. 26) This is not only about extracting oil from the ground but also about a capitalist economic system that extracted energy and time from the society. OMV AG is now a global company with activities on several continents. Nevertheless, the Weinviertel is still an important base.

List of images: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Work on the fields photography date:1912, private source: Messinger Ferdinand First drillings newspaper cutout date: 1914 Sammlung Erdölmuseum Neusiedl

Source: Feichtinger (ed.): ÖMV-OMV. History of an Austrian Company, p. 312

11.

Change of the lettering, photography, date: 1955, private source: Heinz Roman

12.

construction of the bubble distillation plant at the Van Sickle refinery, Neusiedl photography, date: 1965, private owner: Renzhofer Clemens

13.

Tankstellenbau analogue black/white photography, date: 1954, source: Franz Bierbaum

14.

Pastor Gradisch, Barbara celebration source: Archiv Rohstoff Geschichte collection OMV Fuhrpark Prottes http://www.rohstoff-geschichte. at/?p=1150 and https://opac.geologie. ac.at/ais312/dokumente/BR0116_000. pdf.pdf p.76

15.

Franz Liboswar analogue black/white photography, date: approx. 1980 private source: Viktoria Tatzber

16.

Workers covered in oil date: approx. 1982-88, source: private family archive of the ÖMV board director TR. Ing. Richard Tlustos https://opac.geologie.ac.at/ais312/ dokumente/BR0116_000.pdf.pdf p.86

17.

book cover: Lang, Othmar Franz, 1956.

Männer und Erdöl. (Men and petroleum) Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Wien

18.

Van Sickle Ansicht date: 1965, photography, private owner: Renzhofer Clemens

Luftaufnahme - Richtung Osten analogue black/white photography, date: ca. 1940 source: Heinz Roman Hubingerhaus analogue black/white photography, date: approx.1970 source: Heinz Roman

5.

Pipeline building date: 1930 Archiv Rohstoff Geschichte, collection OMV-Bildarchiv www.rohstoff-geschichte.at/?p=1219

6.

Zistersdorfer Ölfeld, map, date: 1937, source: book: Ruthammer, G., 2013. Öldorado Weinviertel: zur Geschichte des Erdöls im Weinviertel.

Winkler-Hermaden, Schleinbach, p.57

7.

Drilling St. Ulrich I source: archive Rohstoff Geschichte Weltgeschichte im Weinviertel, collection: Karl Brabec www.rohstoff-geschichte.at/?p=69

8.

Ölfeld, (oilfield) photography, date: 1958, private source: Heinz Roman

9.

10.

Stalin bust, Ruthammer, G., 2013. Öldorado Weinviertel: zur Geschichte des Erdöls im Weinviertel.

Winkler-Hermaden, Schleinbach, p.88

19.

20.

21.

Geological results of deep exploration in the Vienna basin in: Wessely, Godfried, Geologische Rundschau 79 (1990), S.517 source: private family archive of the ÖMV board director TR. Ing. Richard Tlustos, Album_II source: Archiv Rohstoff Geschichte https://opac.geologie.ac.at/ais312/ dokumente/BR0116_000.pdf.pdf p.89

Ölfeld digital photography, date: 1997, private source: Heinz Roman

23.

Clubsaal, photography date:1979, private owner: Heinz Roman

25.

26.

27.

Skilift, date: 1994 private owner: Heinz Roman

29.

Freibaderöffnung analogue black/white photography, date: 23.06.1963 source: Heinz Roman

30.

Freibad Rutsche (public swimming pool slide) analogue black/white photography, date: 1967 source: Heinz Roman

Werksbus der ÖMV bei Neusiedl. source: Archiv Rohstoff Geschichte, Sammlung OMV-Bildarchiv http://www.rohstoff-geschichte. at/?p=1150

22.

24.

28.

and Freibad Rutsche (public swimming pool slide) photography, date: 1976 source: Heinz Roman 31.

Hallenbad date: 1976, private source: Heinz Roman

32.

50 years of crude oil celebration analogue photography date: June 1980, private owner: Messinger Ferdinand

Hallenbad innen date: 1984, private source: Heinz Roman

33.

überschwemmter Hauptplatz, date: 1960 private owner: Heinz Roman

Minigolf, date: 1976 private source: Heinz Roman

34.

Gemeindefolder date: 1976, Marktgemeinde Neusiedl an der Zaya

35.

Viktor Adler Siedlung photography, date: 1976 private source: Heinz Roman

Hauptplatz um 1960, Fam. Bierbaum (Bürgermeister) Transformator versetzt date: 1960 private owner: Heinz Roman Bahnstraße/Hauptstraße analogue black/white photography, date: 1960, source: Heinz Roman and Skilift analogue black/white photography, date: Jänner 1983, source: Topothek Neusiedl

and Google maps, 17.05.2021, https://www.google.nl/maps/@48.60089 19,16.7911574,362m/data=!3m1!1e3

36.

Barbara stone photography, date: 1980 private source: Heinz Roman

37.

Hauptplatz (main square) photography, date: 06.1983 private source: Heinz Roman

38.

Drilling rig model in the town hall digital photography, date: 2020, source: Dorfkreis Neusiedl ID:0865277

39.

OMV ‘Werk Neusiedl’ digital photography date: 05 2021,

by Agnes Tatzber

40.

Horse-head pumps photography, Matthias Benz date: 18.10.2019 source: https://www.nzz.ch/ wirtschaft/wie-erdoel-hitler-anlockte -und-oesterreich-spaeter-die-freiheit -brachte-ld.1508259?reduced=true

Agnes Tatzber, 1018442

Essay Oil-reflections through built environment How fossil fuels shaped attributes an capabilities of the society in Neusiedl an der Zaya

Critical Strategies: History and Theory + Research Methods Trimester 2, 2021 Tutor: Andrea Bagnato Piet Zwart Institute Master of Interior Architecture: Research + Design

Introduction To get from Vienna to Neusiedl an der Zaya you have to leave the highway A5 shortly after the OMV gas station. This gas station is the last possibility to refuel before arrival. There is no viable alternative to reach Neusiedl but to go there by car. Once you pass the town sign you find yourself in an inconspicuous, drowsy industrial area on a long, noticeable straight road that runs perpendicular to the actual main road of the town. Not too long ago the fuel, we routinely fill up the car with, could have come from here.

The physical commodity of oil is inevitably linked to a network of places. Out of safety measures it is not possible to enter the extraction sites, refineries and storage spaces. Next to the outdated remaining buildings from the petroleum industry, there is much more in Neusiedl that we do not unmask as linked to oil immediately. Oil reaches the consumer at the level of retail at the gas station, which is not only a place to refuel, but also a meeting point for a certain youth culture or groups of males. In Austria it is one of the few places where you can buy food on a Sunday. But really there are entire cities being funded by oil and developed by oil because the industry needed them. And this does not only happen in distant deserts, its much closer than expected.

The discovery of petroleum in the Steinberg region, in Lower Austria played a key role in the development of Neusiedl an der Zaya. It led to the settlement of companies, followed by a rise of industrial capital. In 1929, when a notable amount of Petroleum was discovered close to the village for the first time, the use of oil as a source of energy was already established. There is no doubt about the global strategic, influential role of the raw material from this region in the Second World War, the period of Soviet occupation, and the time after the state verdict in 1955 but there is more to consider about the influences the extraction of this raw material had.

In fact, in Neusiedl, structures not visible as such are built by oil and thereby intimately connected to oil. Featured in different architectural styles, then for example the gas station, which is easy to identify.

From 1930 to 2000 in the agricultural landscape of the Weinviertel area countless drilling rigs and oil pumps appeared and disappeared again within a remarkably short period. In Neusiedl an der Zaya the deepest drillings seem to correlate with the highest living standards. On the level of the local community the discovery of fossil resources has overturned the old, agrarian, socio-political order. With the economy that came into being an industrial working class emerged and a completely new social fabric was woven. Working in the oil industry was one of the marginal options to stop working in agriculture and nevertheless earn money without leaving the village. Money generated by the oil companies, came among the people and also flowed back into the town's finances which enabled the village to undertake generous projects for the community. It is an example of how “The 1

dominant form of energy in any given era – in our case, fossil fuels – shapes the attributes and capabilities of societies in a fundamental way.” (Szeman, 2016, p.9)

The former peasant village Neusiedl an der Zaya is located in the upper east corner of Austria, 60km from the border of Vienna, and is probably one of the least noticed areas in Europe. (Skarics, 1993) The first written record of the village dates back to 1245. One cannot read very much about the history of the village. Until the 1930ies the people lived almost exclusively from agriculture.

Back then the residential area was divided into long plots arranged perpendicular to the main road. For a long time, so-called "Streckhöfe" were the typical farmhouse type in the Weinviertel and the entire Danube region. This particular farmhouse variant is characterized by the arrangement of the buildings whose choreography is clearly oriented on agriculture. The main building of a Streckhof is located parallel to the main road, behind, at a right angle, there are utility buildings such as stables, storage rooms and workshops. To enter with the large equipment for agriculture large gates at the front and directly onto the fields in the back were necessary. By rowing up these L-shaped buildings the side is bordered by the neighboring stables and thus does not need additional, free standing walls and fences to enclose the property. This was important because historically the area was often a passageway for vagabonds, warned about as criminals - but actually were people who sank into misery and poverty because of the upheaval to the capitalist system - on their way to the northeast.

A different narrative starts with the discovery of a petroleum deposit south of Gbely, about 50 km from Neusiedl in the Slovak Republic. In 1910, a local man, Jàn Medlen, discovered that the soil was moving and bubbles were forming above the ground. Since it was flammable, he built a wooden hut and wanted to use the gas for cooking and heating. The highly explosive gas mixture, that formed when mixed with air, quickly put an end to the plan. (Ruthammer, 2013, p.15) After further investigations, a telegram arrived at the responsible Slovakian mining department on the 23 December 1913: "Please come quickly!” Oil was pouring out of one of the examination holes.

Pioneers for valorization The negotiations after the end of the First World War led to new border demarcations. The loss of the oil fields led to a search on Austrian soil. Due to records the first well was drilled in St. Ulrich, north of Neusiedl an der Zaya by a military task force under the leadership of Bergrat H. Vetter (1880-1941). What the geologist discovered is the roughly forty-kilometer-long fault of the Steinberg quarry, which runs southwest of Neusiedl.

2

He was followed by Friedrich Musil (1881-1954), a crude oil pioneer in Austria, a short time later. Musil was convinced that he could find not only water but also oil with a dowsing rod. His team drilled up to 1060 meters deep but nothing notable was found. (Stadler, 2006, p. 498)(Ruthammer, 2013, p.18) In 1930, for the Raky Danubia company, he made first discoveries in a well called Windisch Baumgarten 1a in the Zistersdorf area. It was not enough to start commercial production but due to the findings the land that was previously rather uninteresting suddenly gained capitalistic value. Musil was the first one to get himself documents for subsurface mining rights in 1924. (Stadler, 2006, p498) The geologist and oil pioneer Karl Friedl (1898-1966) persisted in drilling more intense at the Vienna Basin. His conviction to bring the drilling acitivties to a level which in its intensity of development does not lag behind what has been worked out in similar areas of the bordering states of Central Europe was his motor for the long struggle to find a large domestic or foreign investor. (Küpper, 1967) With the drilling Göstling II starting on Juli 19, 1933 for the Petroleum Production Company (EPG) he achieved a first economically viable breakthrough. (Ruthammer, 2013) With this new drilling results the knowledege about the Vienna basin fundamentally reshaped into the present, modern one and thereby paved the way for the growth of large corporate companies. (Küpper, 1967).

Economic extraction in the Vienna basin It was large international corporations that were now at play. In 1935, RAG (former Rohölgewinnungs AG.) was founded by Socony Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell. One year later Britol Öl Aktiengesellschaft, forerunner of the later deep drilling company Richard van Sickle, began exploration. A complex history of ownership, drilling rights and company fusions followed. At the end of the soviet occupation in 1955 the rights of derelict company SMV (Soviet Mineral Oil Administration) were transferred to the Austrian state, which continued the agendas as OMV (Austrian Mineral Oil Administration). (Iber, 2011) Many employees moved from different regions to Neusiedl to work on the oil field.

The income as an employee of one of the oil companies was ten times higher than the earnings one could achieve in agriculture. (Ruthammer, 2013, p.55)This undoubtedly opens up other scopes of action for the individual. A working class emerged in the small farming village. Everyone had at least one relative working in the oil industry. (Skarics, 1993, p.27) Many more moved away from the hand-tomouth existence. Providing drillers with supplies and the ability of the individual to spend their money now became lucrative.

The early modernization of everyday life can be verified with the help of photographs. A photography from 1954, shows a fuel tank which is stored in front of a typical Lower Austrian farmhouse (Bierbaum family), waiting to be buried in the 3

ground. The transformation from horse power to the use of engine-powered machines has now clearly become part of the life of the local population.

Three sisters, whose father worked on the drilling towers, remember the first car their dad got. A VW Jetta, about which they agreed that they found it very ugly.

Franz Liboswar couldn´t afford to make his driving license in his youth, so the family had a tractor for working on the field and a Vespa Franz used to drive to the drilling rigs. Only when he was allocated to an oil derrick in 1980 that was too far to go by Vespa he took the driving license exam. Two years later already, his oldest daughter turned 18, got the license and crashed the car. No one got hurt. This material part is only one aspect for the function and further development of the society. The indirect achievements of fossil modernity seem most indispensable.

“Even more significantly fossil fuels have also shaped our values, practices, habits, beliefs and feelings. These latter can be difficult to parse. It might be easy to point to a highway interchange and understand its relationship to our oil culture, but it is much harder to name and isolate the ideals of autonomy and mobility, for instance, that are just as strongly linked to the historical conditions of a fossil fuel society.” (Szeman, 2016, p.9, 10)

Oil philanthropy Encouraged by the oil companies and the increasing number of people living in Neusiedl the municipality improved the infrastructure in the village and started to offer all kinds of recreational activities. Since it was clear that petroleum storage and transport is very dangerous they were located outside of the towns. Spaces, created for leisure activities, were located at the long straight street that led from the village center to the oil production facilities. A public swimming pool was opened on the 23.

June 1963. On the pictures of this day you can count more than 10 iron towers on the horizon. Also an indoor swimming pool with sauna, tennis courts, an ice skating and a roller skating rink were built.

Probably the most outstanding example of this is the ski lift that was built in the rather flat region. It is certainly not a place where one would make profit with ski tourism. Being intended solely for the amusement of the local population, it is an evidence of the prosperity of the community at the time. The incredible cornucopia would have been unthinkable without a cheap, portable, seemingly infinite source of energy.

The oil network is embedded in the political system. It was easier to get a desired job at the OMV (Österreichische Mineralölverwaltung, engl: Austrian Mineral Oil Administration) if you joined the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ). I was told that for this reason workers coming from a peasant community that was used to vote the Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party, ÖVP (Austrian People's Party), switched to vote the SPÖ.

4

The extraction companies utilized the social ideas to improve workers well-being with the aim to increase their stamina and discipline and reduce industrial protest.

(Mitchell, 2011, p.27) According to reports, there were special insurance programs, including provisions against industrial accidents, sickness and unemployment, as well as pension payments form their own pot in retirement. There was a bus that picked up the children from home in the morning and drove them to the kindergarten. Oil companies had their own hotels in holyday regions in which the workers and their families could stay for a little amount of money. Elisabeth Heinz remembers precisely how fascinated she was as a kid when she opened the cabinet where her parents stored the candy boxes and the boxes of Christmas decorations that OMV distributed every year. It was socially very accepted, prestigious even, to work for the oil companies.

In these times the river Zaya shimmered in all colors because of the oily water. Fish and other living creatures disappeared. The cooling water for the machines and the polluted water which was used for the drilling was directly led into the river. The people of Neusiedl watched their land being polluted by mining. The sense of being hollowed out economically, and polluting the environment, especially the water, was mitigated by social benefits the companies offered to their employees. The creation of new environments that replace or permeate the old structures have pushed us into a modern world of contradictions and ambiguities. The merging of folk culture of the rural area with the industrial, mining culture of the oil industry transformed the village. Fossil fuels helped to create both, possibility of modern life and its limits.

The layout of the houses of the increasingly wealthy working class (still under the dictates of value production and therefore exploited and alienated from labor) is a completely different one. Neusiedl starts to expand into the wide with single-family houses for one generation and without adjacent utility rooms. The village was extended by the Viktor-Adler settlement. Some former peasants did not need large spaces for agricultural work anymore and split their long plots into two parts to give half of it to, for example, their children to build on it.

After Oil Apparently and perhaps as a result of the often improper extraction of oil from the deposits during the Nazi war and the Soviet occupation, the numbers of the annual oil extraction went down. (Stadler, 2006, p.502) Although companies continued to drill and produce and look for new deposits, workplaces are becoming rarer. At the beginning of the 1970s some of the wells in Neusiedl had to be shut down. The certainty that extracting oil is providing long-term jobs, since it is labor intensive and the old rigs needed a lot of maintenance, starts to crumble when the sector began automating in a desperate bid to cut costs. The form in which capitalist modernization mobilizes natural forms of physical power to optimize, manage, and 5

discard human labor became named as “Energy deepening” (Szeman, 2016, p.24) In an interview for the Auto Revue a worker from the OMV talks about his concerns: "Now we hear that OMV wants to close our refinery and shut down some of the wells. And to fire half of the people. I'm over 54 and probably on the hit list.

I've been working here for over 20 years. Probe treatment in all kinds of weather. At least my wife has job security." (Skarics, 1993, p.27) (translation from German) The narrative of oil is very strong in this village, people have lived with and of oil for a long time and they were really adamant to keep it around. A closed refinery will change the local economy enormously. In 1976, the total annual production went from the peak in 1955 of 3.500.000 down to 1.800.000 tons. Since oil money alone will not be enough anymore, Neusiedl made an attempt to serve as a tourist destination. The municipality printed a folder with a map in the center which was supposed to show how close the place was to Vienna. Images of all sorts of entertainment, from traditional brass ensembles to naked women in the sauna, were pictured. The text on the back describes a well-kept nature for hiking, excellent cuisine and local wine.

This wealth brought to the area was limited with the amount of oil. The leisure facilities began to decay. What remains in the capitalistic system is the maintenance of the oil company’s wealth. The extraction worked in many more ways than just the extraction of oil. A few old grid winding towers are converted into art projects, which should remind of the oil period. Szeman argues that sponsorship of art, accumulated social and cultural capital is a way to achieve moral standing for these enormously profitable corporations. (Szeman, 2016, p. 52) In 2012 after massive protests by citizens against the OMV's plans to carry out intensive fracking from 2020 on, which leads to a massive water pollution with toxic chemicals and earthquakes that can reach a magnitude of seven on the Richter scale, they withdrew the plans "for economic reasons". There are rumors that the company had already fracked in the Weinviertel area about 30 times. (see reports ‘Weinviertel instead of Gasviertel’)

Conclusion The OMV still owns a large area in Neusiedl called ‘Werk Neusiedl’ The whole area is fenced off for safety reasons. From the outside you see large brick halls and tanks. A road sweeper driver told me that he used to clean the halls from time to time - for this, the OMV removed equipment that was standing around. For a while they used the space to try to reprocess oil-contaminated soil. Now nothing much happens there. Between the fields in the soft, hilly landscape, the ‘horse-head’6

pumps still slowly move up and down. Surely not unintentionally, the polluting and dangerous economy has quietly stepped back. “… the fossil economy produced wild inequalities that left much of the world behind while conferring the privileges of energy along unfair, and wholly undesirable, racial, national, gender and class lines.” (Szeman, 2016, p. 26) Oil fueled the modern civilization in Neusiedl. The public swimming pool has survived until today, the indoor swimming pool was rebuilt into a fire station. The miniature golf course did, unfortunately, not survive. The ski lift was dismantled in 2007. What happened around the oil transformed the area completely, and transformed the life of the people. The political-economic system of industrial society which came into being through the extraction of petroleum and a capitalist economic system that extracted energy and time from the society remains.

Most of the industrial buildings are torn down already or are crumbling and falling apart by themselves. Some are reused as horse stables or by car resellers. Hereby you can clearly read a mechanism of completely transforming the architecture of a place for a couple of decades and then leaving it behind to become marginal again.

7

Reference List Hofmann, T., Havlíček, P., Harzhauser, M., 2011. Das Wiener Becken – geologische Betrachtungen 12.

Iber, W.M., 2011. Die Sowjetische Mineralölverwaltung in Österreich zur Vorgeschichte der OMV 1945 - 1955.

Küpper, H., 1967. Nachruf der Geologischen Bundesanstalt, Karl Friedl.

Mitchell, T., 2011. Carbon democracy: political power in the age of oil. Verso, London ; New York.

Moore, J.W., 2003. Capitalism as World-Ecology: Braudel and Marx on Environmental History. Organ. Environ. 16, 514–517.

Ruthammer, G., 2013. Öldorado Weinviertel: zur Geschichte des Erdöls im Weinviertel. Winkler-Hermaden, Schleinbach.

Skarics, R., 1993. Der letzte Scheich ist auch nicht reich. Auto Rev. Stadler, G.A., 2006. Das industrielle Erbe Niederösterreichs: Geschichte - Technik Architektur. Böhlau, Wien ua.

Szeman, I., 2016. After oil. Petrocultures Research Group, 2016, Alberta.

Wallerstein, I.M., 1974. The Modern world-system. Academic Press, New York

8