If you wander around the First District of Vienna, you can’t help but feel almost overwhelmed by the architectural detail on show. Buildings painted in confectionary shades of lemon, biscuit and cinnamon compete for attention with intricate mouldings framing vast windows, elaborate sculptures carved into columns that shoot up several storeys, and florid iron balconies.
A few streets away from the main action, tucked down a quiet residential street, stands a municipal courthouse built in 1908 that, while generous in its proportions, had few frills. It was not a place of high drama but of dour civil proceedings, where people were declared bankrupt or divorced. “It didn’t hold good memories for people,” says Martin Goddard, of the design studio Goddard Littlefair.
