Inside Vienna’s public housing with 27 Storeys
Vienna’s Alterlaa is often considered one of the most successful public housing projects to have come from the last century. Built in the 1970s, this series of sky-reaching apartments, shaped in gently sloping pyramids, is a kind of city within the city that manifested a once-thought-to-be-utopic idea of affordable housing, where residents could swim, shop, go to school, live, and achieve what many recognize as the utilitarian ideal, ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.’ In her documentary, 27 Storeys, director Bianca Gleissinger returns to her childhood home in Alterlaa to explore its nooks and crannies, memories, and infrastructure, to understand what made this urban miracle a reality.
Alterlaa, the social housing unit in Vienna, documented in 27 Storeys by director Bianca Gleissinger | all images ©Mischief Films_ETP_Klemens Koscher
director Bianca Gleissinger returns to her childhood
Her investigation into the building complex, which was designed by architect Harry Glück and contains over 3,000 units, largely starts from archival footage of Gleissinger and her family living in one of the very units. In this grainy footage from decades gone by, we see a young family eating, playing, and enjoying the promises of the building. Looking back on her younger self, the director reflects on all the versions of herself she was supposed to become. As she makes her way through pools, club rooms, apartments, and amenities, she discovers that these promises of a life well lived that she was given as a child are not so different from what Alterlaa promises its residents.
trailer for 27 Storeys (2023)
Meeting the Residents in 27 Storeys
To create 27 Storeys, Gleissinger follows a typical documentary format—she brings the camera to the site of inquiry, carefully arranging interviews, B-roll, and panoramic shots to give the viewer an idea of what it’s like to live in Alterlaa. Yet what makes her footage different is the long-sustained shots that almost bore the viewer with how banal they are: an elevator lobby, wallpaper, a woman waiting at a pickup stop in an underground parking lot. In these slow-moving scenes through the buildings, she makes the viewer feel as if they themselves have been living in the building for decades, much like many of its residents.
in these slow-moving scenes through the buildings, 27 Storeys makes the viewer feel as if they themselves have been living in the building for decades
Decades of Life in Alterlaa
Gleissinger begins by bringing us into the homes of some of Alterlaa’s most long-standing residents. She goes into the apartment of a man named Peter, who has lived in the building since it opened in the seventies and whose home is, quite aptly, an aesthetic relic of the decade in which he moved into the building. There’s a breakfast nook in dark laminate wood that he had built into the space, decorated with a model of an old ship. The wall coverings are a mix of large patterns reminiscent of the mid-20th century. Together, Gleissinger and Peter sit on a couch, the camera pointed at them as they watch video footage Peter has been collecting for decades. Captured on analog film stock, we see the resident and his wife looking at an Alterlaa that’s still in progress. They visit the pyramids as they stand half-built on barren land. In speaking about the wonderful life he has lived in the building, he says of his home, ‘I will only really leave when I’m dead. Not Voluntarily.’
