76 
Csaplovics, Herbig, Borner 
Fig. 13: Map by Hirschvogel 1547 
Fig. 14: Map by Suttinger 1683 
But the first Turkish siege in 1529 which could be mainly survived due to the weather conditions showed, that a rebuilding of the 
fortification into a modern systems of bastions was absolutely necessary. This work was finished in 1650 and has its practical test in 
1683 when the second siege of Turkish forces could be defended with the support of the strong fortification (Fig. 14). 
The construction of the fortification buildings have been documented detailed and give us a good view of its properties. (Fig. 15) 
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Fig. 15: Map by Briffaut 1737 
Fig. 16: Plan for buildings on the Ringstrasse 1858 
(drawer not named) 
After the sieges of the Turkish forces the only threat of the town was the approach of the troops of Napoleon in 1809. This time the 
town has been abandoned to the French forces. When the troops left Vienna again many of the fortification buildings have been 
demolished and initiated the slow end of Vienna’s stronghold. At the beginning of the 19 th century the bastions became an park area 
where people could walk in flower gardens. To provide more space for the construction of residential areas the Emperor Franz Josef 
I st initiated the complete dismantling of the fortification in 1857 (Fig. 18). 
The work on the demolition of the fortresses is well recorded even by photographs as it was an important event which showed the 
beginning of a new epoch of peace, openness and glory. The magnificent buildings on the „Ringstrasse” are a symbol for this period 
which stamp the face of Vienna till now. 10 
10. USING THE HISTORIC MAPS FOR A GIS 
The maps of the different stages of the fortification of Vienna will be the base for the GIS which will document its history. It is 
planned to create a connection to the modern town Vienna by overlaying the maps of different ages. This topochronological presenta 
tion will be an useful tool to present the material which is available about the history of the fortification. It is planned to scan all 
available maps and to use photogrammetric methods to transform the pictured maps on to the actual map of Vienna. The idea is to 
treat the pictures of the maps like pictures of satellites taken from an even terrain. 
Thereafter the transformed pictures will be imported into a CAD-system and digitised manually to get a vector format file, where 
defined areas can be linked with records of the database. 
To present the output of the research work the GIS will be the base for a multimedia presentation, which is planned to be developed 
with a multimedia company.