Boltenstern’s project was preferred with the claim that its author ‘retained the old house’s architectural tradition without resorting to style imitation’ One of the few architects to meet these criteria was Erich Boltensternm, who had been suspended from the Academy in 1938, and was a colleague and friend of Clemens Holzmeister, who also participated in the competition but whose designs were considered too revolutionary. The conceptual competition announced on this occasion was open to all architects living in Austria who had neither been members of the NSDAP nor members of any of the defence unions. Reconstruction was preferred to plans for erecting a new building elsewhere, since, in the end, it was a question of ‘saving a cultural symbol’.4 The opera construction committee, set up by the Federal Ministry of Trade and Reconstruction, determined the future direction of the State Opera’s reconstruction: the original state was to be preserved combining the opera house’s modernisation with the construction of new buildings for ‘ancillary requirements of the playhouse’s operation’. The Soviet occupation forces had also supported reconstruction of the State Opera so that it could be finished in May 1945. As early as 1st May of 1945, under the command of the Russian occupation, the State Opera resumed its programme at the Volksoper ( People´s Opera), which had escaped bombing.
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