Budapest-Vienna (Spring)Week-Long Study Tour | Urban Studies Program

Budapest and Vienna make an ideal pair for a comparative urban study. Budapest is heavily contextualized by its years behind the Soviet Iron Curtain, while the Habsburg legacy of architecture and highbrow culture characterize the Austrian capital. You will read each city through its architecture, art, social movements, and urban layout, so you can analyze how history and culture inform the current development of the infrastructure. Furthermore, you will discover how each city has become a focal point for cultural expression and a venue of human interaction and experience.

Through walking tours, lectures from local historians, meetings with urban planners, and visits to various museums, you will better understand the history, development, and possible futures for Budapest and Vienna.

Tour Objectives

  • Compare and contrast the urban infrastructure of Budapest and Vienna
  • Explore how sociopolitical history informs the current development of urban spaces
  • Further understand how to read a city through its architecture, art, history, literature, politics, and urban layout

Possible Activities

  • Visit Aspern Steestadt, an intelligent construction site for the smart city of the future
  • Tour of gentrification in Vienna
  • Explore urban development projects in Budapest