Can Urban Design Have a Gender? In This Vienna District, the Answer Is Yes.
On a sunny afternoon this spring, Eva Kail stood outside the gleaming subway station in Aspern Seestadt, a sprawling planned community in northeast Vienna that she essentially manifested from an idea into a real place.
Eva Kail in Vienna, where she pioneered the urban design concept of gender mainstreaming during her 30-year career, spearheading dozens of projects in housing, transportation and public spaces.Credit…Lisa Edi for The New York Times
Ms. Kail, a pioneering urban planner who has shaped life in Austria’s capital for three decades, was waiting to take a reporter on a tour of this unfinished “city within a city.” About 12,000 people live here today, with another 14,000 expected in the next decade, making Aspern Seestadt one of the largest urban development projects in Europe.
“There was nothing here before,” said Ms. Kail, silver-haired and energetic at 65. “It was an old, unused airfield. There was a chance to have an impact from the very beginning and to have a large practical stage to work on.”
Aspern Seestadt embodies the philosophy that has underpinned much of her work going back to the 1990s, all the way up to her retirement in March: “gender mainstreaming,” with the goal of embedding gender equality into infrastructure, legislation, budgets and beyond. So while this community promises “something for everyone”— homes for sale or rent, offices, health care facilities, green spaces, public transportation, schools and nurseries — a central mission becomes clear as one looks a bit closer.
