When Austria annexed Galicia during the first partition of Poland in 1772, the province's capital Lemberg was a decaying Baroque town. By the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Lemberg had become a booming city with a modern, urban and, at the same time, distinctly Habsburg flavor. In the process of the ""long"" nineteenth century both Lemberg's appearance and the use of public space changed remarkably. The city center was transformed into a showcase of modernity and a site of conflicting symbolic representations, while other areas were left decrepit, overcrowded and neglected.""Habsburg Lemberg: Architecture, Public Space, and Politics in the Galician Capital, 1772-1914"" reveals that behind a variety of national, and positivist historical narratives of Lemberg - and of its architecture - there always existed a city that was labeled ""cosmopolitan"" yet ""provincial;"" and a Vienna, but still ""of the East."" Buildings, streets, parks and monuments became part and parcel of a complex set of culturally driven politics. The modern architecture influenced the portrayal of the Lemberg populace as much more sophisticated than they actually were.
