The Bourgeoise on Stage

Museum and department store, park and boulevard, spa and beach, ballroom and grand hotel – such places turned into stages of social life, catwalks for the bourgeoisie in 19th century Europe. People showed themselves, were seen, met others of the same status. We find this the case in Graz, but in other Styrian towns, too. Keeping this in mind, we show examples of those places the modern bourgeoisie conquered, invented and adapted in the 19th century.

The specific examples will then help us answer the question of how the new facilities and institutions changed the cityscape or townscape. How are the new places used, what social practices emerge around them: rules and rituals, dress codes, etc., which mean that certain people are included, but others excluded, too. What effect do these places have on people’s daily work life and the leisure activities of middle-class society? How do they change the relationship between the sexes? Who make the new bourgeois world possible on a daily basis?