1926: Employment Offices as Construction Project

As an institution and a building type, the employment office emerged around 1900 in various countries as both a symptom and a consequence of mass unemployment. The first unemployment insurance law was passed in Austria in 1920. Employment offices now took charge of the payment and control of social benefits as well as possible sanctions that could arise. Superior to them – and thus, also the contracting authorities of the buildings – were the joint industrial district commissions (composed equally of employers and employees). The rationalisation of labour and production processes were not only transferred to the placement and control of the unemployed, but also to the spaces made available to them: the masses of job seekers were to be “dispatched” trouble-free. In Vienna, Graz and Innsbruck, but also in smaller cities (Gmünd, Voitsberg), employment offices were set up as of 1926. Their high architectural quality and aesthetic innovation witnessed a social revaluation.