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Ingrid Salazar

Stories from Ingrid Salazar

05 Artstetten Castle Lower Austria
Beyond Vienna’s City Walls
A look at some of Austria’s most impressive forts and castles
Stephanie Levett
Ingrid Salazar
01/10/2009

The opulence of imperial life draws millions of tourists to Vienna every year. The Schönbrunn Castle, Belvedere Palace and Hofburg imperial palace are the highlights of any guided tour.

Yet, architectural beauty and noble family histories can be found beyond the city’s borders and off the tourist beaten track. Within two hours of Vienna, medieval and renaissance castles and forts speckle the land, charged with historical anecdotes and breathtaking views.

02 Flaktürme
Towers of Burden
The fate of Vienna’s looming flak-towers remains undecided, amid questions of deterioration, cost and historical consciousness
Ingrid Salazar
01/10/2009

Looming high above the green fields, chestnut trees and buzz of activity in the Augarten, stand two towers: lonely, broken and ugly. They are constructed from several hundreds of thousands of tons of reinforced concrete, reminders of a painful past that have been left at the margins of politics, history and Viennese life. They are the flak-towers, two of six in Vienna out of an original 16 built across the Third Reich to fend off Allied bombings in WWII.

Jackson Tribute: Why Vienna?
Imperial grandeur and a small bottom line
Ingrid Salazar
01/09/2009

After the untimely death of Michael Jackson on Jun. 25, questions spread through the media world like wildfire: What will happen to the kids? Was he killed? When will Jermaine Jackson’s tour of self-promotion end? What will happen with the London concert tickets?

When Jermaine announced on Aug. 8 that a tribute concert would be held to honor his dead brother, another question emerged: Why the heck Vienna?

No offense to the City of Vienna intended, but it is not the obvious choice for such an event. Los Angeles, New York or probably Chicago, close to where he grew up, would seem more appropriate. Or even Tokyo: images of thousands of screaming, crying and fainting Japanese girls waiting outside his hotel in the mid 90s flash to mind.

12 A view of Dürrenstein
Into the (Austrian) Wild
A weekend through the Ybbstal Alps with the Alpine Club Vienna
Ingrid Salazar
01/09/2009

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.” – John Muir

 

My alarm jangled me awake at 6:30: I had set the jungle tone and light intensity higher than normal. I wanted to be on time.

03 Austrian President Heinz Fischer
The VIC at Thirty
The United Nations and Vienna reflect on 30 years of cooperation, part of the city’s return as a center of international life
Lauren Brassaw
Ingrid Salazar
01/09/2009

The third of four UN headquarters in the world celebrated its 30-year anniversary on Aug. 28 in Vienna, with a special ceremony led by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who, as a former-South Korean Ambassador to Austria, told guests he had left half of his heart in Vienna.

06 Anthony Alofsin
Languages in Stone
In his latest book, When Buildings Speak, historian Anthony Alofsin pays tribute to the architecture of Central Europe
Ingrid Salazar
01/07/2009

High above the great Ring Boulevard, the “Iron Man of City Hall” keeps watch over Vienna. This larger than life statue rises out of the central tower of the Rathaus, or City Hall, the looming edifice, unmistakeable with its peaked arches, piercing spires, lancet windows and sculpted adornments.

01 Stadtpark
How Green is Wien?
Vienna epitomizes environmental friendliness - but does the city live up to its reputation?
Ingrid Salazar
01/07/2009

In times of financial crisis, stimulus spending, recessions and global panic, Mother Earth tends to feel left out. So when World Environment Day (WED) rolled around this past Jun.

Obama vs. Globalization
Learning lessons from WWI: how domestic politics determine peace in the international order; A talk with Prof. David Rowe
Lauren Brassaw
Ingrid Salazar
01/07/2009

The origins of the First World War are often explained by a few cameos of emerging crises. It was after those shattering two shots piercing the Gräf & Stift Bois de Boulogne touring car in which Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were riding at the time of their assassination that brought about the disintegration of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and threw the great European empires into a frenzy of self-destruction.

But this history lesson, according to some, doesn’t encompass the structural problems that could have been at fault in the lead-up to the conflict. Improved institutional management and better military control, for example, could have played an important role in curbing the rise of radical nationalism and seemingly inevitable armed conflict.

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