Pfarrkirche Alt-Ottakring

Look up at that 74 meter tower. It went up in 1910 to mark Kaiser Franz Joseph's 80th birthday. But here's the strange part: the old church it was meant to replace was still standing. Right inside.

The neighborhood around you started with a small chapel built in 1416 along the Ottakringer Bach. Nothing fancy, just a place for villagers to pray. In 1683, Turkish armies burned the older part of Ottakring to the ground, including its main church. That church stayed a ruin until 1790, when it was finally torn down. The little Wolfgang Chapel survived.

By 1788, even the chapel was too small, so they enlarged it. It became the parish church in 1790. Problem solved.

Not for long. By 1900, Ottakring exploded with working class families. Factories, tenements, people everywhere. The church couldn't fit them anymore. So in 1909, they started building this massive neo-Romanesque structure right over the old one. They built the new walls around it like a shell. Kept holding services in the old church while construction rose around them. Only after the new church was finished in 1912 did they demolish what was inside.