An ambitious programme of school construction in Vienna and the creation of an independent organization that acts as client for public building work in Austria form the background to this large secondary school on the outskirts of the capital. Modern in character and designed with great sensitivity towards its surroundings, the school is also meant to provide a lively urban stimulus. The rectangular layout around a large central courtyard ensures a clear sense of orientation as well as typological clarity. Here, it would seem, the Modern Movement’s credo of “light, air and sunshine” has assumed concrete form. Yet despite the sense of lightness and transparency of a structure that appears to hover above the ground, the school is well able to withstand the rough treatment it may expect to receive. The materials are used largely in a “raw” state. Ultimately, however, it is the precise detailing and the spatial tension created here that allow the full aesthetic effect to emerge.