‘Every society produces its own space’ (Lefebvre 1991, p. 31). Indeed, any society or ‘social existence’ that aspires to be real and to be reckoned with needs to produce its own space. Otherwise, it would constitute ‘a strange entity, a very peculiar kind of abstraction’, prone to ‘disappear altogether’ (ibid., p. 53). One way in which modern societies and ‘social existences’ (ibid.) such as political movements, parties, and states have sought to produce their own space and specific everyday realities has been the provision and regulation of mass housing. This was the case in Vienna after WWI no less than in Berlin after WWII. In both cities, the newly empowered political elites addressed the housing question head on. They did so because there was a dire need for housing. Yet they also did so because the provision of housing constituted a promising lever with which to anchor their respective visions of the society to come: socialism in Red Vienna and East Germany, and liberalism in West Germany. By rebuilding housing, Red Vienna’s Austro-Marxists – no less than East Germany’s socialists and West Germany’s Christian Democrats – sought to create ‘new men’ [Neue Menschen]. The respective capital cities served as both laboratories and stages for the pursued societal renewals.