You are right about the artist, his designs were very controversial..this building had been a special assignment given by the Municipality to him. One of the two architects J.Kravina refused to do the ground plans because of the structures irregular forms. So the city admins assigned the architect Pelikan to do the job.
In Vienna, it is hard to be corrupt, because once you are discovered of a wrong doing, they will kill your political career. The public structures are often controlled many times and the controllers see to it that all buildings are correctly done. If buildings collapse, the authorities will find all people involved including politicians.