Vienna International Centre

The Vienna International hub (VIC, German Internationales Zentrum Wien, sometimes known as UNO-City) is an official hub for international organizations in Vienna’s 22nd district, Donaustadt.The Republic of Austria and the City of Vienna erected it between 1973 and 1979, following the ideas of Austrian architect Johann Staber.Austria presented such an international center to the United Nations (UNO) in 1967.

The VIC is home to the United Nations Office in Vienna ( UNOV ) as well as other international organizations.It is leased to the United Nations for 99 years at a symbolic fee of 7 euro cents per year (before 2001: 1 shilling).The running costs are handled by the respective organizations.Organizational facilities in the VIC are extraterritorial.

The Austria Center Vienna, which had been envisaged from the beginning, was erected next to the International Center VIC as a second building complex of the UNO-City between 1983 and 1987.It is Austria’s largest conference facility and can host a variety of events.By the year 2000, a new area dubbed Donau City had been developed between the Alter Donau and Neuer Donau, which had been accessible since September 1982 through the U1 underground line.

Architecture

The International Center was built following a competition won by Argentine architect César Pelli in 1969.England and Germany took second and third place, respectively, with Austria’s Johann Staber finishing fourth.After revising the top four projects on behalf of the international jury chaired by Roland Rainer, the Kreisky I federal government, an SP minority government, decided to carry out the Staber project in December 1970, prompting violent protests from the VP opposition and a committee of inquiry from the triggered National Council, but the decision was not changed.

The complex comprises of six office buildings with a distinctive Y-shaped floor plan placed in pairs around a central, circular conference center on an area of 17 hectares (land supplied by the City of Vienna).The facility’s floor design is based on an imagined honeycomb structure (hexagons), with the buildings organized such that they shadow each other as little as possible.Staber had originally prepared planned versions that extended beyond six buildings and would have continued the hexagonal design.

The entire floor space is roughly 230,000 square meters, with the highest tower (“A”) standing at 120 meters and 28 stories.The buildings are adorned with pieces of art by Austrian artists, including the sculpture Polis by Joannis Avramidis, which sits on the plaza.

Vienna, Austria