The Donau City (Donaucity), or Vienna DC, is a new part of Vienna’s 22nd District Donaustadt (both literally meaning Danube City) – next to both the Reichsbruecke and the left bank of Danube’s 21.1 km long diluvian bed, Neue Donau (literally: New Danube, separated from the river’s streambed by the Donauinsel / Danube Island).
Construction work for the first building on this site started in 1995.
History
Although the Danube river has been inextricably connected with Vienna, for centuries, it had played only a subordinate role in the city of Vienna.
Unlike in many other cities, the Danube River, because of the numerous floods it regularly caused, was omitted from the urban area. Buildings grew up in Vienna on both sides of the Danube – but not up to the Danube. Only through the Danube-regulation and the creation of the relief arm New Danube, with Danube Island, in the 1970s, was the surrounding cityscape of the Danube of interest to builders.
The establishment of Danube City today has its origins through the organization of the Vienna International Garden Festival in 1964. This was on a site of a former landfill, later superficially rehabilitated, in an area between the Old Danube and the New Danube.
In 1962, the construction of the Danube Tower began, and two years later, the Garden Festival was held. The site of the garden show was known as Donaupark. Not far from Donaupark, in 1967, the planning of the UNO-City was started, opened in 1979. Through the construction of the U1 and the Reichsbruecke (Empire Bridge), the UN-City had a high-ranking access to the traffic system.
The terrain gained increasing importance with the opening of the congress center Austria Center Vienna in 1987. Next, there were plans, at the end of the 1980s, to hold an EXPO Vienna-Budapest, along the northern bank of the Danube in Vienna. However, the planned EXPO 1995 was canceled, because the Viennese population rejected this project, as part of a referendum, by a majority of the votes. The site was then developed for a subsequent use as a multifunctional district.
The EXPO 1991 from the resulting AG Vienna Development for the Danube Region AG (WED) to the largest Austrian banks and insurance companies (BA-CA, Erste Bank, Raiffeisen Bank for Labor and Economy, Invest Bank AG, UNIQA, Wiener Städtische) involved owns and is responsible for the overall development. The area, still undeveloped, arose within a few years, as an internationally acclaimed urban center with pioneering residential and office buildings, research facilities, recreational facilities and event locations: the Danube City also known as VIENNA DC.
The A22 began in 1993, with the establishment of the infrastructure for future use and Überplattung. The foundation for the first building was completed in 1995, with the start of construction of the Andromeda Tower laid.
The total area is 17.4 hectares. Of this total, approximately 1.7 million cubic meters are used for construction, which represents a gross floor area of approximately 500,000 square meters. Nearly two-thirds of those buildings are already completed and utilized.