Three acute-angled concrete structures, which largely comprise housing units as well as some offices, café and restaurant premises, wind their way through, around and above the historic viaducts of the former Stadtbahn suburban line. However, this urbanistically highly interesting location at the junction of Danube Canal and Gürtel has proven very problematic for housing purposes.

• Bauzeit: 2004-2005
• PlanerIn: Zaha M. Hadid
• Client: SEG
• Building type: Residential
• Reachability: U4/U6 Spittelau
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

Tillner&Willinger create an outstanding office building with boldly curving, elliptical lines for one of the most exciting hubs of the city, set above the Stadtbahn arches of Spittelau. The lightweight steel-glass structure contrasts with the massive viaducts and encompasses a sickle-shaped courtyard.

• Bauzeit: 2006-2008
• PlanerIn: Architekten Tillner & Willinger, RAHM Architekten
• Building type: Office and government
• Reachability: U4/U6 Spittelau
• Accessibility: Ground-floor restaurant during business hours
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

The strikingly curving structure with its transparent, oblique façade is situated at the urbanistically highly significant intersection of Döblinger Gürtel and Heiligenstädter Strasse directly above the historic Stadtbahn arches. The form of the building follows the line of the former Stadtbahn track layout and half encircles a sickle-shaped courtyard used by restaurants and bars.

• Bauzeit: 2006-2007
• PlanerIn: Bulant & Wailzer
• Client: Stadt Wien
• Building type: Traffic
• Reachability: U4/U6 Spittelau
• A sophisticated bridge structure done in concrete, steel and glass and designed by the architectural studio Bulant & Wailzer provides pedestrians and bikers with a practical and aesthetically appealing crossing between the 9th and 19th municipal districts.
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

The vigorously renewed premises of the former Café Grillparzer in a prominent Gründerzeit location along the western Gürtel house a new café (already popular with a trendy crowd) offering Latin American coffee varieties. The fully glazed front enlarges the spacious sitting zone – panelled with stained birch plywood – into the city.

• Bauzeit: 1995-1996
• PlanerIn: Ganahl Ifsits Architekten
• Client: Fischer & Lechnitz GesmbH
• Building type: Hotel and restaurants
• Reachability: U6 Nußdorferstraße, tram 37/38, stop: Nußdorferstraße
• Accessibility: During business hours
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

In 1894, Otto Wagner was commissioned with the architectural design of the Stadtbahn network with its 36 stations, viaducts and bridges over a total length of 40 km. With respect to their design, place in architectural history and Vienna’s urbanistic tissue, the station buildings, which were planned for above- and belowground line routing, are outstanding examples of mass transit structures.

• Bauzeit: 1894-1899
• PlanerIn: Otto Wagner
• Client: k.k. Österr. Staatsbahnen
• Building type: Traffic
• Reachability: f.e.: U6 stations between Nußdorfer Straße and Gumpendorfer Straße
• Accessibility: The stations are publicly accessible
• In addition to the Stadtbahn arches and station buildings, Otto Wagner’s structures for mass transit also include the Imperial Pavilion, Gürtel Bridge and Nussdorf Lock.
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

The "oblique cafeteria" in the ample atrium lobby, the urban sculpture "Grasshopper" in the entrance zone as accessway, open-air sitting zone and art object as well as the staircase composed of vertebra-like concrete elements transform the black monolith of this incubator for young companies at a busy Gürtel intersection into a very special building.

• Bauzeit: 2001-2003
• PlanerIn: BKK-3 Architektur
• Client: PRISMA Lustenau
• Building type: Office and government
• Reachability: U6 Josefstädter Straße
  
• Accessibility: Ground-floor restaurant during business hours
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

The EU project URBan InterventION aimed at the upgrading and functional improvement of the central zone of the 6-km western Gürtel section by redesigning and enlarging green spaces and finding new tenants for the Stadtbahn arches to render this dilapidated urban area more attractive and change its image for good.

• PlanerIn: Silja Tillner
• Building type: Traffic
• Reachability: f.e.:U6 Josefstädter Straße
• Accessibility: The open-air zones are publicly accessible, while the restaurant/bar zones are accessible during business hours
• The curving steel-glass structure of the Spittelau office building by Silja Tillner (2007) resting atop the Stadtbahn arches follows the former suburban train layout as a displaced circular arc.
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

A typical backyard in the 7th municipal district close to the Gürtel was given a new lease on life with a residential and office building: the interesting folds of the greened office-wing roofscape offer both common areas and a view from the levels above. On the Wimbergergasse side, deep winter gardens with glass parapets add vibrancy to the somewhat drab surroundings.

• Bauzeit: 1999-2001
• PlanerIn: DMAA
• Client: KALLCO
• Building type: Residential
• Reachability: U6 Burggasse - Stadthalle
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

Reminiscent of a giant oil-tanker whose monumental, south-facing flight of steps makes contact with Urban Loritz Platz, the new "Main City Library and Central Administration of Vienna’s Municipal Libraries" rises above the U6 tracks on Neubaugürtel right beside Otto Wagner’s Burggasse station – a good example of urban condensation.

• Bauzeit: 2000-2002
• PlanerIn: Ernst Mayr
• Client: Stadt Wien
• Building type: Educational
• Reachability: U6 Burggasse - Stadthalle
• Accessibility: During business hours
• With its canopy of 10 white membrane surfaces and 28 steel struts plus the new Main City Library, Urban Loritz Platz – a gateway to the 7th municipal district – has come to symbolise the URBAN project as a whole (Silja Tillner, since 1999).
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

This addition to the Stadthalle, Roland Rainer’s established masterpiece, was designed by a team of Vorarlberg architects and sensitively yet self-confidently engages in a difficult dialogue by subtly interpreting the scales and materials, structures and building morphology of the main wing.

• Bauzeit: 2003-2006
• PlanerIn: Dietrich | Untertrifaller
• Client: Wiener Stadthalle Betriebs- und Veranstaltungsges. m. b. H
• Building type: Sports and recreation
• Reachability: U6 Burggasse - Stadthalle
• Accessibility: During events
• The Stadthalle Wien, for which an international competition won by Roland Rainer (1958) was held, is characterised by the big event hall’s unique structural strength (no supports are needed), spatial flexibility and perfect emergency exit organisation. Additions: Stadthallenbad (1974), Hall E with Johanna Rainer (1994).
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

A V-shaped layout divides the yellow-illuminated Asian restaurant near the Western Railway Station into two longitudinal sections, i.e. restaurant and bar. Kitchen, sanitary units and storerooms are situated in-between. A hidden surprise effect is created by the shiny red-and-white, avant-garde tatami room as an extravagant private facility.

• Bauzeit: 2003-2004
• PlanerIn: BEHF Architects
• Client: Hu cheng Long KEG
• Building type: Hotel and restaurants
• Reachability: U3/U6 Westbahnhof
• Accessibility: During business hours
• Foto: MA19

After five years of citizen participation and planning processes, a highly urban/e housing estate at the periphery of Vienna emerged on the former site of a cable factory (Kabel- und Drahtwerke Aktiengesellschaft, KDAG) in the 12th municipal district Meidling. The diversity of the sections and development types proposed by 7 architectural studios harbours a wealth of different housing styles and an open-space and path system in tune with the surroundings.

• Bauzeit: 2006
• PlanerIn: M&S Architekten, Schwalm-Theiss & Gressenbauer, Hermann & Valentiny, pool Architektur, Martin Wurnig, Branimir Kljajic, Werkstatt Wien, Rainer Pirker, the POOR BOYs ENTERPRISE
• Client: Stadt Wien
• Building type: Residential
• Reachability: U6 Tscherttegasse
• Accessibility: the open-air zones are publicly accessible, while restaurants/shops are accessible during business hours
• Foto: Rupert Christanell