Vienna International Centre

Vienna International Centre

Along with New York, Geneva and Nairobi, Vienna is one of the four Headquarters duty stations of the United Nations. More than 4.000 employees from over 100 countries work for the Vienna International Centre (VIC)-based organizations. About a third of them are Austrians. Operations costs are borne by the Organizations themselves. The VIC also contributes about 360 million euros annually into the Austrian economy.

In 1966, the Austrian Federal Government made an offer to the United Nations to construct an international headquarters centre in Vienna. In 1967, the Federal Government and the Municipality of Vienna, in a joint decision, designated an area on the left bank of the Danube as the site of the Centre. An international competition for the design of the buildings at Vienna’s Donaupark was organized by the Government of Austria in 1968. It produced world-wide interest among architects and resulted in 288 submissions.

Building the Vienna International Centre In September 1969, the international jury awarded four prizes but declared that none of the prize-winning designs were suitable for immediate execution in their original form. The jury recommended that the four be commissioned to revise their designs and provide detailed plans for the first building phase. Accordingly, the Austrian authorities invited the four to submit revised projects, retaining the fundamental ideas of their design, but taking the jury’s comments into account. The revised designs were submitted in April 1970.

A nine-member expert committee was appointed by the Austrian authorities to review the revised designs in the context of the detailed specifications issued for the second stage of the competition. At the conclusion of these detailed reviews, the Austrian architect, Johann Staber was designated the winner and the winning design was announced on 18 December 1970 by the Federal Chancellor of Austria. Construction having begun in 1972 under the general direction of the Internationaler Amtssitz und Konferenzzentrum Wien (IAKW), the VIC was inaugurated on 23 August 1979. Separate agreements were signed by the IAEA and Austria and between the United Nations and Austria on behalf of UNIDO and the other United Nations offices at Vienna on 28 September 1979.

Many United Nations member states gave works of art and other objects to the Vienna International Centre. Switzerland donated the World Watch that shows the time around the globe.