The Vienna Voyage

Today is the first full day in Vienna (or Wien in German) and it was pretty packed. We started by taking a bus across the city to the first stop which was the Vienna University of Economics and Business. The new campus for the university was completed in 2013 after just three years and costing just under €500 million. The buildings were designed by Zaha Hadid, Laura P. Spinadel of BUSarchitektur, NO.MAD Arquitectos, Estudio Carme Pinós, Hitoshi Abe, and Peter Cook. Most of the buildings were pretty cool and responded well to the needs of the university though some of it seemed unnecessary. Despite that, the campus was pretty well laid out.

Library and Learning Centre by Zaha Hadid

The next stop was also a college called the Vienna University of Technology. We met up with the architect who did restorations/renovations and got a personal tour from him. The main stop of the tour was the cupola at the top of the building. It was a very interesting room to see. The structure was exposed and readily apparent. Once the tour was over it was time to go next door.

Cupola Hall at Vienna University of Technology

Just two buildings down was the Karlskirche. It is a church built by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo. It is considered one of the best baroque churches in Vienna and most outstanding buildings in the city. We have learned about this building a lot throughout our time in school. The plan isn't the typical plan of churches I usually see and its basis is around the elliptical dome. The drawback to this church is that there is scaffolding up to allow visitors to reach the top of the cupola. This takes away from the beauty of the church greatly. Plus it really isn't worth the visit to the top of the dome. There wasn't a whole lot to be seen. We finished up with the church pretty quickly and Hans took us on a walking tour.

Karlskirche

We walked around for a bit seeing some of the city before going to the Austrian National Library. It was built again by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach in 1723. It was a very beautiful library and very elegant. I was thoroughly impressed with the building. There was so much history in the place that was also part of the palace. I wish I could've appreciated it more but I was super hungry after not being able to eat lunch. So Hans let us go and a group of us left to get dinner.

Austrian National Library

We made our way to Naschmarkt and had dinner. I had finally had true Wiener schnitzel made with veal. It was very good and delicious. We digested dinner a bit before heading back to the hotel. On our way we stopped at the Westbahnhof which is the main train station for West Vienna. It looks similar to the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing by OMA. Underground is a mall which we walked through. We decided to call it an early night being we start our day at 7am tomorrow, I hope whatever Hans has in store for us is great.

Westbahnhof