★★★★★ 5.0
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FHWien of WKW
In 1959, Karl Schwanzer transformed this corner of Währinger Gürtel by demolishing Vienna's Rothschild-Spital and replacing it with the Wirtschaftsförderungsinstitut Wien—now FHWien of WKW. This building sits directly atop Vienna's buried Linienwall, the massive 3.5-meter defensive fortification that was torn down starting March 1894 to create this very street. The Währinger Gürtel took until 1906 to fully finish, with workers still planting gardens on the median strip decades after the first section opened in the 1870s. And here's what makes this spot extraordinary—Otto Wagner's iconic U-Bahn viaducts rose right beside you between 1893 and 1898, those dramatic steel structures that announced Vienna's leap into modernity. Schwanzer's clean modernist design arrived in 1959 at precisely the moment when this neighborhood had become Vienna's most engineered urban space... entirely rebuilt over history itself. The building you're standing at marks where the old city was literally paved over and reimagined.
Did You Know?
- :FHWien der WKW was one of the pioneers in Austria's university of applied sciences sector, launching its first diploma program in Tourism Management in 1994—the same year the FH system was introduced nationwide, marking a new era of practice-oriented higher education in Austria.
- Two-thirds of FHWien der WKW's lecturers are active professionals from the business world, bringing real-world experience directly into the classroom; this close industry connection means students regularly learn from executives, project leaders, and specialists who are shaping the Austrian economy.
- In 2023, FHWien der WKW expanded its legacy by acquiring the Hernstein Institute for Management & Leadership, a renowned provider of executive education with over 50 years of history, merging two top Austrian brands in management education under one roof.