Vienna DC Tower 1

With its height of 250 meters and 60 floors the DC Tower 1 is the tallest building in Austria, designed by French architect Dominique Perrault and characterized by its “folded” facade and slim structure.

18 years ago the development of the Vienna DC Danube-City began a new, modern and multifunctional city center.

The design of the two high-rise towers for the Danube-City in Vienna represents the concluding phase of a development extending over several decades: on what was originally a municipal rubbish tip the UNO-City was erected (1973–1979), tentative plans to hold the 1995 Vienna-Budapest Expo here were soon abandoned.

As a result architects Krischanitz and Neumann produced an urban design master plan for the area in 1992. The outcome is an entirely new urban district with a diverse range of functions.

The international competition that followed in 2002 for the design of the remaining undeveloped third of the Danube-City was won by Dominique Perrault.

To ensure that the development would provide the entire Danube-City site with a new kind of urban quality Perrault’s urban planning guideline project employs a number of different design measures: firstly his project continues the elevated slab of the Danube-City to the banks of the “New Danube” in the form of a generously dimensioned terrace providing direct access to the river.

Secondly rather than interpreting the two high-rise towers as independent buildings Perrault treats them as the corresponding halves of a block that open towards the city and the New Danube with a space-defining gesture.

The facade’s folds give the tower a liquid character, a malleability constantly adapting to the light. For interior spaces, on the other hand, Perrault tried to make the building very physical and present. The structure is not hidden and the exposed concrete framework is touchable. Stone and metal used in lobbies and circulations contribute to the tower’s generous and reassuring physicality.