28 to 30 June sees a special occasion in Vienna with the official opening of the huge and ambitious Museums Quartier (MQ). The entire city (and not only) is invited to visit the new centre for art and architecture which forms a connection between the old part of the Austrian capital where the Imperial Palace, the Albertina and the National Library are to be found and the lively Spittelberg area in the seventh district with its trendy bars and art galleries. The “heart” of the project, the eighteenth century Imperial riding stables, has since 1987 been the subject of a competition which has involved internationally famous architects with the Vienna practice Ortner & Ortner being declared winners in 1990. With its sixty thousand square metres, MQ is set to become one of the top ten biggest cultural complexes in the world (others include the Lincoln Center in New York and the Berlin museum island). Inside, space is occupied by over twenty different institutions from the more “classical” ones such as art galleries to new centres for dance, film, architecture and new media. The entire area, accessible from ten different entrances, will be open twenty four hours a day. In the words of Christian Lichtenwagner, architect from the studio Ortner & Ortner, here “in capsule form” is the face of the new Vienna.