From railway site to urban district The area once occupied by Vienna's South, East and freight train stations, which measures around 100 hectares in a prime inner-city location, offered the opportunity of the century for innovative urban design. Development there began shortly after the start of the new millennium with the decision to build a new Main Train Station in Vienna. In 2004 a competition for this station followed and a first masterplan by the winners of the station competition, Hotz-Hoffmann/Wimmer. The site was then developed in stages: first of all, the new railway line was built, which, elevated above ground level, runs in a gentle curve through the area from south-west to south-east and together with the new station and shopping mall forms the focal point. To the south of the railway line housing was built as well as the Sonnwend-viertel West school campus. The office blocks that make up the Quartier Belvedere, with the Erste Campus as flagship, were erected between the northern side of the train station and the wide Guertel (ring-road). The final area to be developed was the Sonnwendviertel Ost, which lies to the south of the station and flanks the seven-hectare Helmut-Zilk-Park, opposite its western pendant. Sonnwend-viertel Ost borders the train line directly and was originally intended for commercial buildings, it has an area of around one dozen hectares and was developed by Austrian State Railways and the City of Vienna in an ambitious concept process: bidder consortia made up of developers and architects submitted numerous innovative proposals for housing for around 30 plots; the allocation of the plots was based on criteria of urban added value (architektur.aktuell 10/2020).
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