Rudolf-Bednar-Park

• Location: 1020 Vienna, Rudolf-Bednar-Park
  Public transport information
• Size: approximately 31,000 square metres
• Contact: +43 1 4000-8042

The former site of the Nordbahnhof (Vienna North Station) in the second district is currently one of the largest inner-city development areas in Vienna. In the 1990s a team of architects, urban planners, traffic experts, sociologists and ecologists designed a concept for developing the North Station site that will run until 2025. This long-term urban development process gives fresh impetus to the entire city, but especially to the second district due to its location on the urban axis Vienna city centre - Donaucity development project (in the North of Vienna).

Jury Decision on the Landscaping Competition "Rudolf-Bednar-Park"

The objective of the competition was to develop preliminary designs for the approximately 30,000 square metres park (Rudolf-Bednar-Park), which was to be created on the former site of the North Station. The park is a central open space of this inner-city development area. In 2005 a Europe-wide park design competition subsidised by the European Union was issued. From among the projects submitted by renowned landscape architects from Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands, an international jury headed by the Swiss landscape architect Professor Günther Vogt unanimously chose the project of Hager Landschaftsarchitektur AG Zürich (Switzerland) as the winner in May 2006.

Concept for the Rudolf-Bednar-Park by Hager Landschaftsarchitektur AG Zürich

The main characteristic of the park is a "veil of trees" which defines the Rudolf-Bednar-Park as an independent area within this emerging part of the city. The veil is oriented on the larger spatial features of the area: the Danube and the former North Station. The southern part of the park is designed as a zone for use by young people, with a skate park and streetball courts. Running parallel to the "axis Radingerstraße" are "reed parks", which remind of the natural Danube landscape.

At the central crossroads, in the heart of the park, the Swiss landscape architect Guido Hager envisioned a café in the form of a transparent cube. A zone with a waterbound gravel surface, towards the "Wohnen am Park" apartment buildings to the north, is dedicated to more quiet uses. In the eastern part of the park the lawn is dotted with beautifully clipped flower bushes. They offer quiet places of refuge in the otherwise open park, for various uses. Scattered all over the entire park are orange poles with various elements added to them, for children to play in and with: climbing ropes, swings and hammocks. Between the intensively structured zones there are open grass areas with room to move freely or to lye in the shade of the veil of trees.

Subsidised by an EU programme

The park is named after Rudolf Bednar, who was district chairman of the second district from 1977 to 1984. The construction of the Rudolf-Bednar-Park was subsidised by an EU programme.