TIG 64
The Vienna International Garden Show in 1964 , shortly WIG 64 was a botanical exhibition on the territory of today's Danube Park and the Danube City in the 22nd Viennese district Donaustadt . It was opened on April 16, 1964 by Federal President Adolf Schärf and shown until October 11, 1964.
history
Around 1960, the city administration under Mayor Franz Jonas (see state government and city senate Jonas III , an SPÖ - ÖVP coalition) made the decision to hold this garden show on the area between Hubertusdamm of the Danube , Wagramer Strasse and Alter Donau north of the Reichsbrücke , the most prominent Vienna Danube bridge . This was linked to the intention to remove the manure deposit located on part of the area and the remains of an extensive wild settlement, the so-called Bretteldorfes. For the prehistory of the area see here .
The overall planning of WIG 64 was entrusted to City Gardening Director Alfred Auer (June 28, 1922– March 18, 2002), the head of Municipal Department 42, City Gardening Office. The show was organized in cooperation with the Federal Association of Commercial Gardeners in Austria.
On the approximately 100 hectare area, a 30,000 m² lake (it was christened Irissee and exists, albeit heavily reedged, to this day) and a 25 km network of road and footpaths were created. A few million plants were planted, the more sensitive in five exhibition halls that no longer exist (four smaller and one large Donauparkhalle ) near the southeast entrance from Wagramer Straße opposite Schüttaustraße (today the site of Donau City). Starting in 1962 , the Danube Tower , the tallest structure in Austria, was built in the northern part of the area, close to the border with the 21st district , as a landmark and “symbol for modern Vienna” .
Austrian Post issued a series of six special stamps for the WIG 64 . On June 28, 1964, a WIG balloon mail flight was recorded on a special postmark from the Vienna 101 post office.
The exhibition was very successful. It received 2.1 million visitors and received international media coverage. After the end of the exhibition, the site was freely accessible from October 12, 1964 without an entrance fee. The success prompted the city administration to hold another international garden show, the WIG 74 , ten years later in another district .
However, most of the buildings erected for the WIG 64 had to be closed and demolished over time. This applied to the exhibition halls, the floating stage, the 41 m high tower greenhouse, the cinema and the library with "reading hills". In the 1990s, the Donauparkhalle , in which major sporting events have taken place over the years, was also demolished. As a result of the urban development on the east bank of the Danube, the area of the park was reduced by around a third to around 600,000 m 2 , and the 2.2 km long double chairlift with its triangular course also had to be dismantled due to insufficient demand. What have been preserved are u. a. the Seerestaurant (since 2012 Korea Kulturhaus Wien ) and the Donauparkbahn built by the operators of the Liliputbahn in the Prater .
Others
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the garden show, the exhibition WIG 64 - The green post-war modernity was held in the Wien Museum in summer 2014 .
literature
- Ulrike Krippner, Lilli Lička: Viennese International Garden Shows 1964 and 1974 - Departure into Postmodernism? . In: Die Gartenkunst 19 (2/2007), pp. 381–398.
Individual evidence
- ^ Herbert Löwy: The WIG opens ... In: Tageszeitung Arbeiter-Zeitung , No. 90, April 17, 1964, p. 1
- ^ Donau City # flood area and Bretteldorf
- ^ Felix Czeike : Historical Lexicon Vienna. Volume 2: De-Gy. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-218-00544-2 , p. 469.
- ↑ Illustration of a WIG-64 postage stamp
- ↑ Ebay offer of an envelope with the special cancellation
- ^ WIG 64 - The green post-war modernity , press release of the Wien Museum from March 2014
Web links
- Report in the courier on the 50th anniversary
- WIG Expo 1964 Vienna. Bureau International des Expositions, accessed February 20, 2018 .