UNESCO World Heritage – Heumarkt construction project keeps Vienna on the “Red List”

The reason for the status is the planned construction project on the Heumarkt by the Wertinvest company, for which amended plans were only presented at the end of June. But UNESCO has also expressed positive opinions.

New plans are being evaluated
According to the broadcast, a motion to amend the original draft decision was submitted at the initiative of committee member Saudi Arabia and subsequently adopted. The committee noted positively that in the run-up to the meeting, the investor presented a reduced project compared to the most recently published concepts.

This will now be subject to a technical and scientific assessment, the report said. It will be evaluated whether the construction project is compatible with the World Heritage.

The fact that the city has been on the ‘List of World Heritage in Danger’ since 2017 is due to the planned high-rise buildings. Since then, the project has been modified several times. Only at the end of June did revised plans appear again, which provide for a 56.5 meter high ‘residential disk’, a new building for Hotel Intercontinental with a height of 47.85 meters and a freely accessible city terrace, a conference center and a central open space.

“Take the necessary steps”
“As expected, the World Heritage Committee has decided to leave the status quo unchanged for the time being. The ‘Historic Center of Vienna’ therefore currently remains on the list of endangered World Heritage Sites. It must be emphasized that the committee recognizes and positively emphasizes the progress made in preserving the outstanding universal value of the World Heritage,” emphasizes Sabine Haag, Chair of the Austrian UNESCO Commission.

“I am pleased that the efforts made so far are internationally recognized. “It is therefore now all the more important to take the committee’s decision completely seriously, so that we can take the final necessary steps in accordance with the convention,” Haag emphasizes. She thanked the federal government and the city for their “tireless efforts and commitment to protecting and preserving world heritage.”

Mayer sees “pleasant development”
State Secretary for Arts and Culture Andrea Mayer (Greens) also expressed his satisfaction in a statement that the World Heritage Committee had confirmed that World Heritage was on the right track. “This pleasant development is the result of many years of joint efforts by all bodies involved in the issue in Austria: the project executor, the City of Vienna, the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs (BMEIA) and the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture. , Public Service and Sport (BMKÖS) as the body responsible for compliance with the World Heritage Convention, but also civil society and the Austrian UNESCO Commission.”

In order to successfully complete the previous correction process, which was positively assessed by the World Heritage Committee, and achieve the removal of the historic center of Vienna from the “List of World Heritage in Danger”, it is therefore important to take the further steps She emphasized also that the steps required in the resolution must be taken seriously and implemented. In Austria, the protection, conservation and transmission of the UNESCO World Heritage on the basis of the World Heritage Convention is an obligation under international law to be implemented by the respective local authorities within the scope of their area of ​​responsibility. she emphasized.

The State Secretary assured that the protection of world heritage is by no means a matter for “internal Austrian disputes”. “The UNESCO World Heritage site plays an important role for Austria as a cultural country,” she said with conviction. It would be irresponsible to carelessly sacrifice these places of exceptional universal value. The environmental organization ‘Alliance For Nature’ is also pleased with the preservation of the historic center on both the general World Heritage List and the Red List of Endangered World Heritage Sites.