The Agency's permanent headquarters in the Donaupark

Early in 1967 the Government of Austria announced to the Board of Governors that it was making offers to the IAEA and UNIDO to establish Permanent Headquarters on 'the Donaupark site' to include office buildings, conference rooms required for the performance of the organizations' functions, as well as buildings for common services. The site of 160,000 square meters on the banks of the Danube River is 7 km from the centre of Vienna An International Architects' Competition was held in 1969. The Federal Government selected the plans of Architect Johann Staber in December 1970 and commissioned him with the work. A company, the IAKW (Internationales Amtssitzund Konferenzzentrum Wien AG), was founded in May 1971 and charged with the administrative, financial, and co-ordinating functions for the entire project. The construction of the office towers began in April 1973 and the shell of these towers was completed in the spring of 1975, the completed facades having already been placed on certain towers during that time. The conference building and the common services buildings are presently under construction. Completion of the whole complex is scheduled for the latter part of 1978 and work is progressing according to schedule. The actual building costs for the whole project are estimated at 6.8 billion Austrian schillings with an additional 6.2 billion schillings financing cost, and are shared between the Federal Government (65%) and the City of Vienna (35%); in addition, the City of Vienna has provided the land. Included in the total costs are the costs for traffic lanes within and leading to the area.