ehrenfellner.at

In honour of the “Südbahnhof” which gets closed today, the owners of the club “Pratersauna” organise a “Destruction Party” at the 18th of Dezember 2009. A lot of famous Dj’s like Tiefschwarz, Felix da Housecat and DJ Marflow provide the perfect sound for the last night in the central train station of Vienna.

Tickets are availiable directly at the entrance for €18. Pre-selling is coming soon.

URBAN DESTRUCTION
FESTIVAL ZU EHREN DES WIENER SÜDBAHNHOFS

Place: Wiener Südbahnhof, Wiedner Gürtel 1
Date: 18. 12. 2009
Start: 21.00h
End: 06.00h

Be there early enough! At the facebook event already 2.400 people attending this unique event!

Facebook Event
Newspaper Article

Update 16.12.2009:

500 pre selling tickets (€16) are available at:

wienXtra-jugendinfo
Die Infostelle für junge Leute – mitten in der Stadt!
Babenbergerstraße 1/
Ecke Burgring
1010 Wien
Tel. +43/1/1799
jugendinfowien(at)wienXtra.at
www.jugendinfowien.at

Opening hours: Tue, Wed, Thr, Fr 12.00-17.00!

The “Südbahnhof“, the central station of Vienna, is one of the biggest and most important railway stations in Austria. The building was planned by Heinrich Hrdlicka and built from 1955 to 1961. The complex combined the two existing stations (south- and east station). The actual building brings a lot of problems for travellers because the rail is not continuous. On the other hand there is no direct connection to an underground line of the city right now, which causes a lot of fussiness reaching the centre of Vienna.

On Sunday the demolition to make place for a new station begins. The new building does not only include the platforms and its waiting hall. Around the area, a complete new part of Vienna will arise. Living space for 13.000 people, this are around 5000 flats, a school campus and office towers are going to be built. The new “Südbahnhof” gets a direct connection to the underground station U1 – Südtirolerplatz  and several tram and bus lines.

The new head quarter of the Austrian Railway Federation (ÖBB) with three towers of different height (the highest 88 meters) adjoins the main station.

The ARGE Wien, consisting of the architecture studios of Theo Hotz, Ernst Hoffmann and Albert Wimmer are liable for the design and conversion of this project.

The core of the new station is a 100 meters long and 25 meters wide entrance hall. The eye catcher is the roof of the platforms, consisting out of 14 white rhombuses. Around 100 shops, restaurants and bars should settle in the 20.000 square meters of the complex. The opening of the the new main railway station is planned in 2014.

http://www.hauptbahnhof-wien.at/

The second Startup Weekend Vienna will take place at the Microsoft Innovation Center from the 6th till the 8th of November 2009. The Startup Weekend is a 54 hour startup event that provides networking, resources and incentives for individuals and teams to go from an idea to its launch.

Everybody who is interested can participate. During the 54 hours people can discuss and present their ideas for a new product. Experts give feedback about the viability of the idea and help to bring it to a next level.

Ticket are available for € 25 at www.startvienna.at
(drinks and food are included)

www.startvienna.at

The best works of the diploma projects of the faculty of architecture and urban design of the university of technology vienna are to visit right now at the kunsthalle vienna – project space karlsplatz. The vernissage is free available till the 30th of October 2009.

The archdiploma is held every second year. The book with all project is avaliable right now!

archdiploma 2009

The “Loos – House” at the Michaelerplatz in Vienna celebrates its 100th birthday. The house without the eyebrows was the first and one of the biggest architectural scandals in Vienna. Planed by the Austrian architect Adolf Loos for the gents outfitter Goldman & Salatsch it was the first house in the Austrian capital without any ornaments.

Loos said once: “Ornaments are maledictions!“

Based on this speech he planed the first and very simple facade in the first district of Vienna, directly in front of the “Hofburg”, the home of the Austrian emperor Franz Josef the first. A legend says, that the emperor never used the back entrance again in his life.

After two years of fighting with the government Loos agreed to install flower boxes and the construction could be finished. In 1947 the house was declared as a historic monument.  Over 40 years later the city realised how important the building is and renovated it.

The online travel platform “tripwolf” left the beta phase and started with a new layout yesterday. The new design is easier to understand and much better structured than the old one. The free iphone application was released about two months ago and allows users to access information of 50.000 tourism places worldwide on their mobile phone.

Tripwolf is an Austrian start up company. It provides information for more than 400.000 sights, hotels, city plans and  pictures. It is possible to get in contact with more than 40.000 user, share travelling reports, photos and personal experiences about your trips.

www.tripwolf.com

Based on a draft of photo montage for the book “Content” by Rem Koolhaas which shows the legs of a naked kneeing woman beside the characteristic archway of the building causes quite a stir in China. The images was not used for the cover but at the same time it is documented inside. In the last months the montage was going around in the Chinese web. According to a survey 47 percent of the participants really think that the building is a symbol for the genitals of a woman.

The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas negated this association on his homepage www.oma.nl. He insists that the montage was the idea of a designer and shows not his view. He says, “The CCTV – Tower (China Central Television) should be a shining example for the changing world order.”

www.cctv.com
www.faz.net
www.oma.nl

Next year the EXPO will open its doors in Shanghai, China on the first of May 2010. Six months it will be possible to visit pavilions and exhibitions of 186 different nations and 41 international organisations. The host expects more than 70 million visitors till the 31st of October 2010 from hole over the world. The EXPO is in the center of Shanghai and has an area of 5.28 square kilometers.

Austria will participate with a pavilion designed by the Viennese Architecture Studio Arge SPAN & ZEYTINOGLU. The dynamic and abstract form of the building, the red and white porcelain cladding and the multimedia based visuals inside are the highlights of the 2000 square meters big Austrian contribution to the world exhibition 2010.

Normally it is possible to rent an exhibition area for rich industry countries but this year not. Cause of this it will be one of the biggest participation of Austria at such an event. All together it will cost around 16 million Euros.

Inside of the pavilion the visitor makes a journey through the variegated nature and culture of Austria. The VIP – lounge is in the first level of the pavilion. Hosts and guests of economy, culture and politics will meet their Chinese partners in this part. A restaurant will serve Austrian specialities to its guests and visitors. Beside live – events of Austrian artists and musicians small interventions are planed.

http://www.expoaustria.at/
http://en.expo2010.cn/

The British photographer Justin Quinnell made this experiment with his pinhole camera and got fascinating images.  It was not easy to install the cameras and make the resistant against all environmental impacts. Not all of his cameras survived six months of rain, hail, wind and heat. Quinnell says, some of them have been full of water and others even have been buried by soil.

Justin Quinnell is a professional pinhole camera photograph. He is teaching at universities throughout the UK and is part time lecturer at the Falmouth University.

http://www.pinholephotography.org/

copyright by justin quinnell

A new version of the mobile client “yellix” is available. Like the old version it provides caller ID for unknown callers and shows alternative numbers. The data is provided by Herold. The new release supports facebook too. You can type in the phone number to each facebook contact and the picture and the status of the incoming call is popping up.

Right now the service is only available in Austria but more countries should follow soon.

The client works on Nokia Symbain 60 3rd version and onwards, Google Android, Blackberry v. 4.5 or higher and Windows Mobile. Unfortunately Apple’s iphone can’t be supported.

yellix is a free software and can be downloaded here.
www.yellix.com