Venue
The congress will be held in the heart of Vienna at the Congress Centre of the Vienna Hofburg, once the winter residence of the Habsburgs.
Thus, the scientific programme will take place in the rooms where Maria Theresia was baptised, emperors and kings from all over Europe enjoyed imperial balls, where Field Marshall Radetzky developed his strategic plans, and, last but not least, Prince Metternich influenced European history when the meetings of the Vienna Congress of 1814/15 transformed into a series of spledid balls.
The Hofburg Palace was the residence of the Habsburg dynasty until 1918. The Palace was built between the 13th and 20th centuries. Its different wings are examples of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Classicist architecture.
Over a period of 700 years, Austria’s rulers enlarged the Hofburg to make it a fitting imperial residence.
The emergence of Austria as a major European power during the Baroque period saw the Hofburg become a stage for world political and cultural history. Maria Theresia, Joseph II and Metternich lived and worked at the Hofburg, while Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and Strauss made music here. Emperor Franz Joseph I gave the Hofburg its present day appearance.
The 1958 General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency at the Hofburg marked the start of a development that saw Vienna claim its rightful place as a world leader in the international conference industry with the transfer of management to Wiener Kongresszentrum Hofburg Betriebsgesellschaft m.b.H. in 1969.
