Museum of the Vienna North West Railway Station
While the final demolition of the North West Railway Station is taking place, the museum on site documents its eventful history, which seems to have fallen into oblivion despite its importance. It recalls political events and the large number of companies that operated here, as well as the people, animals, and plants that lived on and used the area.
Through its exhibits, the museum and its outposts tell of the area's past, about its days as an arm of the Danube teeming with fish, the opening of the magnificent terminus of a railway line connecting Vienna with northern Bohemia and the North Sea ports, the most significant imported goods, and pivotal political events, wars, crises, and interim uses. These include the anti-Semitic hate exhibition ‘The Eternal Jew’ in 1938, the station's special role during the Soviet occupation, its heyday, when it had Austria's first container crane, and columns of lorries heading east during the Cold War.
The existing buildings are currently being demolished to make way for an urban development area intended to accommodate 16,000 new residents by 2035. At the same time, the museum has collected relics from the working world and set up a pocket park to serve as a temporary protected area for people, animals, and plants, with the aim of preserving the biodiversity that has developed on the re-naturalised wasteland.
EDUCATORS ON SITE AND GUIDED TOURS TO THE ‘MUSEUM FILLING STATION’ (ONGOING, UPON REQUEST)
The museum team and other experts will be available to answer questions during the event.
