Tehniška univerza na Dunaju

Vienna Technical University stands in the heart of the city, near Karlsplatz. Its main building faces the Karlskirche and shares the block with the Wien Museum and the Musikverein. The university grew from a polytechnic institute founded in 1815 by Emperor Franz I. The first director was Johann Joseph von Prechtl. Students moved into the new building designed by Joseph Schemerl von Leythenbach in 1818. In 1975 the school became a university. The university is Austria’s largest technical research and education center. It belongs to the TU Austria network together with Graz and Leoben. The network counts more than forty-two thousand students and nearly nine thousand staff. The Freihaus building and the library were completed in the late 1970s and 1980s. Since 2002 the university has been fully independent under a new law. Visitors find historic halls and modern laboratories side by side. The main building at Karlsplatz houses architecture, planning and civil engineering. At the Gußhaus site stand the old and new institutes of electrical engineering and informatics. The Freihaus site concentrates on technical physics and mathematics. Nearby, the Science Center at the Arsenal is expanding with high-performance computing facilities.