Location & History

We as the Works Council often and gladly use the premises of the UniCredit Center Am Kaiserwasser. We hold regular meetings of the Central Works Council and the Vienna Works Council here. It is also a suitable venue for employee information events.

The UniCredit Center Am Kaiserwasser has also quickly become home to many sports sections of our “Sports Association of Bank Austria Employees”. In addition to regular training sessions in the hall or on the outdoor courts, numerous successful events have already taken place here with their participation. For example, various volleyball and football tournaments, the charity run, the aquathlon followed by a party in white, running seminars and swimming courses. This location is also a wonderful starting point for the Vienna City Marathon.

Many people envy us for this leisure and education center. And so I can only recommend this place to all my colleagues and pensioners.

I am delighted that this facility has increasingly become a place to meet and slow down, but also a place for further education. I would like to thank all my dedicated colleagues who have contributed to this and I look forward to seeing you again for joint activities or relaxation at the UniCredit Center Am Kaiserwasser!

Adi Lehner

Chairman of the Central Works Council of UniCredit Bank Austria

After this regulation, Kaisermühlen suddenly found itself on the left bank of the Danube. Naturally, the ship mills could no longer be operated on the “Old Danube”, which was now at a standstill. Due to the Industrial Revolution, however, they had become increasingly irrelevant anyway and soon disappeared completely from the landscape. The steamboat station, which had only been built a few decades earlier, had to be relocated to the bank of the new main river on the city side, which meant that the many restaurateurs and carters in Kaisermühlen lost their source of income. As a result, the area was built up in a grid pattern with “Zinskasernen” (low-standard apartment buildings) and some areas fell into the hands of industrial companies.

Around the turn of the century, a streetcar ran across Wagramer Straße and Reichsbrücke for the first time, which meant that the outskirts of Kaisermühlen were connected to public transport for the first time.

During the war, Kaisermühlen, with its many newly built large municipal buildings, was one of the most important sites of the February battles in 1934. After the annexation in 1938, the district was transferred to the 21st district, Floridsdorf, in the new Greater Vienna. It was not until 1954 that Kaisermühlen, together with seven other former municipalities, formed the 22nd district of Donaustadt.

Around half a century later, the Kaisermühlen subway station was opened on Wagramer Straße.

The Old Danube has now become a recreational area and is a popular leisure and bathing area. Numerous lidos have been built along the banks, including the aforementioned Gänsehäufel.

The surrounding high-rise buildings (Donau City, UNO-City) provide a special bathing location, but often demand the full skill of sailors due to the formation of treacherous winds.

Around 100 years later, the Lower Austrian provincial government issued another decree according to which people who were “caught” bathing naked in public would have their clothes confiscated. Eleven years later, this offense was even punishable by imprisonment. In 1752, the ban on bathing culminated in absurdity. At that time, people who jumped into the water also faced a beating or flogging.

Curiously, the attitude of the authorities towards open-air baths was completely different. Some of these were even built and operated by the authorities themselves. The advantage of these baths was that the bathers were kept under control. The sexes were separated, modestly dressed and the risk of drowning was eliminated. This meant that the state could not lose any workers or soldiers through drowning.

However, due to the regulation of the Danube and the emergence of many lidos, these open-air baths quickly disappeared from the scene and were replaced by new buildings. One of the new pools was the Länderbankbad. It was built in 1953 and renamed “Sportanlage der Bank Austria AG” in 1991 - today our UniCredit Center Am Kaiserwasser.

Eiswerkstraße

Finally, some interesting historical facts about the address of the UniCredit Center Am Kaiserwasser.

Eiswerkstraße was named in 1966 after the “Wiener Eiswerke”, which once operated an ice factory on the banks of the Old Danube. Ice works harvested natural ice in winter, stored it and - before the invention of refrigeration machines - supplied breweries, restaurants, households, dairies and similar customers with bar ice for cooling purposes.