Donauturm (Danube Tower)

Tilt your head back. A pale concrete shaft rises from the lawns in one unbroken line. At the top, a wide crown seems to hang against the sky. Gravel paths crunch around your feet, and the wind off the river moves through the trees. This is the Donauturm, the Danube Tower. It stands in Vienna's Donaupark, on the left bank of the river, a short journey downstream from Klosterneuburg and its abbey. For a structure this tall, it is surprisingly quiet down here.

First, a quick word on geography, because it shapes everything you will see. Klosterneuburg sits just beyond Vienna's northwestern edge, where the Danube leaves the hills of the Vienna Woods. The tower itself stands inside the city of Vienna, in the district called Donaustadt. The two places share the same river, the same hills and the same sky. From the top of the tower, you can follow the water back upstream towards Klosterneuburg. In a sense, this is the best place to see how the two connect.

The tower was built for a garden show. In 1964, Vienna hosted an international horticultural exhibition on this ground. The city wanted a landmark to crown the grounds, and the tower opened that same year. When the exhibition closed, its gardens became the park you are standing in today. Many visitors assume the tower came first and the park grew around it later. In fact, the two were planned together, as one project, for one summer of flowers.

Here is a detail most people miss. Much of this green land was not always green. Before the garden show, parts of this low ground near the river were used as a rubbish dump. The city reshaped the area into lawns, paths and planted beds. So when you walk across the soft grass here, you are crossing one of Vienna's early attempts to turn waste ground into public space. The trees around you grew from that decision.

Now for the numbers. The tower is 252 metres tall, which makes it the tallest structure in Austria. It rises well above the south tower of Saint Stephen's Cathedral, the great Gothic church in the city centre. The architect was Hannes Lintl. His design is simple: a slender concrete shaft and a broad head at the top, which holds the viewing levels. There is almost no decoration anywhere. The clean form does all the work, and it still looks modern today.

Getting to the top is fast. Lifts run inside the shaft and carry visitors up in well under a minute. Your ears may notice the climb before your eyes do. If you watch through the windows during the ride, the trees drop away and the river suddenly widens below you. Then the doors open, and the wind and the light change completely. At around one hundred and fifty metres, an open-air viewing terrace wraps around the head of the tower.

Above the terrace are two more levels, a café and a restaurant. Both of them rotate. The movement is very slow, so slow that many guests only notice it when the view behind their table has changed. Over the course of a meal, the whole panorama passes the window: river, hills, city roofs and the flat plains to the east. It is a very 1960s idea... a room that turns, so that you do not have to.

Look northwest first. The wooded hills there are the edge of the Vienna Woods. The two summits closest to the river are Kahlenberg and Leopoldsberg. Klosterneuburg lies just beyond them, where the hills come down to meet the Danube. On a very clear day, you may be able to pick out the direction of the town, though haze often hides the detail. Below those hills, the river makes its turn and flows into the city towards you.

Now look down at the water itself. Vienna's Danube is not one channel but several. The main stream runs past, and beside it lies a long, narrow island. On the far side of that island runs a second, straighter channel. It was dug for flood protection in the late twentieth century, and the island between the two channels is now a long public park. Closer to the tower, the calm water of the Old Danube marks an older arm of the river. In summer, people swim and row there.

Just beside the park, you will see a cluster of curved, Y-shaped towers. That is the Vienna International Centre, often called UNO City. It is one of the main offices of the United Nations, and it was built after the tower, in the 1970s. From up here, you can see how the park, the river and the international district fit together on this side of the city. To the southwest, across the water, the old centre sits low, with the spire of Saint Stephen's rising above the roofs.

One more surprise. For the bold, the tower has at times offered bungee jumping from its upper platform. Jumpers fall straight down beside the concrete shaft, with the park spread out beneath them. Most visitors are happy to watch, or simply to stand at the railing and feel the wind. Even without jumping, the height is easy to feel up here. The treetops below look like moss, and the people on the paths look very small indeed.

Back on the ground, the park deserves some of your time too. Wide lawns, flower beds and shaded paths spread out from the base of the tower. Locals come here to walk their dogs, to jog and to picnic on warm evenings. A small park railway has run through the grounds for many years, and children love it. After dark, the tower is lit, and its head glows above the trees. From the riverbanks nearby, it works like a compass for the whole district.

Before you leave, stand at the foot of the shaft once more and look straight up. The concrete runs into the sky with nothing to interrupt it. A single summer exhibition created this tower more than sixty years ago, and the city chose to keep it. As you walk away across the grass, listen to the wind in the trees and the low sound of traffic on the bridges. Then turn back once. From almost anywhere along this stretch of the river, the tower is still there, standing above the water.