‘Campus of Religions’ – Vienna’s project to put all religions on equal footing

The winning design, as well as a jury selection from the competition, will be exhibited in Vienna’s Ringturm

The winning design for the Campus of Religions district will be presented today in Vienna’s Ringturm. The project calls for an educational facility for the University College of Pedagogy of Christian Churches Vienna/Krems (Kirchliche Pädagogische Hochschule Wien/Krems), which will also be a campus housing sacred buildings of eight major religions.

The interreligious centre is a peace project, that aims to put the diverging faiths on equal footing and promote tolerance, education and acceptance. Estimates for the duration of the construction put the end date during 2023.

A place for all religious communities

According to Harald Gnilsen, chairman of the Campus der Religionen association, the idea to find a place for all religious communities dates back to 2007. He explained that religious communities have a unique socialising function that coffee houses cannot fulfil and that placing all of them in the same relative space can demonstrate their equality in value and rank, regardless of their statistical representation in the city.

The religions in question are Buddhism, Catholicism, Evangelism, Islam, The New Apostolic Church, Sikhism, Greek Orthodox Christianity and Judaism. Every religion financed the construction of its own building, underlining the complexity and delicate balance of the project, as well as its aspirations.

Balance is one of the main themes of the campus, as all religious representatives agreed that their sacred temples would not host any religious symbols on the outside. At the same time, the architectural studio, Burtscher-Durig, explained that the buildings are connected with a steel-aluminium veil, emphasising their unity and heterogeneity.

At the same time, the whole 10,000-square meter campus, including the classrooms and halls, has been designed to be airy and light by the architect Marianne Durig in an attempt to promote and embody openness.