Hochhausprojekt Wien Mitte, High-rise development project in central Vienna, Austria

Hochhausprojekt Wien Mitte was a planned high-rise office and service centre next to Vienna's Ringstrasse, designed by Laurids Ortner from 1990. It was never built as conceived: only the Justizzentrum Wien-Mitte was completed within the project. The successor scheme by Henke & Schreieck, begun in 2007, has no towers.

Laurids Ortner was commissioned in October 1990 to plan a dense office and service centre above the Wien Mitte station, next to the Ringstrasse. The project stalled in the early 1990s property slump and was revived from November 1999. In May 2000 the city council approved it, but ICOMOS and UNESCO objected that the towers stood in the buffer zone of the planned World Heritage area. Only the Justizzentrum Wien-Mitte was built; Henke & Schreieck's successor scheme, begun in October 2007, dropped the towers.

The debate over the towers drew in Vienna's architectural establishment: Roland Rainer, Gustav Peichl and Friedrich Kurrent spoke out against the scheme in the media, and former mayor Helmut Zilk turned against it. ICOMOS and UNESCO opposed it because the site lay in the buffer zone of the planned World Heritage area, a key reason the project failed.

The site is easily reachable by public transport as the complex connects directly to Vienna's central transport hub. Visitors can explore the accessible areas, with transport functions and commercial spaces marking the main entry points and walkways.

The project was never built as planned: only the Justizzentrum Wien-Mitte was completed within its framework. The successor scheme by Henke & Schreieck, begun in October 2007 and partly opened at the end of 2012, deliberately dropped the signal-setting towers.