Urania is a house of national education and home of the homonymous association that has its seeds in Berlin, where the first Urania-Association was founded in 1888. The aim of Urania is to make scientific findings available for a wider public and to share knowledge. In Vienna, the association has existed since 1897 and erected its club house – planned by Art Nouveau architect Max Fabiani – on classy Ringstraße in 1910. The building features an observatory (Urania is the muse of astronomy in Greek mythology), a puppet theatre, a restaurant, numerous multipurpose rooms for lectures and discussions and – above all – a cinema. One of the most attended events at Urania is the Viennale, Vienna’s international film festival that takes place every year in October. Despite a predominantly alternative programming the festival grows more and more popular among cineasts and filmmakers with an attendance of over 90,000 visitors. Apart from new movies the focus of the Viennale is on documentaries, short films and retrospectives. The Urania cinema is only one of six cinemas showing Viennale films, but most of the parties and concerts being part of the Viennale programme take place in the Urania building.

vhs.at/urania