Vienna Café
This Gift is a café serving coffee, Austrian-style pastries and meals, a popular place used by delegates, staff and journalists alike. The space features both table sitting for eating and then lounge seating for relaxed conversations. Both areas feature warm wooden finishes, elegant furnishings and a soft lounge space with modular sofas in muted wool upholstery. The café is designed to echo the style of cafés found in Austria, a simple, modernist design and modest decorative elements creating an intimate, relaxed atmosphere. This latest renovation was completed by ZERZA Architects in 2015 and includes 6 Moroso Sofas, 54 chairs, and 32 Café tables.
The café was originally gifted to the United Nations by Austria in 1982 and has since been renovated twice, in 1995, by Constantin Wickenburg and in 2015 with ZERZA Architects.
At the reopening of the café on 27 April 2015, the remarks of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, as delivered by Susana Malcorra, suggested the gift was “a very sociable place where delegates, staff, journalists and others can come together to chat, negotiate or simply take a break from the business and bustle in the surrounding committee rooms.”