DistantNews
Support us
🇦🇹 Austria /Good News

Magdas at the Prater Gets a Sustainable Glow-Up With Beds Made From Eurovision Stage Wood

From Die Presse · () German

Translated from German and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources New plan
  • Caritas’s Magdas Hotel at Vienna’s Prater is being rebuilt in a former 1970s care home and is scheduled to reopen in May 2027.
  • The renovated hotel will have 103 rooms, four seminar rooms, a public restaurant, 45 jobs and 10 to 12 apprenticeships.
  • The project costs 22 million euros and includes groundwater heating and cooling, rooftop solar panels, wood-fiber insulation and bed frames made from Eurovision stage materials.

The beds at Vienna’s refurbished Magdas Hotel will carry an unusual piece of recent cultural history: their frames will be made from wood salvaged from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest stage. The former care home at the Prater is being transformed into a sustainable boutique hotel, with reopening planned for May 2027.

Magdas first opened at the site in 2015. A Caritas subsidiary converted the former care home into a social-business hotel that offered jobs to people with refugee backgrounds. The project quickly attracted guests who valued its design, hospitality and social mission. More than 220,000 people stayed there during its seven years as a planned pop-up hotel.

The building did not have high construction quality and had to be structurally reinforced.

· Gabriela SonnleitnerThe hotel director describes the structural challenges posed by the former care-home building.

The 1970s building also presented major structural problems. “The building did not have high construction quality and had to be structurally reinforced,” hotel director Gabriela Sonnleitner said. The hotel moved to a former priests’ residence on Ungargasse in 2022 so the Prater property could undergo renovation.

The facade is insulated with wood fiber, we have aluminum-wood windows, and a heating and cooling system that uses groundwater, as well as photovoltaics on the roof.

· Gabriela SonnleitnerSonnleitner outlines the renovation’s environmental features.

Sustainability has guided the rebuilding. The facade will receive wood-fiber insulation, the project uses aluminum-wood windows, and a groundwater-based system will heat and cool the building. Photovoltaic panels will cover the roof. Existing materials will also be reused, including refurbished parquet floors and the Eurovision stage wood used for furniture and bed frames.

The completed hotel will offer 103 rooms, including three accessible rooms, as well as four seminar rooms and a public restaurant. It will create 45 jobs and 10 to 12 apprenticeships for people with migrant backgrounds. Construction and interior costs total 22 million euros. Sonnleitner said the company expects its social-business model to earn the investment back and wants the hotel to be attractive, stylish and welcoming enough to draw many guests.

We are confident that we will earn the money back through our social business.

· Gabriela SonnleitnerShe expresses confidence that the hotel’s business model will cover the project’s cost.
About this summary

Originally published by Die Presse in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog