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Exhibition Opening on July 4, 2026 – Readings, Guided Tours, Talks & More

OÖ KulturEXPO 2027

30 Years World Heritage Salzkammergut - may the party start! 

From April 7 to 15, 2026, an international, English-language excursion titled “Cultural Spaces” was held by TU Wien in the UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape of Hallstatt–Dachstein/Salzkammergut. Around 25 architecture students, along with faculty members from Austria and across Europe—including exchange students from Canada—engaged intensively with the region’s architectural culture and developed forward-looking projects on site.

Exactly 500 years ago, Bohemia came under Habsburg rule through a strategic marriage alliance. This immediately expanded the market for Hallstatt salt, fueling the growth of the Salzkammergut salt industry in the following decades. The scale of salt mining as we know it today developed as a result of this market expansion, including the opening of the Ischl saltworks, the construction of the brine pipeline, and the rise of Ebensee.

The World Heritage Management of the UNESCO Hallstatt-Dachstein / Salzkammergut Cultural Landscape, together with experts, will lead a hike along the “Paths of Salt.” Participation is free and open to everyone.

Information event and panel discussion

In 2026, World Heritage Day in the Hallstatt-Dachstein/Salzkammergut World Heritage region will focus on the latest archaeological discoveries from 2025. Using radiocarbon dating, it was determined that the “Riezing finds” are 7,300 years old, thereby pushing Hallstatt’s history back by 300 years beyond what was previously known and conclusively proving its origins date back to the Neolithic period.