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Vienna, July 6, 2017 (dpa/NAN) The UNESCO on Thursday placed the city centre of Vienna as endangered cultural heritage because of a planned high-rise building.
The building at the edge of the centre threatens to alter the character of the Austrian capital, the UNESCO argued at a meeting in Krakow.
The planned height of the apartment and hotel complex has been lowered from 75 to 66 metres.
According to a UNESCO document that formed the basis for Thursday’s decision, the proposed buildings would still have a substantive inappropriate negative visual impact.
UNESCO has asked the city to take corrective measures.
However, Vienna’s tourism board has argued that visitors would continue to flock to the city even if it lost its world heritage status.
Vienna’s collection of medieval churches, baroque palaces and 19th-century ensembles was included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2001.
Currently, 55 of the 1,052 protected world heritage sites are on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger, including Aleppo, Damascus and Palmyra in war-ravaged Syria. (dpa/NAN)
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Edited by Celine-Damilola Oyewole/Sadiya Hamza