Zaha Hadid's Library and Learning Centre at the Vienna University of Economics and Business opens today and this animation by London visualisation firm Neutral gives a tour of the building.

Located in Vienna's second district, the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien) is the largest University focusing on business and economics in Europe, and the new site will accommodate 23,000 students and 1,500 staff.

Open 24 hours a day, the Library and Learning Centre by Zaha Hadid Architects is one of seven buildings that make up the new campus.

The 28,000-square-metre building houses a library, auditorium, workspaces, classrooms, offices, learning support services, book shop, event spaces and cafe.

The animation by Neutral first shows how the volumes of the design are generated, then begins a tour through the spaces.

"The straight lines of the building's exterior separate as they move inward, becoming curvilinear and fluid to generate a free-formed interior canyon that serves as the central public plaza of the centre," said the architects.

"All the other facilities are housed within a since column that also divides, becoming two separate ribbons that wind around each other to enclose this glazed gathering space."

"Searching for a balance between abstract, conceptual narrative and much-expected photorealism, we blend soundscapes with evocative camera movements and traces of inhabitation - revealing time-based architectural design ideas which otherwise wouldn't be apparent," Christian Grou of Neutral told Dezeen.

Zaha Hadid Architects won the competition to design the building in 2008 - read more in our earlier story.

We've also recently published photos of Zaha Hadid's Innovation Tower at the Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, nearing completion, and the firm's extension to the Serpentine Gallery in London.

See all our stories about Zaha Hadid »
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Still visualisations are by Vectorvision.