Experimental biology in the Vienna Prater

The Institute for Experimental Biology (Biologische Versuchsanstalt, or BVA) in the Vienna Prater was one of the world’s leading research institutes for experimental biology until the Anschluss of Austria in 1938. The Austrian Academy of Sciences, which was given the BVA in 1914, organised several events in 2014 and 2015 to commemorate Austria’s first privately founded research institute and its groundbreaking findings. This catalogue documents the turbulent history of this unique institute and its retrieval to collective memory.