The city of Vienna, Austria was the first outside Germany to acquire a Zeiss Planetarium. With its 20-m dome, it was also the first to be temporarily installed in a simple wooden structure in front of the Vienna Messepalast. Opened on May 7, 1927, it remained at this location until September 1928. The second planetarium building opened on December 4, 1931, at the Praterstern. At the end of the Second World War, the Zeiss projector was removed from Vienna. The building burned out as a result of the war. Unfortunately, only the middle piece of the projector survived the post-war period. It is kept in the Vienna Technical Museum.

It was not until 1964 that Vienna again had a planetarium. The new building has since been located on the edge of the large Prater green area.