The main fonds of the Archives of TU Wien are the records of the university’s central administration since the foundation of the Vienna Polytechnical Institute in 1815. During the first decades of its existence record keeping was the responsibility of the Director’s or the Rector’s Office. In the course of time this led to serious shortcomings, above all the loss of documents from the second half of the 19th century which were destroyed by the administration.

In 1976 Dr. Alfred Lechner, assistant at the Faculty of Architecture and Regional Planning, was put in charge of the care and custody of the University’s archival heritage. In 1979 the University Archives were established as a separate unit of the administration and Dr. Lechner appointed as head. 1992 succeeded Dipl.-Ing. Erich Jiresch, followed by Dr. Juliane Mikoletzky in 2001. Since 2016 Dr. Paulus Ebner is head of the Archives.

It was only in 1988 that the Archives could move into their own premises. Since then they are able to store and preserve the fonds properly and to receive internal and external users in an adequate setting.