Book excerpt: The history of the Faculty of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering is as old as that of the TU Wien. As intended by its founders, the former Imperial Royal Polytechnic Institute worked closely together with industry and business, addressing topics from the very beginning that one would today assign to the Faculty of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. In correspondence with overall technological progress, the research topics and teaching fields of the faculty have undergone continual, often even revolutionary, development and change. This commemorative volume provides both a historical overview of the evolution of the faculty as well as exemplary highlights and striking characteristics of the developments of the last 50 years in particular.