The "International Workshop on Multivariate Approximation and Interpolation" was held at the University of Duisburg, Germany, during August 14-18, 1989. It was the second workshop in aseries which started in 1986 at the University of Chile in Santiago with a previous conference on a similar subject (cf. Topics in Multivariate Approximation, C.K. Chui et al. (Eds.), Academic Press, New York, 1987). The conference was organized by an international organizing committee consisting of Charles Chui (USA), Werner Haußmann (Germany), Kurt Jetter (Germany), Larry Schumaker (USA), and Florencio Utreras (Chile). In addition, the local organizing committee included Hans-Bernd Knoop, Hauke Krüger, and Joachim Stöckler from the University of Duisburg. We would like to thank all of them for their constant support. We also acknowledge the efforts of Uta Dick, Sabine Häußler, and Stefanie Messal who did most of the secretarial work. It was our pleasure to see that the workshop brought together 75 participants from 18 countries. 28 leading scientists gave invited (research or survey) lectures, with 24 of them summarized in the papers included in this proceedings volume. The topics of these lectures gave a state-of-the-art overview of current research in Multivariate Approximation and Interpolation, and they reflected the rapid development of the area.
