Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary opened the facility round 1891 simultaneously the Natural History Museum, Vienna which has an identical design and is immediately across Maria-Theresien-Platz. The two buildings had been constructed between 1871 and 1891 in accordance with plans by Gottfried Semper and Baron Karl von Hasenauer. The emperor commissioned the two Ringstraße museums to create a suitable home for the Habsburgs’ formidable art collection and to make it accessible to most of the people. The buildings are rectangular, with symmetrical Renaissance Revival façades of sandstone lined with large arched windows on the main levels and topped with…
- 21/01/2025
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