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These two 18th-century palace buildings are beautifully linked by landscaped gardens filled with statuary (see pp22–5).

The construction of this Rococo church was decreed by Empress Maria Theresa in 1755, and her favourite architect Nikolaus Pacassi (1716–90) completed the building in 1763. The plain, cubic structure with a red tiled roof and a green cupola was the church to the nearby military hospital. The interior is decorated with elaborate stucco work and behind the high altar is the painting Christ on the Crucifix by Peter Strudel, the founder of Vienna’s first art school. The church has been the Polish national church in Vienna since 1897.

This Baroque masterpiece is one of Vienna’s most impressive churches, with its beautiful carved columns and vast green dome (see pp26–7).

This magnificent concert hall in Greek Renaissance style was built by Theophil von Hansen in 1869 for the Society of Friends of Music. The concert hall became world famous after the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra began giving their annual New Year’s Concert here in 1941. There are three performance areas but the main auditorium, the “Golden Hall”, is the finest, with lavish decorations in blue and gold and excellent acoustics (see p60).

The two pavilions on Karlsplatz were built by the architect Otto Wagner in 1897 as twin stations for the Vienna City Train, the horse-drawn and then steam-powered predecessors of today’s underground. In total Wagner designed 34 stations and various bridges and viaducts for the train line that was finished in 1901. The pavilions on Karlsplatz are made of steel and marble slabs, and the roof over the arched entrance gate is decorated with golden ornaments. Both stations lost their function when the modern underground lines were built and are today used as exhibition spaces by the Historic Museum and as a popular café.

Otto Wagner built this Neo-Renaissance palace as his home in 1891, before he joined the Secessionist movement. The windows of the upper floor are framed with floral details, but the ground and first floors are built in sombre stone.

Amalia Wilhelmina (1673–1742), the wife of Emperor Josef I, founded this monastery of the Salesian convent in 1717 in thanks for her recovery from smallpox. The architect Donato Felice d’Allio completed the complex with its eight courtyards in 1728 and, together with the Belvedere and Palais Schwarzenberg, it forms a fine Baroque ensemble. The dome is decorated with frescoes by the Rococo painter Antonio Pellegrini (1675–1741) showing Mary’s ascension to heaven. According to Amalia Wilhelmina’s will, her body is buried under the high altar, but an urn with her heart was placed inside her husband’s coffin in the imperial crypt on Neuer Markt.

The Baroque architect Lukas von Hildebrandt was commissioned to build a summer palace here in 1697 which was bought by the influential Schwarzenberg family in 1720. Architects Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and his son Joseph Emanuel continued adorning the palace and laid out the garden in formal French style.

On the site of this élite school stood an imperial summer palace, until it was destroyed by Turkish troops in 1683. On its ruins the Italian architect Lodovico Burnacini built the Theresianum (1687–90). The long building with a sober façade was named after Empress Maria Theresa, who installed an educational institute here for young nobility. Today it is a private school and a diplomatic academy.