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The fine Baroque Schönborn Palace, built between 1708 and 1713 by Lukas von Hildebrandt, has been the home of the Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art since 1917. Besides changing exhibitions, it features a permanent collection of traditional Austrian clothing, furniture, pottery, religious objects and tools dating from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The museum, founded in 1895, also includes collections from the former territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The palace has wonderful landscaped gardens that can also be accessed without visiting the museum.

The former imperial stables have been imaginatively transformed into a vast complex of museums and entertainment venues that shouldn’t be missed (see pp28–9).

Designed by Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer, who also worked on the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Natural History Museum opened in 1889 and was built as a mirror image of its more famous neighbour, the Art History Museum. The fascinating collections of natural history, geology and archaeology have grown out of Emperor Franz Stephan’s 1748 collection of natural curiosities. The museum’s splendid interior was designed to enhance the objects which today mount up to more than 20 million exhibits. The most precious rarities in the museum’s 39 showrooms are the 25,000-year-old sculpture Venus of Willendorf and a “bouquet of jewels” given to Franz Stephan by his wife Maria Theresa. The Vienna Natural History Museum was voted among the world’s top 10 museums in 2001.

The Neo-Gothic town hall with its spires, stone rosettes in the pointed windows and loggias was built by Friedrich von Schmidt in 1883 to express the inhabitants’ pride in their city at that time. The impressive building has seven arcaded courtyards and 1,575 rooms where the Vienna City Council and the mayor have their offices. All year round various festivals take place on the square in front of the Rathaus, ranging from a Christmas market to a music film festival in summer (see p80). Don’t miss the opportunity to see the building at night, when floodlights spectacularly highlight the façade.

This magnificent building (1873–83) was designed by the architect Theophil von Hansen who chose its Greek style to celebrate the cradle of democracy. Two broad ramps are lined by statues of Greek philosophers and thinkers that lead to the main entrance. Here the first Austrian Republic was proclaimed in October 1918.

Walking into the narrow Piaristengasse from Josefstädter Strasse, the charming square on the left comes as a surprise. The Piaristenkirche Maria Treu (Maria Treu Church) here was built from 1719 onwards according to a design by Lukas von Hildebrandt. The dome’s frescoes in vivid colours are by the Austrian Baroque artist Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1752), while the column in front of the church, the Mariensäule, was installed in 1713 to express gratitude that a plague epidemic had come to an end.

At the heart of this charming cobbled square is Saint Ulrich’s Church, which is surrounded by a pretty ensemble of patrician houses dating back to various periods. At No. 5 is a rare example of a Renaissance house, while the Baroque edifice at No. 27 bears a statue of Saint Nepomuk, who gave the house its name, tucked away in a little niche. During the Turkish Siege of 1683 Kara Mustafa’s troops pitched their tents on this square.

The Volkstheater (“people’s theatre”) was established in 1889 as a counterpart to the imperial Burgtheater (see p85). Its aim was to offer classic and modern drama to a larger audience at reasonable prices. Built by the acclaimed theatre architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer, the theatre was designed in Historicist style and fitted with what was then the latest technology and security measures, such as electric lighting. With just under 1,000 seats, the Volkstheater is among the largest German-language theatres in the world.