Maria-Theresien-Platz: Art History & Natural History Museums
Why is it significant?
Between two palaces that look like twins, an empress sits on a bronze throne high above the clipped hedges, one hand holding a document, the other stretched out over her lands.
Key Facts
| Place | Maria-Theresien-Platz: Art History & Natural History Museums |
|---|---|
| Address | Maria-Theresien-Platz, 1010 Wien, Austria |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.20450, 16.36090 |
| Part of Walk | Vienna's Ringstrasse: The Grand Boulevard That Replaced the City Walls |
| Generated | Generated |
Between two palaces that look like twins, an empress sits on a bronze throne high above the clipped hedges, one hand holding a document, the other stretched out over her lands. Maria Theresa, the only woman ever to rule the Habsburg dominions in her own right, is surrounded by her generals on horseback and her ministers and advisers on foot.
The monument, by Caspar von Zumbusch, was unveiled in 1888. The twin buildings are the Kunsthistorisches Museum, art history, on your right as you face the Hofburg, and the Naturhistorisches Museum, natural history, on your left. Both were designed by Gottfried Semper and Carl von Hasenauer, and the joke is that they are near mirror images on the outside... while inside, Rubens and Raphael face meteorites and dinosaurs.
The natural history museum keeps one of the most famous small objects on earth, the Venus of Willendorf, a limestone woman only eleven centimetres tall, carved nearly 30,000 years ago and found in 1908 in the Wachau valley on the Danube. Across the square, the art museum holds the largest collection of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder anywhere, among them the Tower of Babel and the Hunters in the Snow.
The museums opened in 1889 and 1891, and they were only half of a dream. Semper planned an imperial forum: two new wings of the Hofburg across the Ring, joined to these museums by triumphal arches over the road, one gigantic ceremonial square. Only one wing, the Neue Burg, was ever built, and the arches never came. The empire ran out of time before it ran out of ambition.
Before you go, look up at the two domes. The art museum is crowned by Pallas Athena, the natural history museum by Helios, the sun god... wisdom on one side, the forces of nature on the other. Now walk north along this side of the Ring, with the Volksgarten across the road on your right, to a Greek temple that Vienna built for its lawmakers.