Explore Vienna

St. Stephen's Cathedral on Stephansplatz is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Vienna. Its Romanesque and Gothic form was largely begun under Duke Rudolf IV in the 14th century on the site of a church consecrated in 1147, and it is known for its patterned tiled roof and 136-metre south tower.

The Dom Museum Wien is the museum of the Archdiocese of Vienna, housed in the Zwettlhof on Stephansplatz beside St. Stephen's Cathedral. Founded in 1933 and reopened in 2017 after a redesign by Boris Podrecca, it shows the cathedral treasury and medieval sacred art alongside modern and contemporary works from the Otto Mauer Collection.

St. Peter's Church is a Baroque Catholic church on Petersplatz, just off the Graben, built from 1701 to 1733; Gabriele Montani began it and Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt continued the work from 1703. Its green oval dome rises 56 metres, and inside Johann Michael Rottmayr painted the dome fresco. Since 1970 the church has been entrusted to Opus Dei.

The Jewish Museum Vienna presents the history, religion and culture of Vienna's Jews at two sites a short walk apart. The main house in the Palais Eskeles on Dorotheergasse covers Jewish Vienna from the Middle Ages to today, while the Museum Judenplatz shows the excavated remains of the medieval synagogue destroyed in 1421.

The Imperial Crypt lies beneath the Capuchin Church on Neuer Markt and has been the main burial place of the Habsburgs since 1633. Its vaults hold the remains of 145 family members, including 12 emperors and 18 empresses, in metal sarcophagi ranging from plain to richly decorated Rococo work.

The Haus der Musik is a museum of sound and music in the Palace of Archduke Charles on Seilerstätte, opened in 2000. Its interactive rooms explain how sound is made and heard, cover the Vienna Philharmonic, whose founder Otto Nicolai lived in the building, and composers who worked in Vienna, and include a virtual conductor that lets visitors lead an orchestra on screen.

The State Hall is the Baroque hall of the former court library in the Hofburg, built from 1723 to 1726 for Emperor Charles VI to plans by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and completed by his son. Under Daniel Gran's dome fresco stand about 200,000 books printed between 1501 and 1850, among them Prince Eugene of Savoy's library.

The Albertina is an art museum in the former Palais Tarouca on the Augustinian Bastion in central Vienna. It holds about 65,000 drawings and around a million prints, alongside photographs and architectural drawings, shows Impressionist and early 20th-century paintings on permanent loan, and opens the palace's Habsburg state rooms.

The Imperial Treasury in the Hofburg is entered from the Schweizerhof, the oldest courtyard of the palace. In 21 rooms of secular and ecclesiastical collections it shows treasures gathered by the Habsburgs over centuries, including the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire and the crown, orb and sceptre of the Austrian Empire. It belongs to the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

The Weltmuseum Wien is Austria's largest anthropological museum, established in 1876 and housed in the Neue Hofburg wing on Heldenplatz. Known until 2013 as the Museum für Völkerkunde, it holds more than 400,000 ethnographic and archaeological objects from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas, and reopened in 2017 after renovation.

Albertina Modern is the Albertina's museum of modern and contemporary art, opened in May 2020 in the Künstlerhaus on Karlsplatz, a Neo-Renaissance exhibition hall of 1868. It shows changing exhibitions drawn from a collection of art from the early 20th century to the present, including works from the former Essl Collection.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum on Maria-Theresien-Platz was built from 1871 to 1891 to plans by Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer to house the Habsburg art collections. Beneath its 60-metre dome it shows paintings by Bruegel, Dürer, Titian, Rubens and Vermeer, as well as the Kunstkammer, Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities and a coin cabinet.

The Natural History Museum Vienna opened in 1889 in a Neo-Renaissance building by Gottfried Semper and Carl von Hasenauer, facing its twin, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, on Maria-Theresien-Platz. Its halls hold the imperial natural history collections: minerals and meteorites, dinosaur skeletons, mounted animals and the Venus of Willendorf, a figurine about 29,500 years old.

The Secession Building is an exhibition hall for contemporary art, completed in 1898 by Joseph Maria Olbrich for the Vienna Secession artists' association. A dome of gilded laurel leaves crowns the white cube, above the motto 'Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit'. The basement shows Gustav Klimt's Beethoven Frieze of 1902.

The Austrian Parliament Building on the Ringstrasse is the seat of the National Council and the Federal Council. Theophil Hansen designed it in Greek Revival style, built from 1874 to 1883, with the Pallas Athena Fountain in front. After a renovation it reopened in 2023 with a visitor centre, guided tours and public galleries for sittings.

Kunsthalle Wien is the City of Vienna's exhibition house for international contemporary art, opened in 1992 in a temporary container building by Adolf Krischanitz at Karlsplatz. It has no collection of its own and shows changing solo and thematic exhibitions at two sites, in the MuseumsQuartier on Museumsplatz and in a glass pavilion at Karlsplatz.

The Leopold Museum in Vienna's MuseumsQuartier opened in 2001 to show the collection of Rudolf and Elisabeth Leopold, more than 5,000 works gathered over five decades. Its focus is Austrian art of the first half of the 20th century, with a large group of works by Egon Schiele and paintings by Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka and Richard Gerstl.

Mumok, the Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, is a museum of modern and contemporary art in the MuseumsQuartier. Since 2001 it has occupied a dark stone-clad block by Ortner & Ortner, and its collection of about 10,000 works includes Warhol, Picasso, Beuys, Lichtenstein and a large holding of Viennese Actionism.

The Lower Belvedere is the Baroque palace that Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt built for Prince Eugene of Savoy from about 1712 to 1716 at the foot of the Belvedere gardens on the Rennweg. Its state rooms, the adjoining Orangery and the Palace Stables now hold the Belvedere museum's temporary exhibitions and its medieval art.

KunstHausWien is a museum in Vienna's Landstraße district designed by the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who rebuilt an 1892 Thonet furniture factory between 1989 and 1991 with uneven floors, tiled columns and planted facades. The two lower floors hold a permanent exhibition of his work, and the upper floors show changing exhibitions.