Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Habsburgs' private art collection, housed in the palace they built just to hold it.
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Franz Joseph I commissioned this building in 1871 to give the Habsburg dynasty's paintings, armour, and portrait collections a public home. The result: Brueghel, Raphael, Titian, and Dürer under a 60-metre sandstone dome, with interiors layered in marble, gold-leaf, and stucco — the architecture competes with the art for attention.
What to look for
- Paintings by Klimt, Makart, and Munkácsy lining the grand stairway — decoration that greets you before you reach the collection
- Brueghel's The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559): a dense street scene packed with figures worth reading slowly
- Raphael's Madonna of the Meadow (1506) in the picture gallery
On the Vienna Ring Road at Maria-Theresien-Platz, directly opposite the Natural History Museum, which shares nearly the same facade and opened the same year.
Kunsthistorisches Museum is one of 39 sights worth the detour in Vienna, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Vienna pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Vienna
- Schönbrunn PalaceHabsburg emperors were born here, ruled from here, and died here — 1,441 rooms of Baroque ambition spanning 300 years.
- St. Stephen's CathedralA cathedral consecrated in 1147 as crusaders prepared to march — and built on top of a Roman burial ground that nobody knew was there until 2000.
- BelvederePrince Eugene built this summer palace on Ottoman campaign winnings — it is now three art museums inside a World Heritage Baroque garden.
- Hofburg PalaceSeven centuries of Austrian rulers worked from this address — the current president still does.
- Vienna State OperaThe first major building on Vienna's Ring Road, and the house where Vienna Philharmonic musicians earn their seats.
- Ernst-Happel-StadionBuilt for workers' sport in 1931, this 50,865-seat bowl also served as a transit prison for over 1,000 Jewish deportees in 1939.