Maria-Theresien-Platz

The Imperial Natural History Museum or Imperial-Royal Natural History Court Museum of Austria-Hungary was created by (Kaiser) Emperor Franz Joseph I during an extensive reorganization of the museum collections, from 1851 to 1876, and opened to the public on August 10, 1889. Located in Vienna, the Museum was named in German as "K.k. Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum" (with "Hofmuseum" translated as "Court Museum").Later, the Museum became part of the Natural History Museum of Vienna, Austria (in German, "Naturhistorisches Museum Wien" or NHM-Wien). When officially begun in 1876, Austrian geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter (1829–1884) became the first superintendent of the Imperial Natural History Museum, after having been, from 1860, professor of mineralogy and geology at the Imperial-Royal Polytechnic Institute in Vienna. In 1886, Austrian geologist and paleontologist Franz Ritter von Hauer became second superintendent of the Imperial Natural History Museum (more at "History" below). The main building for the Museum was constructed between 1871 and 1891. See more about the current museum at: Naturhistorisches Museum.

The Natural History Museum Vienna (German: Naturhistorisches Museum Wien) is a large natural history museum located in Vienna, Austria. It is one of the most important natural history museums worldwide. The NHM Vienna is one of the largest museums and non-university research institutions in Austria and an important center of excellence for all matters relating to natural sciences. The museum's 39 exhibition rooms cover 8,460 square meters and present more than 100,000 objects. It is home to 30 million objects available to more than 60 scientists and numerous guest researchers who carry out basic research in a wide range of topics related to human sciences, earth sciences, and life sciences.The Index Herbariorum code assigned to this museum is W and it is used when citing housed herbarium specimens.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum (lit. "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal dome. The term Kunsthistorisches Museum applies to both the institution and the main building. It is the largest art museum in the country and one of the most important museums worldwide. Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary opened the facility around 1891 at the same time as the Natural History Museum, Vienna which has a similar design and is directly across Maria-Theresien-Platz. The two buildings were constructed between 1871 and 1891 according to plans by Gottfried Semper and Baron Karl von Hasenauer. The emperor commissioned the two Ringstraße museums to create a suitable home for the Habsburgs' formidable art collection and to make it accessible to the general public. The buildings are rectangular, with symmetrical Renaissance Revival façades of sandstone lined with large arched windows on the main levels and topped with an octagonal dome 60 metres (200 ft) high. The interiors of the museums are lavishly decorated with marble, stucco ornamentation, gold-leaf, and murals. The grand stairway features paintings by Gustav Klimt, Ernst Klimt, Franz Matsch, Hans Makart and Mihály Munkácsy.

The Cellini Salt Cellar (in Vienna called the Saliera, Italian for salt cellar) is a part-enamelled gold table sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini. It was completed in 1543 for Francis I of France, from models that had been prepared many years earlier for Cardinal Ippolito d'Este. The cellar is the only remaining work of precious metal which can be reliably attributed to Cellini. It was created in the Mannerist style of the late Renaissance and allegorically portrays Terra e Mare (Land and Sea). In Cellini's description, the sea was represented by a male figure reclining beside a ship for holding the salt; the earth he "fashioned like a woman" and placed a temple near her to serve as a receptacle for pepper. The salt cellar is made of ivory, rolled gold, and vitreous enamel. The gold is not cast in a mould but hammered by hand into its delicate shape. It stands about 26 cm tall. The base is about 33.5 cm wide and features bearings to roll it around.It came into the possession of the Habsburgs as a gift by Charles IX of France to Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol, who had acted as a proxy for Charles in his wedding to Elisabeth of Austria. It was originally part of the Habsburg art collection at Castle Ambras, but was transferred to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna during the 19th century.

Kunsthalle Wien is the city of Vienna's institution for international contemporary art and discourse with two locations, in the Museumsquartier and at Karlsplatz. Kunsthalle Wien does not have a collection of its own, but instead dedicates its changing solo and thematic exhibitions to art and its relations to social change. It produces exhibitions, researches art practices, and supports local and international artists. It seeks to ground its knowledge of international contemporary art in and for Vienna, and advocates for the usefulness of artistic thinking in the wider public sphere.

Museumsquartier (formerly Mariahilfer Straße until 1991 and Babenbergerstraße from 1991 until 2000) is a station on U2 of the Vienna U-Bahn. It is located in the Innere Stadt District. It opened in 1980, using the structure of a pre-metro station opened in 1966 in the same location. The station is expected to close temporarily from 2020 until 2022 to install platform screen doors in preparation for the transfer of this segment of U2 to the new driverless U5, which will take place between 2025 and 2027.

The Museumsquartier (MQ) is a 90,000 m2 large area in the 7th district of the city of Vienna, Austria.

Palais Epstein is a Ringstraßenpalais in Vienna, Austria. It was built for the industrialist and banker Gustav Ritter von Epstein. The architect was Theophil Freiherr von Hansen, who also designed the adjacent Austrian Parliament Building. Unlike traditional Baroque noble palaces in Vienna, Palais Epstein was built in the late 19th century and is therefore considered a Ringstraßenpalais. It is up to five storeys high and built in the neo-renaissance style typical of its time. Following the Gründerkrach ("Founders' Crash", the 9 May 1873 crash of the Vienna Stock Exchange), Epstein had to sell the palais to the Imperial Continental Gas Association, an English gas company, to avoid bankruptcy. In 1902 it was acquired by the State and used as domicile of the Administrative Court. After conversions, it became home to the Vienna School Authority in 1922. Following the Anschluss, it housed offices of the Reichsstatthalter's building authorities. From 1945 to 1955 (the Allied occupation of Austria), the palais was domicile of the Soviet headquarters. After that, it briefly served as a branch of the Academy of Music and Performing Arts and then again for the School Authority until 2002. After a thorough refurbishment, it has been a branch of nearby parliament ever since. A permanent exhibition about the history of the palais and its owners has been set up in the basement, and there are guided tours of the bel étage (first floor), which has been restored to its original state.

The Weltmuseum Wien (former Museum of Ethnology) in Vienna is the largest anthropological museum in Austria, established in 1876. It currently resides in the Hofburg Imperial Palace and houses more than 400,000 ethnographical and archaeological objects from Asia, Africa, Oceania, and America. Since November 2014 the museum was closed due to renovation and was reopened on the 25th of October 2017.

The Leopold Museum, housed in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria, is home to one of the largest collections of modern Austrian art, featuring artists such as Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka and Richard Gerstl. It contains the world's largest Egon Schiele Collection. The more than 5,000 exhibits collected by Elisabeth and Rudolf Leopold over five decades were consolidated in 1994 with the assistance of the Republic of Austria and the National Bank of Austria into the Leopold Museum Private Foundation. In 2001 the Leopold Museum was opened.The core of the collection consists of Austrian art of the first half of the 20th century, including key paintings and drawings by Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, showing the gradual transformation from the Wiener Secession, the Art Nouveau/Jugendstil movement in Austria to Expressionism. The historical context is illustrated by major Austrian works of art from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Volkstheater is a station on U2 and U3 of the Vienna U-Bahn. It is located in the Innere Stadt District. It opened in 1980.

Heldenplatz (German: Heroes' Square) is a public space in front of the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria. Located in the Innere Stadt borough, the President of Austria resides in the adjoining Hofburg wing, while the Federal Chancellery is on adjacent Ballhausplatz. Many important actions and events took place here, most notably Adolf Hitler's ceremonial announcement of the Austrian Anschluss to Nazi Germany on 15 March 1938.