Vienna Museums: a description of the most famous institutions

2024 Author: Harold Hamphrey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:06

Any big European city is replete with all sorts of museums. The capital of Austria is no exception. Museums in Vienna are diverse and not similar to each other. Among all institutions there are truly unique institutions. In principle, Vienna itself can be considered a museum: there is something to pay attention to here. But it is her galleries that cause the greatest delight.

Cinema Museum

Many of Vienna's museums are located in the central part of the city within walking distance of one from the second. If you want, you can get around them all in one day. But you should not do this, as you will not have time to consider the presented expositions. To enjoy this kind of sights, you need to spend several hours visiting each museum. And it’s worth starting excursions from the Austrian Museum of Cinematography.

All museums in Vienna are dedicated to one or another branch of life. The Film Museum houses research on important film collections that the institution has built since its inception.

The Film Museum in the Austrian capital was opened in 1964 as a non-profit enterprise. The retrospectives of the 60-70s of the last century presented here made the institution popularamong the German-speaking countries. The museum has its own cinema, which has been showing various films since 1965. The honorary president of the enterprise is Martin Scorsese, who has held this position since 2005.

The place where history is kept

Some museums in Vienna are dedicated to history. In them you can learn about the history of the city and Austria itself. One of the best institutions repeating the history of the Austrian capital is the Museum of the history of the city on Karlsplatz. Events from the very first settlements on the banks of the Danube River to modern chronicles are documented and displayed here.

The History Museum (Vienna) has three floors. The first one presents expositions of the Roman and medieval times of the history of the city. Here are exhibited household items and clothing related to this period. On the second floor there is a large model of the capital of 1857 and a collection of paintings belonging to the Baroque style. The third floor of the institution illustrates the Biedermeier era, which dates back to 1815-1848.

Vienna Historical Museum has been operating since 1887. Until 1959, it was located in the city hall building. Since the beginning of the last century, there have been regular discussions about the construction of a separate building for the attraction. But because of two world wars, this idea was realized only in 1959. Today, in addition to the permanent exhibition, the museum also has frequent thematic exhibitions.

Museum named after the great scientist

Sigmund Freud Museum (Vienna) can be found on the streetBerggasse. Since 1891, the great and famous Sigmund Freud lived and worked in one of the apartments in house number 19. Here the scientist lived with his family: in the office, the doctor gave consultations to patients. Due to his Jewish origin in 1938, Freud, along with his relatives, had to leave the capital of Austria. From this moment begins the most difficult period of Sigmund's life.

The Sigmund Freud Museum has office space and private rooms. Here you can find the largest library on the European continent with books on psychoanalysis. It contains almost 35 thousand books on this subject. The exhibition also contains original items that once belonged to the scientist.

The institution's collection contains a variety of documents, photographs, sculptures, drawings and images. There are also photos of Freud's wife Anna.

All art in one place

The Museum of Art in Vienna presents many and the best works of masters from Western countries. It is in this institution that the largest collection of paintings by Brueghel is collected. The Museum of Art History houses archaeological exhibits, rare numismatic specimens, art objects and ancient monuments. Also here, tourists are invited to visit the art gallery of world significance.

You can find the museum on Maria Theresa Square. The facade of the building is lined with carved sandstone. The building itself has a triangular shape and is crowned with a dome, the height of which is 60 meters. The interior inside is decorated with plaster andmarble relief decor.

The most important museum in the city

One of the most important museums in the country and the world is the Museum of Natural History (Vienna). It was opened simultaneously with the Museum of Art in 1889. This institution was built to house a large collection of Habsburgs.

The first collection of exhibits for the museum was bought by Emperor Franz I. The modern collection of the Natural History Museum has more than 20 million exhibits. They are located in 29 halls, the area of which reaches 8700 m2. Antique furniture decorates each of the halls of the establishment.

Venus of Willendorf belongs to the most famous exhibits of the institution.

What else to visit

There are many more museums in Vienna that would be nice for tourists to visit. Here are the most interesting of them:

• Butterfly Pavilion. It is located in the middle of the beautiful garden "Burggarten". Here, tourists have the opportunity to watch all kinds of butterflies, including individuals of incredibly large sizes, flutter between exotic plants and small waterfalls.



• Museum of Crime. A truly sinister place, which contains various exhibits related to criminal activity. Here you can find all the most terrible and terrible, starting with embalmed severed heads and ending with instruments of torture and murder.

All these museums are located in Vienna, a city often referred to by travelers as the “cultural heart ofEurope.”