Beginning: The Unfinished Imperial Residence
The Neue Burg now houses such prominent institutions as the Austrian National Library, which includes the House of Austrian History, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art Historical Museum), which includes the Ephesos Museum and other collections. But it was originally intended as living quarters for the imperial family and ballrooms for their receptions and celebrations. This most recent wing of the Vienna Hofburg, with its distinctive, curved form, is positioned between the Heldenplatz square and the Burggarten park. In the central section of the Neue Burg, officially known as the Middle Tract, visitors today find the entrance to the National Library, the House of Austrian History, the Papyrus Museum and the Ephesos Museum. Next to it, in the direction of the Ringstrasse (the grand ring road around central Vienna), is the main block known as the corps de logis, from which the Weltmuseum Wien, the Imperial Armoury and the Collection of Historic Musical Instruments can be reached.
The Neue Burg goes back to the never completed Kaiserforum plan by Gottfried Semper and Carl Hasenauer from the period 1869–1871. This gigantic expansion project originally also called for a large throne-room block and a second wing on the Heldenplatz. They would symmetrically completed the complex as a forum. The plan never became a reality, however. Even during the design phase for what was to be the perfect imperial residence, there was one crucial problem: a lack of long-term thinking about how the extensions were to be used. The rapid succession of new palace architects after Semper and Hasenauer died was an additional difficulty, as were the numerous, sometimes far-reaching, revisions to the plans. With the Habsburg Monarchy slowly declining, there was a constant need for new usage ideas. Thus, the Neue Burg as the last great extension to the Habsburg residence bears the stamp of this uncertainty.
By 1918, the date when the Republic was proclaimed, work on the Neue Burg had been in progress for 37 years. Its exterior was almost finished, but large parts of the interior of the Middle Tract were still bare masonry or under construction. The only complete part was the corps de logis, the section nearest the Ringstrasse which was already in use as a museum and library—contrary to the original intention—in the last years of the Monarchy.
You can find out more about the planned Kaiserforum and the creation of the Heldenplatz on this page.
