Belvedere

The Belvedere is a Baroque palace complex situated in the Landstraße district of Vienna. Prince Eugene of Savoy had the palace built in front of the gates of the former city by architect Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt. It consists of two palaces, the Upper and Lower Belvedere, which have served different purposes from the beginning. The Upper Belvedere had a representative function and was never intended for residential use. The construction of the Upper Belvedere started in 1721 and was completed two years later. Since the 19th century, it has housed an art gallery. Today, visitors to the Upper Belvedere can see a collection of Austrian art from the Middle Ages to the present. There are three floors with seven thematic rooms displaying 420 artworks. It is one of Austria’s most valuable art collections, including key works by Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschky and especially Gustav Klimt. Visitors can see twenty-four works by Klimt, including his two golden paintings, The Kiss and Judith. The Lower Belvedere was built between 1714 and 1716 and served as Prince Eugene’s summer residence. Today, some of the rooms formerly inhabited by the Prince are open to the public – for example, the Marble Gallery, the Golden Room and the Grotesque Hall. The Orangery, originally a heatable winter garden for orange trees, is also part of the Lower Belvedere. Today, it houses a collection of medieval art. The only place which can be visited without a ticket is the palace garden, which was designed by architect Dominique Girard in a strictly symmetrical fashion in Italian and French Baroque styles.