With its astounding mix of classical culture and imperial history, with its ballrooms and concert halls, coffee houses and design shops, with its turn-of-the-century art and architecture and plethora of outstanding museums, with its Mozart, Strauss, Haydn and Mahler, its Maria Theresa and Franz Joseph, Vienna’s appeal is over the top—overwhelming, even—and not exactly a secret. The Austrian capital has an embarrassment of old-world cultural riches.
But what may be surprising, to those who haven’t visited Vienna since they were art history majors, is how this vital crossroads capital—the center of the Hapsburg empire for some 650 years and now a thriving gateway between eastern and western Europe—has worked to give itself a more contemporary sheen over the last decade or so. Here is a grand, largely egalitarian European capital in the process of redefining itself.
If any one thing reflects the new Vienna, it would be the Museums Quartier. It’s a dynamic and multifaceted cultural complex that opened in 2003 and is today one of the largest cultural centers in the world, on a par with the Pompidou in Paris and the Lincoln in New York. It’s just across the street from the two hulking state museums (Fine Arts and Natural History) in the heart of the city and a short walk from the Hofburg, the former Royal Palace complex that, along with the music composers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, has long symbolized Vienna. And wouldn’t you know it—the MQ, as it is called, has an imperial connection of its own: The baroque front wing, built in 1732, was once the imperial stable.
Like most buildings in this city of 1.6 million people, the MQ is big. The façade alone extends 600 meters and has 10 entrances; the complex in total occupies about 60,000 square meters of space in a mix of historic and new buildings. The new include the Museum of Modern Art and the Leopold Museum, a pair of impressive square blocks designed by brothers Laurids and Manfred Ortner. The Leopold, with a façade of white limestone, has a bright, almost floating appearance. The Modern Art building, in contrast, is clad in a dark-gray lava stone. In terms of color and perceived weight, they either balance or cancel each other out, depending on your perspective.
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