The square and the streetscape adjoining it were plastered with the old granite slabs typical of Vienna’s city centre to create a homogeneous surface that also clearly highlights the traffic-free areas. Well-balanced square illumination is achieved by positioning luminaires on the roofs of the adjoining houses.

• Bauzeit: 1998-2000
• PlanerIn: Jabornegg & Pálffy
• Client: Stadt Wien, Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien
• Building type: Museums and exhibitions
• Reachability: U3 Herrengasse
• Accessibility: The open-air zone is publicly accessible, while the museum is accessible during normal opening hours
• With its minimalist representation of a hermetically sealed library, the Holocaust Monument by Rachel Whiteread erected before the redesign of the square symbolises the Jewish people as the “people of the Book”. The empty space inside the permanently locked monument embodies the void left by the annihilation of 65,000 Viennese Jews.
• Foto: MA19

From the new exhibition premises in the Mizrachi House, an underground connecting gallery leads to the central showroom of the archaeological site marking the synagogue destroyed in 1421. Through sensitive interventions and elements recurring to a reduced architectural language, the excavated layout of the building was again rendered visible.

• Bauzeit: 1998-2000
• PlanerIn: Jabornegg & Pálffy
• Client: Stadt Wien, Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien
• Building type: Museums and exhibitions
• Reachability: U3 Herrengasse
• Foto: Rupert Christanell