This small hotel is situated near St. Stephen’s Square. The oval windows and dark façade done in glass mosaic create a striking contrast to the historic surroundings. The windows resemble eyes looking out onto the cityscape. The interiors thematise the world of Wiener Werkstätte in a modern interpretation and pay homage to emblematic Viennese artists such as Koloman Moser.

• Bauzeit: 2010-2012
• PlanerIn: BWM Architekten, Michael Manzenreiter
• Client: LENIKUS Hotel-und Gastronomiebetriebs Ges.m.b.H.
• Building type: Hotel and restaurants
• Reachability: U1/U3 Stephansplatz
• Accessibility: only from outside
• Foto: Christian Fürtner

The design sketch by Pritzker laureate David Chipperfield encompasses the essence of this building: 45 black squares. They symbolise the characteristic window openings of this Peek & Cloppenburg chain department store situated on 3 plots amidst the lively Kärntnerstrasse pedestrian zone. The design was the winning entry for an invited competition, prevailing over designs by such notable architects as Richard Meier, Raphael Moneo and Eduardo Souto de Moura.

• Bauzeit: 2009-2011
• PlanerIn: David Chipperfield
• Client: NAXOS Grundverwaltungs GmbH
• Building type: Commercial
• Reachability: U1/U3 Stephansplatz
• Accessibility: During business hours
• Foto: Christian Fürthner

Two distinct pavement patterns visually separate the pedestrian zones of Kärntnerstrasse and Graben from St. Stephen’s Square by employing different combinations of stones and different shades of grey. White metal steles illuminate the streetscape, wooden benches encircling magnolia trees invite passers-by to rest awhile on Kärntnerstrasse, while free-standing seats were used for the Graben zone.

• Bauzeit: 2009
• PlanerIn: kirsch zt gmbh
• Client: MA 28 - Straßenverwaltung und Straßenbau
• Building type: Public places
• Reachability: U1 Stephansplatz
• Accessibility: The open-air zone is publicly accessible
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

Cavities in the 2.5-metre-wide base of the Albertina building act as niches linking outside and inside space. The barroom with its new entrances and window apertures opens up into the urban space outside and at the same time invites it in by means of the very felicitously designed seating niches opposite the long bar.

• Bauzeit: 2008
• PlanerIn: GABU Heindl Architektur
• Client: Burghauptmannschaft Österreich, Österreichisches Filmmuseum
• Building type: Theater and concert
• Reachability: U1/U2/U3 Karlsplatz
• Accessibility: during the business of the filmmuseum from 12.00
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

300 archaeological finds complement the exhibits of the Roman ruins below Hoher Markt in this new and ingeniously designed insert into the Generali Building passage. A narrow staircase links the excavations at the basement level with 200 sq m of additional exhibition space and the new lobby of the long and narrow addition with its smart aluminium façade.

• Bauzeit: 2007-2008
• PlanerIn: querkraft architekten
• Building type: Museums and exhibitions
• Reachability: U1/U3 Stephansplatz
• Accessibility: accessible during normal opening hours
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

Vienna’s Kärntnerstrasse was chosen to house the first European flagship store of the Swiss watch manufacturer. The fully mirrored, dark interior of the small shop dissolves space, as it were, and seems to cause the elegant watches on display to float.

• Bauzeit: 2007
• PlanerIn: Andreas Burghardt
• Client: Swatch Group
• Building type: Commercial
• Reachability: U1/U3 Stephansplatz
• Accessibility: during business hours
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

After renovation, the Alte Aula now offers state-of-the-art premises with high-end equipment for events and exhibitions. The core of this space is the second-storey Jesuit Theatre with its historic ceiling fresco and a sliding partition featuring top-quality stage technology. The forecourt facing Bäckerstrasse can be used as a public stage with large projection surface.

• Bauzeit: 2005-2006
• PlanerIn: Rudolf Prohazka
• Client: Burghauptmannschaft Österreich, ÖAW
• Building type: Museums and exhibitions
• Reachability: U1/U3 Stephansplatz
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

The historic premises of the restaurant inside the Museum of Applied Arts were impressively redesigned by the team of architects Eichinger oder Knechtl. As mediators between historical awareness and future-minded vision, the architects enriched the venerable hall with elements of modern interior design. Different spatial situations were created to accommodate the broad scope of culinary offerings, which range from coffeehouse to gourmet restaurant. The restaurant garden is a true insider’s choice and an oasis of peace at the heart of the city.

• Bauzeit: 2006
• PlanerIn: Eichinger oder Knechtl
• Building type: Hotel and restaurants
• Reachability: U3 Stubentor
• Accessibility: During business hours
• Foto: Christian Fürthner

After refurbishment, this small men’s boutique in Tuchlauben presents a new, splendid outlook. Mirrors visually enlarge the room and reflect street scenes among the colourful shirts and ties crowding the elegant shelves.

• Bauzeit: 2006
• PlanerIn: mohr steger architektur
• Client: Jutta Scheuch
• Building type: Commercial
• Reachability: U1/U3 Stephansplatz
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

Through the central entrance zone right behind the Pallas Athena Fountain, the new, belowground wing is accessed via a steel bridge and a flight of stairs. The impressive cascaded space exudes a sense of height and depth, while discreet materials and colours combined with a sophisticated illumination concept emphasise the elegance and high professional standard of the project.

• Bauzeit: 2004-2005
• PlanerIn: Geiswinkler & Geiswinkler
• Building type: Office and government
• Reachability: tram 1/2/71/D, stop: Stadiongasse, Parlament
• Accessibility: during business hours
• Foto: MA19

The design project submitted by the Spanish architect in the context of a competition provided for a spectacular lighting concept for the tram tracks and pedestrian crossings of this 400-metre-long square. The equestrian statue of Prince Carl Philipp zu Schwarzenberg was to be accented with slim lamp posts. This design was implemented in highly reduced and modified fashion.

• Bauzeit: 2002-2004
• PlanerIn: Alfredo Arribas
• Client: Stadt Wien
• Building type: Public places
• Reachability: The open-air zone is publicly accessible
• Accessibility: U1/U2/U4 Karlsplatz, tram 2, stop: Schwarzenbergplatz
• Foto: MA19

A masterful contrast between old and new is created by incorporating the eaves heights and window grids of the adjacent Gründerzeit buildings into the proportions of the avant-garde glass skin of this new office building. On the inside, the office storeys open up towards a glass-covered atrium; the penthouse "huddled" amidst the roofscape conveys novel perspectives of the city.

• Bauzeit: 2001-2003
• PlanerIn: Henke Schreieck Architekten
• Client: Zürich Versicherungs AG
• Building type: Mixed use
• Reachability: U2/U4 Schottenring
• Accessibility: Only from outside
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

The overall rehabilitation of the former Albertina Graphics Collection into a comprehensive new art museum and the addition of a study hall provoked numerous discussions – chiefly because of the Soravia Wing by Hans Hollein, whose acute angles float above the ramp of the Albertina.

• Bauzeit: 1998-2002
• PlanerIn: Erich Gottfried Steinmayr, Friedrich H. Mascher, Hans Hollein, Arkan Zeytinoglu
• Client: Burghauptmannschaft Österreich
• Building type: Museums and exhibitions
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

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

With its majestic palm-trees, this fifteen-metre-high space domed with a historic glass-steel structure (by Friedrich Ohmann, 1899) laid down a difficult stylistic challenge. The intelligent additions to the interior devised by the architects create a variety of distinct restaurant and bar zones without impairing the essence of the greenhouse.

• Bauzeit: 1998
• PlanerIn: Eichinger oder Knechtl
• Client: Barbara Böhm
• Building type: Hotel and restaurants
• Reachability: U1/U2/U3 Karlsplatz
• Accessibility: during business hours
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

At the time of construction, the new Haas House, too, offered food for heated discussions – before becoming one of the most-photographed buildings of Vienna, much coveted for tourism and advertising purposes. The body of this fully glazed commercial building takes up the old separation of St. Stephen’s Square and Stock-im-Eisen-Platz; one remarkable feature are the manifold “faces” of the structure, which change with the different viewing angles from the surrounding side streets.

• Bauzeit: 1985-1990
• PlanerIn: Hans Hollein
• Client: Vienna Insurance Group, Kommerz Real, Wiener Verein
• Building type: Commercial
• Reachability: U1/U3 Stephansplatz
• Foto: MA19

As the first of its kind, the Kleines Café by Hermann Czech established a specific pub/café type that was later to be varied many times over. Covering only a minimal surface and extending over several levels, enriched by sophisticated details and mirror effects, recurring to elements of Vienna’s traditional coffeehouses and deftly reinterpreting them, the interior conveys the pleasant impression of a convivial, atmospheric, old-style café.

• Bauzeit: 1970
• PlanerIn: Hermann Czech
• Client: Hans Neuffer, Hanno Pöschl
• Building type: Hotel and restaurants
• Reachability: U1/U3 Stephansplatz
• Accessibility: During business hours
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

The central, symmetrical entrance dominated by the striking, elliptical recess above and the two showcase niches are cut into the aluminium façade in almost sculptural style. Inside, too, the wall shelving clings smoothly to the two-part (square and octagonal) layout. An icon of its period, the design has retained its modernity even after 40 years.

• Bauzeit: 1964-1965
• PlanerIn: Hans Hollein
• Client: Marius Retti
• Building type: Commercial
• Reachability: U1/U3 Stephansplatz
• The jeweller’s shop Schullin I on the Graben is another masterpiece by Hans Hollein and an architectural testimony of the 1970s, while the Schullin II shop on Kohlmarkt embodies the architect’s post-modern phase.
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

With its impressive height of 72 metres, Vienna’s first "real" office high-rise – the headquarters of Wiener Städtische Versicherung – was inaugurated in 1955, the year of signing the Austrian State Treaty, at the juncture of Ringstrasse and Danube Canal. Architecturally, too, this building exemplifies modern office design of the 1950s and the era of post-war recovery.

• Bauzeit: 1953-1955
• PlanerIn: Erich Boltenstern
• Building type: Office and government
• Reachability: U2/U4-Schottenring
• Accessibility: Temporary, ground floor during “Architektur im Ringturm“ exhibitions
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

At the time of construction, this 16-storey reinforced steel structure triggered many intense discussions. Not only because of its peculiar appointment with housing units for singles, a canteen-type kitchen with dining hall and restaurant facilities in the glazed loft storeys staggered one atop the other, Vienna’s first-ever high-rise has remained sensational.

• Bauzeit: 1930-1932
• PlanerIn: Theiss & Jaksch
• Client: Österreichisches Creditinstitut
• Building type: Residential
• Reachability: U3 Herrengasse
• Accessibility: Small, publicly accessible exhibition in the lobby
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

The narrow marble portal opens into a small shop, with a winding staircase leading up to the spacious upper floor. The elegantly wood-panelled interior styled with Loos’ typical precision perfectly epitomises the atmosphere of British Belle Epoque gentlemen’s outfitters. In 1993, the premises were enlarged by Paolo Piva to include the neighbouring shop.

• Bauzeit: 1910-1913
• PlanerIn: Adolf Loos
• Client: Knize
• Building type: Commercial
• Reachability: U1/U3 Stephansplatz
• Accessibility: During business hours
• The American Bar (1908) designed by Adolf Loos presents a unique spatial concept that enlarges the tiny premises with amazing mirror effects.
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

Once denigrated as the "house without eyebrows" despite its sumptuous ground-floor zone adorned by a variety of high-quality materials, this former store of the exclusive tailors Goldmann & Salatsch has over the decades become the destination of many an architectural pilgrimage. Situated right opposite the splendidly ornamented ensemble of Vienna’s Imperial Palace complex, Adolf Loos’ simple, uncluttered masterpiece proved a massive shock to early-20th-century public sensibilities.

• Bauzeit: 1909-1911
• PlanerIn: Adolf Loos
• Client: Leopold Goldman, Emanuel Aufricht
• Building type: Mixed use
• Reachability: U1/3 Stephansplatz, U3 Herrengasse
• Accessibility: Ground floor during banking hours
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

The Post Office Savings Bank is a milestone of Viennese Modernism. One of Otto Wagner’s masterpieces, the elegant building on Ringstrasse with its impressive counter hall presents particularly innovative solutions to technical-structural details while fulfilling the highest aesthetic standards.

• Bauzeit: 1903-1906
• PlanerIn: Otto Wagner
• Client: k. k. Postsparkasse
• Building type: Banks and stock markets
• Reachability: U1/U4 Schwedenplatz, tram 2, stop: Julius-Raab-Platz
• Accessibility: During business hours
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

The imposing corner building with its highly ornamented cornice, magnificent entrance zone and impressive staircase is one of the most important architectural monuments of Vienna’s city centre. In this structure, the renowned architect of the late 19th and early 20th centuries moreover implied an innovative technique for mounting the façade cladding, which is done in polished granite slabs.

• Bauzeit: 1903-1905
• PlanerIn: Jože Plečnik
• Client: Johann Zacherl
• Building type: Mixed use
• Reachability: U1/U3 Stephansplatz
• Foto: Rupert Christanell

As one of the first "modern-style" Asian eateries, Kiang I became THE 1980s cult restaurant and pioneered a design approach much in use 20 years later. The selection of materials – red lorry tarpaulin, plastic chairs, aluminium tables and plywood lining – combines with the glazed surfaces of the mirror-covered booths (which can be opened) to create a deliberately un-Viennese atmosphere.

• PlanerIn: Helmut Richter, Heidulf Gerngross
• Client: Thomas Kiang
• Building type: Hotel and restaurants
• Reachability: U1/U4 Schwedenplatz
• Accessibility: During business hours
• Foto: Rupert Christanell