Gartenbaukino, Movie theater in Innere Stadt, Austria

The Gartenbaukino is a heritage-protected movie theater in Vienna's first district, located on the Ringstrasse between Palais Coburg and Stadtpark. It has a single large auditorium with 736 seats, making it one of the few remaining single-screen cinemas of this size in the country.

The cinema opened on 19 October 1919 in the exhibition hall of the Imperial Austrian Horticultural Society, whose name it carries, with 639 seats and the film Columbus Discovers America. The old building was demolished in the redevelopment of the Gartenbaugründe, and architect Robert Kotas designed the new cinema, reopened on 19 December 1960 with Spartacus and Kirk Douglas present. It was Austria's first cinema equipped for 70 mm films and later the only one with a Cinerama screen.

Every autumn, the Viennale Film Festival takes over the Gartenbaukino as its main venue, drawing film lovers from around the world to its single grand hall. The red curtain, curved ceiling, and rows of seats arranged in a gentle slope give screenings a formal, almost theatrical feel that sets the place apart from ordinary cinemas.

The cinema is in the center of Vienna, right on the Ringstrasse, and easy to reach by subway or tram. Booking tickets in advance is a good idea, especially during the Viennale in autumn when demand runs high.

When the cinema was renovated in 2021, the team chose to keep the 1960s look of the auditorium, including the curved ceiling and the original curtain system. This means visitors today sit in a space that feels almost unchanged from when it reopened decades ago.