Palais Schönburg, Baroque palace in Wieden district, Vienna, Austria.
Palais Schönburg is a Baroque palace in Vienna's Wieden district, constructed with a distinctive curved central section and curved front facade. The building houses multiple rooms, including a library and lounge on the ground floor, and is surrounded by private gardens.
Gundaker Thomas Starhemberg had Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt design a Baroque palace on land his family had owned since 1450 in the Wieden suburb; it was built from 1705 to 1706. In 1811 Joseph Nepomuk Count Keglevich de Buzin bought it and had Franz Jäger rebuild and enlarge it. Around 1841 the Schönburg-Hartenstein family acquired it and had the rooms except the library redesigned.
The palace has been rented out for events since July 2008, after a renovation from 2007 to 2008 restored the facade and roof and revived the surrounding park, funded partly by the Bundesdenkmalamt and the Wiener Altstadterhaltungsfonds. The name links two families: the Starhembergs, who owned the plot from 1450, and the Schönburg-Hartenstein, who bought it around 1841 and remodelled the rooms except the library.
The palace and its garden can be rented for events since July 2008; it is not a museum open to casual visitors. It stands at Rainergasse 11 in Wieden, behind a fence with white sphinx statues on the gate pillars and a black mailbox marked 11. The vestibule's former open arcades are now closed, with stair arms leading up to the ceremonial hall.
The vestibule, more than a third of the front, was originally open to the outside through three large round-arched gates separated by double pilasters; these have since been closed. Stair arms were built into it on both sides, leading up to the ceremonial hall. All stair treads, including those of two narrow spiral staircases, are cut from hard Kaiserstein from Kaisersteinbruch.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,095 contributors worldwide.