Mechanical Theatre Hellbrunn, Diorama at Hellbrunn Palace, Salzburg, Austria

The Mechanical Theatre Hellbrunn is a stone nativity scene set in a grotto, with 256 wooden figures arranged as a baroque town. Several three-storey buildings stand on stage, the town hall at the centre, surrounded by merchants, soldiers and guild workshops — bakers, shoemakers, butchers and tailors are recognisable by their signs. Builders finish a house while acrobats dance with a bear on the market square.

The Mechanical Theatre was built between 1750 and 1753 on the orders of Archbishop Andreas Jakob von Dietrich, who used it to entertain guests at his country residence in Hellbrunn. It is a stone nativity scene whose 256 wooden figures, driven by hydraulics, move their arms or legs or turn on round pedestals.

The figures depict craftspeople and workers going about their trades and daily routines from the 1700s. They show how different professions operated and what life looked like in that era.

Access to the theatre comes through Hellbrunn Palace, and the scenes can be viewed from multiple levels. It is best visited during daylight hours to see all the fine details of the small figures and their movements clearly.

The diorama operates entirely on water power, which moves the figures and even plays an organ with compositions by Mozart. This hydraulic system is over 270 years old and still works by the same principles as it did from the beginning.