The Ringstraße Boulevard in Vienna
A part of the Wiener Ringstrasse ©roger4336/Flick
Vienna has many beautiful tourist attractions, and many of them are located on the famous circular boulevard in Vienna.
The Wiener Ringstraße Boulevard has a length of 5.3 km.
It is long enough to have numerous monumental buildings raised in the era of Historicism, between the year 1860 and 1890.
The buildings on this boulevard including for example the State Opera and the Museum of Art are among the most important sights of Vienna
“It is my will …” – With these words Emperor Franz Joseph gave orders in 1857 to build the representative Ringstraße Boulevard in Vienna. Nobles and princes competed with each other raising gorgeous palaces along the luxurious avenue.
The Ringstrasse in Vienna around the year 1900 ©roger4336/Flick
The Ringstraße style
Many of these former private buildings can still be seen today, but often only from the outside. The style of how these buildings were made entered in history as the “Ringstraße” style, which is a manifestation of Historicism. Pluralism is an important characteristic of the style and there have been imitated numerous architectural forms from the bygone eras.
The opening of the Wiener Ringstraße
Emperor Franz Joseph officiated the opening of the Viennese Ringstraße Boulevard on the 1st of May 1865. In 2015 we will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of the famous Prachtboulevard.
A part of the Wiener Ringstrasse ©roger4336/Flick
The most important buildings on the Ringstrasse Boulevard in Vienna
However the most remarkable buildingsof the Wiener Ringstraße Boulevard are not the palaces, but some monumental buildings such as the Staatsoper State Opera built in Neo-Renaissance style, the Parliament Building, the Rathaus that is a Flemish Gothic style the Town Hall, the Burgtheater in Neo-Baroque style, the University in Neo-Renaissance style, the Museum for Applied Arts (Museum für Angewandte Kunst), the Viennese Stock Exchange and the Votive Church in Gothic style. All these were built in the second half of the 19th century. The Museum of Art History (Kunsthistorische Museum) and the Museum of Natural History (Naturhistorische Museum) are also remarkable and both were built in Neo-Renaissance style. These buildings are not only the houses of priceless treasures of art and nature, but they themselves are some architectural masterpieces.
The Museum of Natural History in Vienna ©korom/Flick
The architects of the Wiener Ringstrasse
The architectural appearance of the Ringstrasse Boulevard in Vienna was marked by great masters as Theophil von Hansen, Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer, Gottfried Semper, Heinrich von Ferstel or Friedrich von Schmidt. The era of the Ringstraße architectural style was followed in the late 19th century by the Wiener Jugendstil that clearly distanced of the manifestation of sumptuousness.
