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16-646: By the mid 19th century, the offices in the old Vienna town hall , dedicated by the Austrian duke Frederick the Fair in 1316 and rebuilt by the Baroque architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach around 1700, had become too small. When the lavish Ringstraße was laid out in the 1860s, a competition to build a new city hall was initiated, won by the German architect Friedrich Schmidt. Mayor Cajetan Felder urged for

32-605: Is arranged around seven inner-courtyards, more along Baroque lines. A total space of about 113,000 m (1,220,000 sq ft) is spread over three floors and two basements with 2,987 rooms. It is largely built with bricks decorated with limestone , mainly from the Leitha Mountains , and ashlar masonry. The City Hall also accommodates the historic 'Wiener Rathauskeller' restaurant. The traditional restaurant consists of several baroque halls, offering small traditional Viennese delicacies to grand gala buffets. Facing

48-475: Is now in the style of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach , although the official rooms are in the Baroque style and some Gothic elements are still recognisable. The entrance gate dates to 1700. The courtyard contains the 1741 Andromeda Fountain designed by Georg Raphael Donner , whilst behind the courtyard is the 14th century Gothic Sankt Salvator church. The council chamber was redesigned between 1851 and 1853 by

64-505: The Grinzinger Keller. There were extensive renovations performed in 1925, 1952, and 2005, where historical murals and woodwork were fully refurbished. On September 27, 2012, renovation work started on what is expected to be a 35 million euro project to renovate the building by the year 2023 when the work – expected to take place in 11 stages and affecting 40,000 m – will be complete. Recently finished renovations (2000) include

80-597: The People's Security Committee, as memorialised by a plaque on the building. Since 1871 Sankt Salvator has been in the care of the Old Catholic Church of Austria , which was founded by those rejecting the doctrine of papal infallibility , though that new religious community was only recognised by the Austrian state in 1877. The Altes Rathaus last housed a meeting of Vienna's city council on 20 June 1885, with

96-740: The Viennese architect Ferdinand Fellner the Elder . Frederick the Fair donated the original building on the site to the city council in 1316 and has been owned by the city ever since. It was the site of the execution of Franz III. Nádasdy on 30 April 1671 in the wake of the Magnate conspiracy . In 1706, the Wiener Stadtbank was established and started operations in the city hall building, and remained there until 1754. On 26 May 1848, during Vienna's March Revolution , it housed meetings of

112-418: The city hall is the large Rathauspark . The Vienna City Hall has the following structure from top to bottom: Atop the steeple of the 98-meter high tower, stands the 3.4-meter tall Rathausmann ; an iron standard bearer. It was designed by Alexander Nehr, and donated by master locksmith and factory owner Ludwig Wilhelm. The statue was attached to the spire on 21 October 1932. The ballroom can be found on

128-943: The first at the Neue Rathaus three days later. The Altes Rathaus now houses the municipal offices for the 1st and 8th districts of the city, the inner city's local history museum ( Bezirksmuseum Innere Stadt ) and the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance . In 1893, it was the site of the founding of the Allgemeiner Österreichischer Frauenverein . 48°12′43″N 16°22′15″E  /  48.21194°N 16.37083°E  / 48.21194; 16.37083 Baroque Revival architecture The Baroque Revival , also known as Neo-Baroque (or Second Empire architecture in France and Wilhelminism in Germany),

144-403: The first floor at the front of the hall, with views of the ring road, Burgtheater , and inner city. The first floor ballroom is 71 m (233 ft) long and spans a width of 20 m (66 ft). The ballroom runs adjacent to the banqueting hall, also adjoining with the north buffet and armorial hall. The Municipal Council Meeting Room and Municipal Senate Meeting Room are both also part of

160-494: The first floor. There are numerous entry points into the Vienna City Hall via the ground floor. There are entrances to the north, south, and west. The Volkshalle, or "People's Hall", is located on the ground floor, right below the first floor ballroom. The Volkshalle is used nowadays to host events. Additionally, since 1927, the town hall guard, a special unit of the Viennese professional fire brigade, has resided in

176-488: The grand re-opening of the neo-Baroque Salon Ziehrer and the redesigned Lanner-Lehar Hall with wall and ceiling murals by German Trompe-l'œil artist Rainer Maria Latzke . 48°12′39″N 16°21′25″E  /  48.21083°N 16.35694°E  / 48.21083; 16.35694 Altes Rathaus, Vienna The Alte Rathaus ( Old Council House ) is a building in central Vienna , located at Wipplingerstraße 8, 1st District . After several rebuildings, its exterior

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192-590: The ground floor of the town hall for security. Their duties include standard fire response duties and disaster control. The first basement, also called the Vienna City Hall cellar , was first opened on 12 February 1899. The artistic design was overseen by Josef Urban, and the historical murals by Heinrich Lefler. The first basement contains numerous rooms including the Knights' Hall, the Green Hall, and

208-822: The location on the boulevard where simultaneously numerous representative buildings were erected, such as the Vienna State Opera , the Austrian Parliament Building , the main building of the Vienna University , or the Burgtheater . Construction costs amounted to a total of about 14 million  florins , borne by both the City of Vienna and the Imperial-Royal ( k.k. ) government after lengthy debate. The design of

224-550: The richly adorned facade is modelled on the Gothic architecture of Flemish and Brabant secular buildings like Brussels' Town Hall . It features five towers including the central tower with a height of 98 m (322 ft). On 21 October 1882, the Rathausmann statue was installed on the top, which soon became one of the symbols of Vienna. The structure itself, spread over an area of 19,592 m (210,890 sq ft),

240-635: The second half of the 19th century, and are integral to the Beaux-Arts architecture it engendered both in France and abroad. An ebullient sense of European imperialism encouraged an official architecture to reflect it in Britain and France , and in Germany and Italy the Baroque Revival expressed pride in the new power of the unified state. There are also number of post-modern buildings with

256-462: Was an architectural style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term is used to describe architecture and architectural sculptures which display important aspects of Baroque style, but are not of the original Baroque period. Elements of the Baroque architectural tradition were an essential part of the curriculum of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the pre-eminent school of architecture in

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