Heldenplatz
Tel. 01- 5252 4484
Open: 10am- 6pm Wed- Mon
Subway: Volkstheater, Herrengasse
The newest wing of Hofburg Palace complex, Neue Burg, was completed in 1913, just a year before the outbreak of World War I or the Great War. Just five years later Habsburg dynasty lost its throne. The monument on a horseback is dedicated to a famous general Eugene of Savoy 1663- 1736. The Neue Burg is part of the Vienna Hofburg and the monumental Kaiserforum, which Gottfried Semper and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer planned and built from 1869 for Emperor Franz Joseph.
The Emperor approved in 1881 the construction of
the "Hofburg wing against the imperial garden", as the New Castle
was officially called. After Hasenauer's death in 1894-97, his
students Bruno Gruber and Otto Hofer, 1897-99 the officials Emil von
Förster and Julian Niedzielski more or less haplessly directed the
construction until 1899 Friedrich Ohmann was appointed Hofburg
architect. Among other things, he was able to build the glasshouse
in the Burggarten.
The construction has become (also) very
expensive due to the local conditions. The foundations had to be dug
out to a depth of 25 meters, as the site was located on the loosened
area of the former city ditches and underground defenses. For
these foundations, the porous Leitha lime sandstone was taken from
winds on the lake. The particularly polluted parts of the supporting
stone facade are made of hard Wöllersdorfer stone. The pedestal
consists of the white limestone of Duna-Almás near Süttö west of
Esztergom in Hungary. The masonry veneer consists of chalk-karst
limestones from Marzana in Istria, from the island of Brač, Croatia.
Numerous metalwork and ironwork were created by Alexander Nehr.
After 1906 Emperor Franz Joseph had appointed his nephew and
heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este as the protector
of the castle, Ohmann was replaced by Ludwig Baumann, who continued
to build until 1923, but could not complete.