Gloriette, Vienna

Gloriette is the monumental garden building before you, created in 1775 by architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg. It is the largest and best-known example of its kind, built as a memorial to a war understood as leading toward peace and as the garden’s principal visual focus. Look at the inscription on the front: it records that Maria Theresa and Joseph II ruled when the building was erected.

Its stone columns and other substantial elements were reused from an older gallery at Schloss Neugebäude. The sculptural decoration is by Johann Baptist Hagenauer. The building later held dining and breakfast rooms for Emperor Franz Joseph I; today, a café occupies that interior, while the roof carries a viewing platform over Vienna. Bomb damage during the Second World War was followed by restoration in 1947, and another restoration took place in 1995.