Narrenturm, Vienna

The Narrenturm is a five-storey circular building, created specifically to house psychiatric patients. Its ring-shaped plan and fortress-like appearance make it unmistakable within the former hospital grounds. Emperor Joseph II ordered and funded the project as part of a major reorganisation of Vienna’s healthcare system.

Construction took place from 1783 to 1784, and the building began receiving patients in 1784. It remained a public psychiatric institution until 1869. Look at the continuous outer wall and its narrow barred openings: this unusual form enclosed individual cells arranged around the ring.

Since 1971, the building has housed Vienna’s Pathologic-anatomical Collection, founded in 1796 by hospital director Johann Peter Frank. The collection became part of the Natural History Museum in 2012, and the tower now serves as its museum home. The building itself is especially striking because its original purpose and present use are so closely connected: a place created for psychiatric care now preserves medical specimens and the history of disease. The collection contains more than 50,000 objects, making the Narrenturm an extraordinary meeting point between medical history and architecture.