Rathaus, Vienna

Rathaus is Vienna’s city hall, the working seat of the mayor, the city council, and the city and state governments. Friedrich von Schmidt designed this Neo-Gothic building, which was constructed between 1872 and 1883. Its facade gives you a strong vertical rhythm: arcades at ground level, clustered towers, and a tall central tower rising above the roofline.

At the summit, the Rathausmann is a copper figure in armour, carrying a standard; the figure is about 3 m high, and the tower with its pedestal reaches about 103 m. In 1938, a temporary wooden balcony was built into the facade for a speech by Adolf Hitler; it was later replaced by a stone balcony, still known locally as the Hitlerbalkon. The building contains 1,575 rooms and 2,035 windows, with a usable area of 113,000 m².

Inside, the Festsaal stretches 71 m by 20 m and is among the largest historic halls on Vienna’s Ringstrasse. The Rathaus is not only an imposing civic building: its architecture also carries a difficult political history, visible in that balcony embedded in the facade.