Stadtpark

The Stadtpark opened in 1862 on the old glacis outside the walls and was the first park the city laid out for public use rather than opening from a royal estate. It was designed in the English landscape manner, with the Wien river running through the middle - canalised in the 1900s, when Friedrich Ohmann and Josef Hackhofer rebuilt the river banks between 1903 and 1907 with the portal and pavilions, beside Otto Wagner's Stadtpark station. The park is full of monuments to composers and artists, the reason being that this was where the nineteenth-century city put them: Schubert, Bruckner, Lehár, Makart and, above all, the gilded bronze Johann Strauss the younger of 1921, playing his violin under a marble arch, which is the single most photographed statue in Vienna. The Kursalon holds tourist concerts of the Strauss repertoire.

History

Already in the Biedermeier years the glacis before the Caroline Gate was a popular place of entertainment, and when the city walls came down for the Ringstraße, Mayor Andreas Zelinka pushed for a public park here, designed in the English style by the landscape painter Josef Selleny and planned by the city gardener Rudolf Siebeck. It opened on 21 August 1862 as Vienna's first public park, the Kinderpark across the Wien river followed in 1863, joined by the Karolinenbrücke of 1857, and after the river was regulated Friedrich Ohmann and Josef Hackhofer rebuilt its banks between 1903 and 1907 with a portal, pavilions and stairs (Wikipedia, Stadtpark, Vienna).

What you'll find

• The gilded Strauss statue - the 1921 bronze under its marble arch.
• Vienna's first public park - opened 1862 on the old glacis.
• The river portal - Ohmann and Hackhofer's works from the Wien regulation, with Wagner's station beside them.
• Composer monuments - Schubert, Bruckner, Lehár and others through the grounds.

When to go

April to October for the planting; the park is open all year. An hour or two.

What to expect

The Strauss statue has a queue for photographs most of the day. Concerts advertised in the park are tourist programmes, not the Musikverein. The Wien river below is a concrete channel.

Nearby

The MAK, the Ring and the Konzerthaus are all a short walk.

Key facts