Vienna Technical Museum

The Technisches Museum Wien was founded in 1908 and opened in 1918 in a purpose-built hall near Schönbrunn, and its holdings run to some hundred and sixty thousand objects covering Austrian industry, transport, energy, mining and everyday technology. The heavy transport hall is the centre: steam locomotives including imperial saloon carriages, early motor cars, aircraft hanging from the roof, and the machinery of the industrial period at full size. A reconstructed coal mine runs under the building with tunnels, seams and equipment you walk through. Elsewhere are musical instruments, printing, computing, and a large section on energy and physics with working demonstrations, plus a children's area. The building itself, with its glass-roofed central hall, is part of the museum's period.

History

In 1908, for the 60th anniversary of Franz Joseph's accession, it was decided to found a Technical Museum for Industry and Trade, an idea Wilhelm Exner had urged since the World's Fair of 1873, paid for by industrialists and bankers; Otto Wagner won the design competition after the death of the first architect, Emil von Förster, in 1909, but Archduke Franz Ferdinand overruled it in favour of Hans Schneider's more conservative plan. Franz Joseph laid the foundation stone on 20 June 1909, the building was finished in 1913, the opening was delayed by the First World War until 1918, and by March 1919 it had welcomed its 100,000th visitor; it was nationalised in 1922, and after a renovation begun in July 1994 it reopened in 1999 (Wikipedia, Vienna Museum of Science and Technology).

The main sights

• A full-size transport hall - locomotives, imperial carriages, cars and hanging aircraft.
• A walk-through coal mine - reconstructed tunnels and seams under the building.
• Working demonstrations - the energy and physics section run with staff.
• A 1918 glass-roofed hall - the museum building as a period object itself.

When to go

All year; weekday afternoons outside school holidays are quietest. Half a day.

What to expect

School groups fill it on weekday mornings in term. It is large and tiring; pick sections. Some older displays are text-heavy in German with thinner English.

Nearby

Schönbrunn palace and gardens are a short walk; Penzing station is behind.

Key facts