Vienna: KHM … Mostly the Ceilings

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien [Vienna Museum of Art History] is one of the world’s foremost fine arts museum. One that everyone said was not-to-be-missed. One that we were told would take at least a day to explore … and even then, would leave us wondering what we might have missed.

So, we set today aside for this museum … the perfect cap to our time in Vienna.

We arrived at KHM just before it opened at 10:00a. There was a long line of people buying tickets. But we were able to bypass it and go straight inside since we had pre-purchased our admission before we left home.

The KHM was built for one purpose — to exhibit under one roof the imperial art collections of the Habsburgs, which Emperor Franz Joseph I wanted to make accessible to the public. Together with its twin — the Naturhistorisches Museum — it is one of the grand buildings lining the Rinstraße.

Plans for building the museum began in 1857, but it wasn’t until 1871 that construction began. It took 20 years for the KHM to be completed … but, oh what a building it turned out to be … with a Renaissance Revival style sandstone façade lined with arched windows and decorated with statues and reliefs; an octagonal dome some 200 feet high; a grand rotunda with marble walls, columns, and floors; an oculus in the rotunda ceiling allowing a peek at the cupola; a staircase worthy of a palace leading up from the rotunda to the galleries; gold leaf and mural decorations on the ceilings of the halls and galleries; a balcony rimming the cupola for up close views of the highly decorated walls.

And then, of course, the particular treasures of the building … the art.

But this footprint is about the building … mostly the amazing ceilings we saw as we explored the exhibits.Read more