Hofburg

Hofburg (also Hofburg , German Hofburg ) is the winter residence of the Austrian Habsburgs and the main seat of the imperial court in Vienna . In total there are 2600 halls and rooms. Some of the premises are used as the official residence of the President of Austria .

Hofburg layout is symmetrical

A medieval castle was probably built on this site long before the Habsburgs. According to documents it is known that already in 1279 the Austrian rulers lived in Hofburg. Medieval buildings located around the Renaissance Swiss courtyard include the Gothic chapel of the 15th century and the imperial treasury, in which the imperial Kleinoda of the Holy Roman Empire emperors are now exhibited.

Almost every emperor of the Habsburg dynasty continued to expand and rebuild the capital's residence. For this purpose, they bought neighboring buildings from the owners, demolished them, and then erected new buildings of the palace complex on the vacant plots. This is how the typical courtyard layout for Hofburg came about:

• under Ferdinand I , the Swiss Gate appeared;
• under Maximilian II - stables, later converted into an art gallery;
• under Rudolph II - the wing with the chambers of the Empress, later named Amalienburg ;
• under Leopold I - wine cellars and the Leopold wing with ceremonial halls for receptions;
• under Charles VI - the grandiose building of the Spanish Arena (where horses of the Lipician breed still live and perform) and the imperial library with magnificent sculptural decoration (architect Fischer von Erlach );
• under Maria Theresa - the court Burgtheater ;
• under Joseph II - Joseph-parade ground with an equestrian statue of the emperor.

After the demolition of the city walls of Vienna in the mid-19th century by Emperor Franz Joseph , it was decided to expand the Hofburg by building the pompous “New Castle” in the neo- empire style . These construction works dragged on until 1912 and were completed just before World War I. By that time, modernist architect A. Loos, in front of the magnificent Mikhailovsky wing, had built an office building devoid of any kind of ornamentation. This shocked the aged emperor to such an extent that he never again traveled to the city through this gate.

Because of the outbreak of the war, plans to arrange the colossal imperial forum in the Roman manner were never implemented, only Heldenplatz square was built. On March 15, 1938, Hitler proclaimed anschluss from the balcony of the New Castle.