How Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier ‘propelled the city into the 21st century’

For many years, Vienna had a reputation as an old-fashioned city, synonymous with Baroque buildings, apple strudel and the waltz. ‘A major moment of change came in 2001, however,’ says Bettina Leidl, director of Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier (MQ). ‘It was a change that propelled the city into the 21st century.’

Leidl is referring to the opening of the cultural hub she now manages, at the heart of Austria’s capital. It includes institutions such as the Leopold Museum (with a peerless collection of works by Austrian modernists such as Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt) and Kunsthalle Wien (a large exhibition house devoted to contemporary art).

MQ welcomes more than five million visitors each year, making it the third most popular attraction in Vienna, behind Schönbrunn Palace and Saint Stephen’s Cathedral.

Crucially, it is more than just the sum of its museums. MQ is a favoured spot for recreation in the round, with a mix of cafés, bars, restaurants and shops — even a mini-golf course and boules court.

‘There is a lot to celebrate this year, and a lot to look forward to,’ says Leidl, apropos of MQ’s programme of events to mark its 25th anniversary. Before considering that, however, it’s worth briefly looking back at the controversial build-up to the quarter’s launch.

The story of MQ starts in 1713, when Emperor Charles VI commissioned the architect Johann Fischer von Erlach to build a complex of court stables near his residence, the Hofburg palace. A century or so later, this was expanded to include a winter riding hall and a summer riding school for imperial use. At its peak, some 600 horses were kept there.

Following the fall of the Habsburgs in 1918, however, after Austria’s defeat in the First World War, the complex was renamed the Messepalast and adapted to host trade fairs. During the years of National Socialist rule, it also staged Nazi propaganda exhibitions.

The Messepalast was damaged by Allied bombing of Vienna in the Second World War, and poorly maintained in the decades thereafter.

This remained a prime piece of real estate, however, located across the street from the square housing both the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Naturhistorisches Museum (dedicated to art history and natural history respectively). By the 1980s, various suggestions were being made about the Messepalast’s future: these included converting it into a shopping mall or a luxury hotel.

The complex has co-owners — the federal government of Austria (75 per cent) and the city of Vienna (25 per cent) — and together they launched a competition, which received almost 100 architectural submissions. Eventually, a cultural cluster was decided upon, to be designed by the Austrian firm Ortner & Ortner.

Would-be tenants swiftly made themselves known. In some cases, such as the Leopold Museum (its holdings based on art once owned by the collectors Rudolf and Elisabeth Leopold), institutions were seeking their first home. In other cases, such as Kunsthalle Wien and mumok (a museum of modern and contemporary art, notable for its holdings of US Pop art on long-term loan from the Ludwig Foundation), institutions with an existing home were seeking a new one.

Several heritage bodies, citizens’ groups and media outlets strongly opposed the winning bid, however. Austria’s largest newspaper, Kronen Zeitung, described the proposed set of buildings as both a ‘monster’ and a ‘cancerous implant’.

‘There was the view in some parts that this was a radical contemporary development which wasn’t respectful enough of Vienna’s past,’ says Leidl. After seven years of disagreement, a compromise was reached. Broadly speaking, Ortner & Ortner would maintain more of the original buildings than first proposed, and ditch some of their planned additions.

The former included the Fischer von Erlach-designed façade that splendidly marks MQ’s front. Among the latter was a 220ft-high structure known as the ‘Reading Tower’, which was intended to be visible from afar, though never assigned a specific function.

Construction began in 1998, and was completed on time and on budget (€140 million) three years later. The result was a bold architectural mix of old and new, with the Leopold Museum (a seven-storey limestone cuboid) and mumok (a hulk of dark grey basalt) the most eye-catching new structures.

‘When MQ opened, nobody knew what to expect,’ says Leidl. ‘There was still great scepticism about whether anybody would visit. Thankfully, over the past quarter-century, it has become a beloved part of Vienna. No matter what your age or social status, whether you’re a local or a tourist — all are welcome.’

Many of the individual venues charge for admission, but access to the MQ complex is free. It has 10 different entrances, with a central open-air courtyard particularly popular as a hangout.

‘We like to think of ourselves as a “third place”,’ says Leidl. ‘That is, somewhere after one’s home, and after one’s work or school, which people consider their own.’

Among the highlights of this year’s anniversary programme are an extensive survey of art being made in Vienna today, at Kunsthalle Wien (until 26 October), and a large Gustave Courbet retrospective, at the Leopold Museum (until 21 June). An exhibition called Vision and Resistance — at the on-site exhibition space, MQ Freiraum — will explore the complex’s history and impact on Vienna. Also in the calendar is a free all-day art festival, to be held in the main courtyard on 2 July.

The MuseumsQuartier has 61 tenants. Though each one is responsible for its own offerings and schedule, meetings are regularly held with Leidl’s team to ensure integration with MQ’s wider plans.

Nine of the tenants are major cultural institutions: the likes of Kunsthalle Wien, the Leopold Museum, mumok, the Architekturzentrum Wien (architecture museum) and the Tanzquartier Wien (centre for contemporary dance).

There are 44 small or medium-sized cultural organisations, too — which range from publishing houses to video-game studios — in addition to eight studios for artists in residence.

‘In a sense, the MuseumsQuartier tells the story of Vienna itself in recent times,’ says Leidl. ‘Ideas for it began during the Cold War, when the city seemed on the edge of the Western world, located just miles from the Iron Curtain. Austria went on to join the European Union in 1995, and adopt the euro currency in 1999, and I think the opening and flourishing of MQ reflects the way that Vienna as a whole has become more international and modern.’ (Roughly a quarter of the complex’s visitors come from abroad.)

MQ is also credited with playing a key role in catalysing the contemporary art scene in Vienna. Nowadays, the city hosts festivals such as Curated by, and fairs such as Viennacontemporary, neither of which existed 25 years ago. There’s also a busy gallery sector, centred on streets just south-east of MQ: Schleifmühlgasse and Eschenbachgasse.

Even the Albertina museum, renowned for its historic collection of works on paper, opened a second Viennese space in 2020, dedicated to modern and contemporary art: Albertina Modern.

‘The appetite for new art is much greater now,’ says Leidl. She witnessed this transformation up close: before assuming her current role four years ago, she was managing director of Kunsthalle Wien from 1997 to 2012.

The art at MQ is not restricted to galleries: it is shown across the public spaces, too, often created by the artists in residence. Paintings can be seen on archways, and sculptures fill niches. Most prominent of all is the MQ Art Box, a large transparent container in the main courtyard which houses a succession of installations. Inside it currently (until 17 June) is Eva Seiler’s Spinsterhood, an ode to the silkworm.

Beyond art, MQ hosts open-air concerts and film screenings in summer, and a Christmas market in winter. Also popular is sitting down to read, eat or simply relax in one of the bright, quirkily shaped seats known as Enzis, which are placed throughout the complex. These have become symbols of MQ, and every couple of years the public are asked to decide what colour they should be painted. (An online vote at the start of 2026 saw 20,000 people opt for punch-cookie pink and soda-lemon yellow.)

Most MQ patrons don’t actually enter any of the institutions. Is there a risk of it becoming a hub of casual entertainment rather than culture? ‘We want an open and diverse place,’ says Leidl, ‘and the hope is, especially in the case of young people, that exposure to this environment will incline them towards visiting the museums in the future.’

The MuseumsQuartier occupies 22 acres, and as part of a sustainability programme, Leidl and her team are currently landscaping the courtyards with climate-resilient trees, shrubs and plants.

Looking ahead, the House of Austrian History museum will move in (from its current premises elsewhere in Vienna) at the start of the next decade. Further into the future, Leidl says she would love to see the pedestrianisation of the busy road that separates MQ from the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Naturhistorisches Museum.

‘In this age of social media, people tend to live in their own bubble,’ she says. ‘We don’t interact with each other face-to-face as previous generations did. And this, I think, is going to make public spaces like the MuseumsQuartier ever more important — where you’re encouraged to look away from your screen and enjoy experiences in the company of others.

‘MQ is a happy place, and our aim is to keep people smiling.’

For further information about the MuseumsQuartier and its 25th anniversary programme, visit mqw.at/en

Gustave Courbet: Realist and Rebel is at the Leopold Museum until 21 June 2026

Contemporary Art from Vienna is at Kunsthalle Wien until 26 October 2026

Terminal Piece is at mumok from 20 June 2026 to 7 February 2027

Vision and Resistance: How the MuseumsQuartier Changed Vienna is at MQ Freiraum from 30 June 2026 to 25 January 2027