17.01.2025

How the Vienna Schönbrunn Group reinvests its income in the preservation of the imperial palaces

Building design

View of Schönbrunn Palace. Around 2.7 million people visit the baroque ensemble every year. Photo: © Schönbrunn Group Alexander Eugen Koller

The Vienna Schönbrunn Group shows that adventure and cultural tourism are of fundamental importance for the World Heritage Site. It reinvests its income in the preservation of the imperial palaces

It is the number one attraction in Vienna and one of the most visited cultural assets in Austria: Schönbrunn Palace. The palace and park are among the most impressive and best-preserved Baroque ensembles in the whole of Europe, and the magnificent sight makes you forget even Versailles. From an architecturally sophisticated hunting lodge to a summer residence and later the main residence of the imperial family, Schönbrunn is one of the most important imperial palaces alongside the Hofburg.

Schönbrunn Palace – UNESCO World Heritage Site

After the triumphant victories over the Ottoman Empire, star architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach created the high baroque estate. Empress Maria Theresa later had the magnificent building completely rebuilt and furnished with the finest rococo interiors. This gave Schönbrunn its present, world-famous appearance. The walls breathe European history: Mozart made music in the Hall of Mirrors as a six-year-old child prodigy, Napoleon once conferred in the Vieux-Laque Room and in 1918 Emperor Charles I signed his renunciation of government (the end of the monarchy) in the Blue Chinese Salon.

Today, the palace – which has been located in Vienna’s 13th district of Hietzing since 1892 – has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site for over twenty years due to its historical significance, unique layout and magnificent furnishings. “This great distinction brings with it an even greater responsibility,” says Klaus Panholzer. As Managing Director of the Schönbrunn Group, he is responsible for the stately home.

“Around 2.7 million people visit the more than 40 rooms of the representative and private apartments from Habsburg times every year, and on peak days there are sometimes even up to 10,000 visitors per day. In order to research the load limits, we began very early on to look into innovative concepts for visitor flow management in collaboration with the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), Austria’s largest non-university research institute for mobility issues. The flow of visitors must be managed in such a way that, on the one hand, mindfulness is ensured and, on the other, the visitor experience is very high. Intelligent visitor flow management will enable us to plan tours in an even more targeted way in future.”

“Schönbrunn Digital Experience”

The new digital strategy “Schönbrunn Digital Experience” supports these measures. A “one-stop store” on the internet will also provide access to the palace without waiting times in future. Additional content will also be incorporated into the digital platform: The palace’s showrooms in a Google Arts project can be experienced as a virtual tour, all the content of the audio guide tours is available for download in different language versions as audio or text files, and all the statues and monuments in Schönbrunn Palace Park have been captured as 3D models for documentation for future restoration work.

The guiding principle of all Schönbrunn Group activities is to preserve the historical substance as much as possible. The management pays attention to sensitive integration when developing cultural, tourist and leisure facilities. The Arrival Center Schönbrunn, which is currently under construction, will also facilitate access to the palace grounds in all ways, via public transport, bus and car, by bike and on foot. Equipped with a parking lot including a photovoltaic system and electric charging stations as well as an arrival building, it is intended to make the arrival of guests easier and more comfortable.

To this end, around 300 trees will soon line the approach to the castle entrance. “The great popularity of Schönbrunn Palace is also the economic basis for the necessary maintenance measures,” emphasizes Klaus Panholzer. “Schönbrunn Palace is owned by the Republic of Austria and has managed completely without state subsidies since it was spun off from the federal administration in 1992.” The entire operating company, which also runs the Imperial Apartments, the Sisi Museum and the Silver Collection in the Vienna Hofburg, the Imperial Furniture Collection – Vienna Furniture Museum and the Marchfeld castles of Hof and Niederweiden, achieved a record balance sheet in 2017 (the year marked the 300th anniversary of Maria Theresa’s birth).

Restoration and conservation work

“The income is mainly invested in the preservation and restoration of the buildings in order to secure this valuable heritage in the long term and sustainably,” explains Klaus Panholzer. In 2017, the Schönbrunn Group invested around 9.5 million euros in restoration and conservation work. The focus was on the reconstruction of the large cascade in Hof Palace and the restoration of the two Chinese Cabinets in Schönbrunn Palace, the rooms that Empress Maria Theresa used as a playroom and for secret meetings. “They had been inaccessible since 1993 for conservation reasons,” recalls Dr. Elfriede Iby, who heads and built up the Schönbrunn Group’s Research and Documentation department. “The first preparations for the restoration began in 2012 with an extensive research project in advance on the origin, material and history of the objects. Ostasia expert Dr. Jorinde Ebert supported us here. Over 250 porcelain vessels of Chinese, Japanese and European origin were thoroughly examined. The subsequent scientific preparatory work under the direction of Professor Gabriele Krist (Institute for Conservation and Restoration at the University of Applied Arts) then formed the basis for the decision to restore the important rooms in a way that was both flawless in terms of conservation and economically viable.”

“There must be time for research”

Art historian Elfriede Iby has been working for the Schönbrunn Group since 1994 and has been involved in many extensive restoration projects during this time. “A major logistical challenge – even with years of preparation – was to restore the Great Gallery, the centerpiece at the heart of the palace, without having to close the museum to visitors,” explains the expert. “Because that’s where all the tours come together. We found an excellent solution here and enclosed parts of the Great Gallery. The scaffolding was plated and covered with photomontages so that visitors always had a complete impression of the Great Gallery.” Large and very complex restorations also included the Chinese wallpaper in the Blue Salon of Schönbrunn Palace – carried out by the Vienna Institute for Paper Restoration – and the magnificent bed of Maria Theresa. “We have dedicated a publication in our scientific series to each of these renowned restoration projects,” says Elfriede Iby proudly: “There has to be time for research.”

Discover the Schönbrunn Group in the video:

02.01.2025

Icons of the 90s: the G+L in January 2022

Building design

In 2000: EXPO visitors look down from the steps onto the square at the eastern end of Dieter Kienast's Avenue of United Trees. — In 2000: EXPO visitors look down from the steps onto the square at the eastern end of the Avenue of United Trees by Dieter Kienast (J.-H. Janßen / wikimedia commons).

In January 2022, G+L focuses on the topic of icons of the 90s. Find out what you can expect in the magazine here.

Approaches, people, projects – G+L is dedicating the first issue of 2022 to the landscape architecture icons of the 1990s. With a view to today’s challenges in terms of building culture, we discuss the extent to which the ideas of Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, Berlin Mauerpark, Schouwburgplein & Co. are still relevant today, how the profession has developed since then, what we can learn from the approaches and ideas of that time – and what we definitely need to do differently today.

Yes, dear readers, indeed! We are starting the new year with the past. We begin 2022 with a look back – with a look back at an impressive decade that went down in the history books due to numerous events, but was also groundbreaking for the professions of landscape architecture and urban planning.

We have never done such an issue, such a comprehensive retrospective, in almost 132 years of G+L – at least as far as I know. And yes, we are cheeky enough to call the magazine “Icons of the 90s”. We have already received a lot of criticism for this from the profession. The term “icon” is difficult, people don’t like it. Landscape architecture is too modest to recognize its iconic masterpieces and masters. Understatement is so 2021, so let’s let it rip.

Dieter Kienast, Martha Schwartz, West 8, Peter Latz, Hans J. Loidl, Duisburg-Nord, Schouwburgplein, Mauerpark, EXPO 2000 – aren’t they really all landscape architecture icons? Shouldn’t they be celebrated as such? We think so. And above all, we can and should continue to learn from them. The exciting thing: The icons themselves do it too, so to speak, they learn and move on. For example, the Mauerpark, Schouwburgplein and the MVRDV pavilion on the EXPO 2000 site have been (or are still being) further developed in line with today’s requirements. But more about this on the following pages!

One thing is certain: around 30 years ago, our professions faced similar challenges to those we face today. Maybe it’s my millennial perspective, but I have the feeling that the spirit in planning was different in the 90s and that these challenges were tackled differently – more courageously and more loudly. Almost everyone I asked about this, who experienced the time first-hand, confirmed this impression. So what happened? And how can we turn it around?

Do you remember our New Year’s resolutions from last year? We wanted to be even louder and bolder with G+L and put our finger even more firmly in the right wounds. Good: I don’t have to remember any new resolutions for 2022. But did we actually succeed? What do you think?
Write to us, we’d be delighted.

You can find G+L 01/22 on the topic of landscape architecture icons of the 90s in our store.

Dieter Kienast is definitely an icon of the 90s. A few years ago, we published his ten theses on landscape architecture. They have lost none of their topicality.

03.11.2024

Event

Lecture by Anne Holtrop

Building design

Academy Series 2017 Anne Holtrop, Amsterdam/Muharraq 14 November, 7 pm Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, Historische Aula The Academy Series, organized by the Master’s course in Architecture and Art at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, aims to enrich the city’s architectural discourse with lectures by international and renowned architects. Next Speaker: Anne Holtrop “In my work I start with forms or […]

Academy series 2017
Anne Holtrop, Amsterdam/Muharraq
November 14, 7 pm
Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Historic Auditorium

The academy series, organized by the Master’s course in Architecture and Art at the Academy of Fine Arts, aims to enrich the city’s architectural discourse with lectures by international and renowned architects.

“In my work I start with forms or material gestures that often come from outside the realm of architecture, in the conviction that things can always be re-examined and reinterpreted, and could in turn also be seen as architecture. The way someone can see a butterfly or a lake in the ink blots of a Rorschach test. I try to look freely at material gestures and forms and let them perform as architecture. In this way, architecture emerges by imagining a next step to the precious steps that have been taken, in an attempt to let the work remain interpretable, in much the same way it originated.” – Anne Holtrop