Vienna's Wien Museum reopens with free admission after major expansion

The Wien Museum on Karlsplatz in Vienna reopened on December 6, 2023, after a three-year renovation that doubled its exhibition space to 12,000 square meters. The expansion project, won by Austrian firm Certov, Winkler + Ruck in 2015 against international competitors including Zaha Hadid Architects and Foster + Partners, added two new levels of reinforced concrete and glass atop the original 1959 building by Oswald Haerdtl, raising its height from 16 to 25 meters. The museum now features new temporary exhibition spaces, workshops, a conference hall, a panoramic terrace overlooking Karlsplatz, and a ground-floor restaurant. The permanent collection, directed by Matti Bunzl since 2015, is organized into thirteen sections covering Vienna's history from its origins to the present, displaying 1,700 objects out of a collection of one million. Highlights include the world's largest collection of Gustav Klimt drawings, works by Egon Schiele (recently expanded through the Peschka family donation), and a 10-meter-long copper-covered wooden whale model named Poldi suspended above visitors. The museum has become Austria's first free-admission museum, aiming to make the city's history accessible to all.