Among the ninth district’s tiered cityscape lies a spot of green and a baroque garden palace that remains in the family of the original owner: the Prince of Liechtenstein.
- Palais dating back over 300 years
- In perfect condition and home to masterpieces of art
- Garden & park open to the public
- The insides only on a tour or during exhibitions
- Book a 2-hr historical walking tour* of Vienna
- See also:
Pristine and princely
(Just your average everyday entrance portal)
Vienna’s ninth district (Alsergrund) has managed to remain off the typical route taken by tourists, despite its closeness to the centre.
The area has gathered quite a cultural reputation of late. But whatever contemporary art you might find for sale, nothing probably compares to the paintings and sculptures within the Liechtenstein Gartenpalais.
Prince Johann Adam Andreas I von Liechtenstein intended the Gartenpalais as a country estate. Which it was…back when completed in the early 18th century. Vienna has long swallowed up the location, but the building remains a pristine bastion of baroque architecture.
However, even the magnificent rooms within have to play second fiddle to the interior décor. Needless to say, we’re not talking a lick of paint and some framed prints from Ikea.
(The south-facing façade; press photo © Palais Liechtenstein, Imobilien Wien)
The building itself, for example, features ceiling frescoes by Johann Michael Rottmayr (whose work you also find in Vienna’s Karlskirche) and Andrea Pozzo (who painted the ceiling of the nave of Rome’s Sant’Ignazio church).
Those ceilings also include embedded oil paintings by Marcantonio Franceschini and Antonio Bellucci.
And the palais houses selected masterpieces from the prestigious Liechtenstein Princely Collections.
Expect the kind of art you might find on the walls of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum. Think, for example, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Raphael. Not to mention the most expensive item of furniture ever sold: the Badminton Cabinet, originally delivered to the 3rd Duke of Beaufort in 1733.
Seeing inside the palais
(The Herkulessaal; press photo © Fotomanufaktur Grünwald)
So how do you get to view all this?
The Gartenpalais itself is not open to the public as such, with two notable exceptions: exhibitions and tours.
In recent years, the palais has hosted a temporary special art exhibition, drawing in part on works from the Princely Collections. In 2025, for example, we have A Marvellous Science: a three-room exhibition around baroque porcelain that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Rather kindly, entrance to this exhibition is free. Daily tours are also available of both the exhibition (with a weekly version in English) and the permanent art (in German with an English audio guide available for your smartphone).
At the time of writing, the palais also offers infrequent tours outside of the special exhibition period: the German-language (English audio guide) tour of the permanent exhibition and occasional special German-language themed tours.
See the website for tour details.
Gardens
(View of part of the gardens; press photo © Fotomanufaktur Grünwald)
A well-kept garden of the sculpted box hedges and flowerbeds variety and the small Liechtenstein park behind the palais are open to the public. They offer nice views across to the Gartenpalais, but also to Palais Alserbach at the other end.
Prince Johannes II of Liechtenstein had Palais Alserbach built back in the early 1870s to a design by Heinrich von Ferstel: the same name responsible, for example, for Palais Ferstel (home to the legendary Café Central).
Giant plane trees add some arboreal magnificence to the park complex, for example, and I spotted red squirrels on my last visit.
However, young Viennese parents (including me what feels like many decades ago) value the gardens for more practical reasons: it has a large city-run playground.
When you’ve two toddlers with you, baroque architecture and renaissance paintings slip down the priority list to nestle just below toilet facilities and a decent slide.
How to get to the Gartenpalais
The Garden Palace lies just outside the town centre. Reach it easily and quickly on the D tram: get off at Bauernfeldplatz or Seegasse. The D leaves from various stops in the centre, including Schottentor and Oper/Karlsplatz.
I’ve also walked across to the palace from Roßauer Lände station on the U4 line.
Address: Fürstengasse 1, 1090 Vienna