You’d think a 16th-century stable might quickly reach the end of its working life. Not if you’re the Stallburg, a large Renaissance stable complex still providing a home for the Lipizzaner horses of the Spanish Riding School.
- Constructed in the 1560s
- Continuously in use as stables since then
- Has also included noble apartments
- …and an Imperial art gallery
- Not normally open to the public
- Can be seen from the road (or on a tour)
- Book a guided stable tour*
- See also:
Horses, art, and more
(The view from Michaelerplatz square)
Put the word imperial in front of even the most banal-sounding building, and the location immediately becomes rather more impressive than you might otherwise expect.
Like with the Stallburg: ostensibly a set of “old stables” right in the very centre of Vienna.
Ah, but notably imperial stables.
The Stallburg remains one of Vienna’s few surviving Renaissance buildings: a 16th-century bastion sandwiched between Baroque and Rococo townhouses and the Hofburg palace complex.
The building appeared in the 1560s as a four-sided arcade design surrounding a courtyard, though the land had already been in use in Roman times (and possibly earlier).
(The inner courtyard)
The ground floor housed the personal horses of the court and subsequently the Lipizzaners of the Spanish Riding School. But the Stallburg seems always to have enjoyed a multipurpose role.
Habsburg family members or honoured guests sometimes found refuge in upper level apartments.
A diary entry in the Wiener Zeitung newspaper of March 4th, 1722 noted that the Count von Collowart had arrived from Prague and taken lodgings in the Stallburg.
Most remarkably, the Stallburg long housed part of the imperial art collections. It all began with Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (1614-1662), who accumulated an extraordinary selection of paintings while governor of the Netherlands.
The Stallburg provided appropriate storage space and soon became a formal gallery for the display of these works plus, within a few decades, the collections of other Habsburg rulers. It retained this function until the late 18th century.
Many of the works that used to live above the horses now hang in the picture galleries of the Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Today’s Stallburg still fulfills its original purpose, with the Lipizzaners still resident. The building remains more or less as it was back in Renaissance times, albeit after extensive reconstruction following WWII damage (a sentence you sadly see all-too-often in Vienna).
The building also serves more prosaic functions than in the days of art and aristocrats.
(Jack Ryan walks down here, with the stables on the left in the background)
Last time I checked, for example, the Foreign Policy and United Nations Association of Austria and the Austrian Federation of University Women had office space inside.
You might also recognise the Stallburg from one or two screen appearances.
The building appears in the beginning of the final chase scene in the movie The Third Man, for example. And the rear of the stables also gets a brief cameo in Season 3 of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on Amazon.
How to see inside the Stallburg
The Stallburg isn’t open to the public per se. But you have options for looking inside.
(Spotted on a press tour. Photo used with the kind permission of the SRS)
- A guided tour*: both the Spanish Riding School’s frequent Guided Tour and the rarer Architectural Tour take you into the courtyard, around the insides of the stables, and up close to the horses
- The Stallburg advent market: I’m unsure whether the event will ever repeat, but this small (and remarkably tasteful) Christmas market allowed you to wander around the courtyard and get relatively close to the stable doors
One side of that same courtyard faces an old vaulted public passageway (see photo below) that runs between the stables and the road outside. So you can, at least, see into the courtyard from the walkway.
With a bit of luck, a stallion or two might poke their heads out of the doors or even find themselves in transfer across the road to the riding hall. (Find more tips on stallion spotting here.)
(The vaulted walkway outside the stables)
How to get to the Stallburg
If you’re enjoying the delights of the old town, you will most certainly pass it on your travels. But follow the travel tips for Michaelerplatz or Josefsplatz and then just walk a few yards down the connecting street (Reitschulgasse) between those two squares to reach the stables.
Both squares have historical buildings to rival the Stallburg. For example, let yourself in for a true “wow2 moment of astonishment by entering the former court library on Josefsplatz.
Address: Reitschulgasse 2, 1010 Vienna