Upper Belvedere Audio Guide

Upper Belvedere: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Oberes Belvedere

   Welcome to the Upper Belvedere, the palace that crowns the higher ground of one of the great Baroque ensembles in the world. You are just south of the Ring, on the edge of central Vienna. The name comes from Italian and means beautiful view, and as you stand here, you will understand why. The Upper Belvedere is one half of a pair. Together with the Lower Belvedere and the long gardens that tie them together, it forms a single complex that Prince Eugene of Savoy, successful general and passionate art connoisseur, had built as his summer residence by the architect Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt. In his day this spot still lay outside the gates of the city. Over the next few stops we will look at how this palace was meant to impress, at the painted rooms inside, and at the day in 1955 when it became the stage for a moment in Austrian history. Take a breath, look up at the façade, and let us begin.

2. 02

   A Prince, a Summer Residence and a Palace for Show

   Prince Eugene of Savoy lived from 1663 to 1736. He was a celebrated general, and he left a lasting mark not only on politics but also on the art and cultural history of Austria. Before the Belvedere, he had already had a city palace built from 1697 in the Himmelpfortgasse, within the walled city, by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. The Belvedere was something different: a garden palace in the open country. The two palaces had different jobs. The Lower Belvedere, completed in 1716, was where the prince actually lived. The Upper Belvedere, built in the early 1720s, was all about representation: a place to receive, to impress and to show what a man of his standing could create. Its name is simple. It is the Upper one because it sits on higher ground. The prince was also a famous patron and an avid collector, with a taste for sixteenth and seventeenth century Italian, Dutch and Flemish art. Keep that in mind as you look at the building, because it was designed to be seen, admired and talked about.

3. 03

   Hildebrandt's Architecture and the Gardens Below

   Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt gave the Upper Belvedere its famous silhouette. Its highlights inside are the grand staircase, the Marble Hall and the garden hall on the ground floor, known as the Sala terrena. An architectural historian has pointed out that, because of many later changes, the palace today looks like decorative scenery meant to be admired from a distance. Hildebrandt's original idea, reconstructed from old views and engravings, was more complex. A set of architectural views by Salomon Kleiner, made between 1731 and 1740, records how the ensemble looked in its early days. Now turn toward the gardens, because the palace was never meant to stand alone. A reflecting pool in front of it catches the façade, so the building appears twice. Large terraces with ponds link the Upper to the Lower Belvedere, and the garden includes a shell fountain, a cascade fountain and a pond. One part, the Kammergarten, was originally reserved for the master of the house and his closest associates. Walk the slope between the two palaces and you are following a design in which architecture, water and landscape work as one.

4. 04

   Painted Ceilings, a Gallery and a Treaty

   Step inside, and the palace becomes a painted world. On the ground floor, the Sala terrena has walls that are fully painted, with a ceiling picture called Apollo and Aurora, showing the victory of light over darkness. It is by Carlo Carlone, with the architectural painting by Gaetano Fanti. Fanti was also chosen by Prince Eugene for the illusionist architectural painting in the Marble Hall, and the Neapolitan master Francesco Solimena was commissioned to paint an altarpiece in the palace chapel and the ceiling in the Gold Cabinet. The building's role changed over time. From 1776 to 1891, the imperial picture gallery had its home here. And on 15 May 1955, in the Marble Hall of the Upper Belvedere, the Austrian State Treaty was signed. Since 1955 the palace has also been the seat of the Austrian Gallery Belvedere. Today the rooms present Austrian art from the Middle Ages to the present, in a sequence that runs from medieval and Renaissance works through the Baroque, Classicism and Biedermeier, into Vienna around 1900 and the modern avant-gardes. Around 400 works tell 800 years of art history.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   As you leave, turn around once more and look at the façade from the garden side. Notice how the reflecting pool doubles it, and how the building seems to grow out of the slope. This is exactly the effect that Prince Eugene's palace was designed to create. If you still have curiosity left, there is plenty to follow. Look at how the painted ceilings play with architecture, so that you cannot tell where the real stonework ends and the illusion begins. Follow the terraces down toward the Lower Belvedere and think about the difference between a palace made for display and one made for living. And if you are walking with younger travelers, the park has an augmented reality game in which you look for the animals that already lived here in Prince Eugene's lifetime. The Belvedere rewards a slow walk. Every angle seems to offer a new view, which is precisely what its name promises.