The Karlskirche is regarded as the most important baroque structure in Austria and is a Viennese landmark. Its architect, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656–1723), is the focus of the first special exhibition in the reopened Wien Museum. Almost 70 years after the last major exhibition of Fischer’s work, and with the help of Werner Feiersinger’s exhibition design, his extraordinary buildings and projects are reassessed and placed in a contemporary artistic context.

Fischer’s architectural oeuvre ranges from summer and city residences for the Viennese nobility, to church buildings for the Archbishop of Salzburg and the major imperial monuments of baroque Vienna. By eloquently referring to antiquity while being unmistakably modern, his buildings complied with the notion of noble representation, with its roots in tradition and history.