A pavilion of glass and steel, light and transparent, Belvedere 21 is Vienna home for art of the present day, the contemporary wing of the great Belvedere museum. The building has a notable history of its own, designed by the architect Karl Schwanzer as the Austrian pavilion for the Brussels World Fair of 1958 and later dismantled and re-erected in Vienna, where its clean modernist lines still feel strikingly forward-looking. After serving for years as a museum of the twentieth century, the pavilion was renovated and reopened in 2011 as the 21er Haus, later renamed Belvedere 21, dedicated to Austrian art from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Its open, flexible halls suit large-scale installations, sculpture and changing exhibitions of living artists. The collections and programme explore the major movements and figures of post-war and contemporary Austrian art, set within an international context, and the museum also incorporates an artist studio, a sculpture garden and spaces for film, performance and events. The transparent architecture, flooding the interior with daylight and dissolving the boundary between inside and out, makes the building itself part of the experience, a rare surviving icon of mid-century Austrian modernism. Located near the Belvedere palaces and the main southern railway station, it forms a deliberate counterpart to the historic art of the Upper Belvedere, extending the institution reach from Klimt and Schiele to the artists of today. Its position a little outside the dense inner city gives it room and calm, and it is easily reached by tram or train for those seeking modern and contemporary art away from the baroque crowds. The museum opens through the week with a midweek closed day, and a combined ticket links it to the Belvedere palaces, so visitors can pair the contemporary pavilion with the baroque splendour and historic collections nearby. The pavilion journey, from a temporary national showcase in Brussels to a permanent home for art in Vienna, mirrors the way mid-century modernism itself travelled and settled into the cultural mainstream. Within its flexible, light-filled halls the museum stages exhibitions, performances, film screenings and talks, positioning itself as a place where contemporary art is not only displayed but actively debated, a lively complement to the historic treasures of the main Belvedere.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Arsenalstrasse 1, Vienna, Austria

Telephone: +43 1 795 57 0

Website: https://www.belvedere.at

Opening Date: 01/01/2011